Mod Archive Forums

Music Production => Tracking => Topic started by: sciboy1190 on May 05, 2007, 04:57:04

Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: sciboy1190 on May 05, 2007, 04:57:04
I'm curious...how much time do you spend on your modules?
Also: When and where do you track?

As for myself...
First I should point out that I usually track when I have a spare moment in a class with a working computer. This is most likely....
>third period - free period (10:24am)
>fourth period - computer/easy-to-be-called-a free period (10:24am)
>or seventh period - (after a test/quiz in) math  (1:42pm).

So the time spent varies alot...most common are: 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 1 hour, and 150 minutes....

And then I tend master my songs somewhere inbetween 5pm and 7pm, at home....panning and filters in particular....
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: Saga Musix on May 05, 2007, 12:57:50
When I'm composing, it often takes an hour or two per day, mostly after school. Optimizing the tunes takes another 2 hours (maybe :D), so I often spend many hours on one module.
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: Eagle on May 05, 2007, 21:15:53
The time it takes me to track a song is dependent of these factors:
- Finding samples and the right sound.
- Complexity of my ideas
- Inspiration
- Craziness

An average time spent in total for me is probably 2 hours for 3-4 minutes of music. When I track using MIDI or Pulse samples, it generally take around an hour as I can get a clear picture of how exactly my song is going to sound.

The complexity generally goes to how many channels I've decided on using. I usually don't use more than 16, and 16 is pretty extreme in my case (hahaha, I make single, three and four channel music all the time), but for more than 4 channels, I usually require around an hour more.

If I'm not really inspired and have no ideas of a full song, I end up fiddling for several hours trying to get my scattered ideas together. If I'm doing that, the song usually ends up like, well, crap... bad crap.

The fourth factor, "craziness", well, that just goes for how over-excited I am. The more crazy I am, the faster I get a song together. Of course, some people may say that crazy songs like "Pulse Nuts", which I recently made and sounds like I drank 10 red bulls and sat down at the keyboard, are mostly crap... but craziness is more fun. Meet New Friends anyone?

OK, that's enough shit from me. :) * Eagle goes back to fiddling with Pulse Tracker again. *
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: m0d on May 15, 2007, 15:00:36
When composing my AHX tracks, I spent at most about 2 hours on them from start to finish, some even less - It was one of those periods of being on a roll :yes:

When im composing in my studio, my greatest pieces (imo) have been composed in less than a week. The longer it takes the less inspiration I get, so I tend to finish them off quickly (have a listen via the links in my sig) :D
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: Ceekayed on May 19, 2007, 20:15:25
Depends.. if I'm really inspirated, I can do 6-7 minutes of polished music in 4~5 hours (during a one tracking session). Then an hour or two of polishing after a couple days to get a fresh point of view to the song, and one or two more hours for exporting, mixing and mastering. So completing a song takes from 8 to 12 hours for me.

If I'm not that inspirated, which usually is the case if I'm composing on demand, completing a 4-5 minute song takes few days, few hours a day.

Early mornings, and nights are the only times when I can actually compose. It has got something to do with being tired I guess.

And about that complexity factor Eagle mentioned; for me it doesn't really matter, because I always end up using way over 32 physical channels anyway. In fact it'd take alot more time for me if I tried to make something simple.
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: zovik on May 20, 2007, 05:12:14
For me tracking is a way to unwind, so I try to start and finish in one sitting- usually less than 2 hours. If I don't `finish' before I run out of time or get bored, the file gets a number and goes into a huge crap folder. If I do, it gets a title. If I REALLY like it, it gets uploaded to TMA or modland.
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: jobro on June 15, 2007, 03:16:12
For me it is the other way around, I sit 30 minutes at the time concentrating on one pattern at the time, then a 15 minute break so I can concentrate. Getting some fresh air, maybe some water. Then I'm back for another 30 minutes. This cycle goes 4-6 times per day.
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: mqa on June 15, 2007, 07:45:56
....am I the only one who takes more than a day to finish a decent track? From what I've noticed, you all are machines who write awesome tracks in a few minutes...
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: Saga Musix on June 15, 2007, 13:16:43
nah.
my writing time increased from one hour to one month and more...
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: Eagle on June 15, 2007, 22:51:22
Since a while ago, I've found myself taking a lot more time when I compose. The stuff I make in two hours just won't do anymore, I've gotten more perfectionistic and spend hours and hours extra on what I thought was a finished tune adding more, removing some, tweaking this and that.

In fact, I've been working on this same tune for 3 weeks now, and I'm still not done. It's currently 6 minutes long, has around 40 patterns and lots of effects. Yet, I don't feel I'm close to done with it. Maybe this marks a new era for me when I actually release quality stuff (well, as quality as my tunes will ever mean...).

Let's hope. Root for me. :)
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: the Deviant on June 16, 2007, 09:56:27
Since I can pretty much only track in my lunch hour these days... it takes a long while to get anything done...  
real life sux, I had so much free time as a student and squandered it shamelessly :cross:  :razz:
Title: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: Zero Prophet on June 16, 2007, 22:00:49
Ah, it seems that I've fallen into the more "rare" category, for I take *far* too long to finish anything. "Tribute to Xerxes" took me weeks of tweaking until I finally got it right and even simpler things such as "Elements" take a few days at least. I've noticed a bit of a lack of inspiration lately, however. Maybe one of these days the problem will solve itself...
Title: Re: Time Spent on Modules
Post by: zenon on September 28, 2010, 16:58:46
Whatever xm I do, I take almost more than one month to finish it +_+