I recently completed another old track, originally from 2012, that you can hear below.
This is the second time recently (the other being ‘Sierra’) that I’ve found I’ve been able to complete a track that previously got completely stuck and was never finished. I think distance must be helping with some of this – I’m finding it much easier to judge what seems worth keeping and what doesn’t. Whereas at the time with this one I was obviously pushing too hard, and apparently throwing so many ideas at this track that I lost what was good about it in the first place, when I discovered it recently it was immediately obvious that there was a core that was worth keeping and expanding on. Also, despite having a long hiatus from making music, some of what I have learnt is obviously helping, despite what I’ve forgotten in the meantime maybe I have both more skills and more tools available to get past roadblocks than I did in the past. I definitely have more vsts… An example here is the more ambient end of the track which is entirely new.
There were also technical challenges with “Daybreak”, the initial stumbling block was that the lead synth is a sound from the Tassmann VST which I no longer even had on my harddrive. Fortunately AAS not only still exist, but had the installer available to download, and it worked, despite the track dating from 2012! Which, to be fair, is impressive. The second one was that the VST I used for the drums (EMU emulator X) is entirely incompatible with my current hardware. This is where I was grateful that my old (sometimes painfully slow) way of working frequently involved mixing down tracks to save processing headroom so I had the drum track available and with the tools in cubase could split it into it’s individual sounds and make it into a playable kit again 🙂
I’m tempted to carry on looking in the archives for old stuff that might be worth finishing – partly because it’s fun, and I think there may be more there that needs to be heard, but, to be honest, partly because I’m both time-poor and lazy, and it’s definitely easier than making something entirely new.
That said, it’s also less satisfying. Working on these feels a bit like remixing an earlier version of Northcape, and it misses the challenge involved in making something entirely new. That’s why I’m happy and actually relieved that these tracks are not all I’ve done over the last year. Maybe making new tracks could even be essential for being able to successfully revive old ones. I’m still recovering things that I used to be able to do and have forgotten, and I need to keep pushing myself to learn new stuff as well. I’m happy with both ‘Darien’ and ‘Choreia’ and hopefully I can keep working at it even if I find something else deep on the hard drive that needs to be finished.
Tags: creativity, electronica, musicproduction, northcape
