Stuck with the first idea this time. I started with a drum loop and destroyed it until it sounded like a spacecraft losing parts. It's the first drums you hear. Little bit more sound-design-tells-the-story than the last track. Took me around 3 hours.
I definitely spent time on things that you can't feel, but overall this was a fairly focused session. I had a difficult time with the synth.
I didn't know better when I bought my Deepmind 12 eight years ago but it's really difficult to make the thing sound not cheap.
I wrote mostly in mono again and actually spend some time just going through the laptop speakers which felt awesome when I took it to the monitors.
Biggest takeaway: when I'm not paying attention my productions get really dense really fast. I want to tell a story with the fewest possible elements.
#kitchen-sink
#malicious
#108bpm
January 11, 2026
#2. 🐌 Butter
Less than ten hours this time but I scrapped 3 or 4 songs before this was done. It's clear already that Ableton isn't the problem, commiting to musical ideas is.
The drums are audio, sequenced by hand which seemed to work well because I was forced to hear what I wanted before just diving in.
Best moment was taking out sections of guitar and hearing the song get bigger.
Writing in mono really helped. I caught myself mixing too early a couple times. I didn't apply any fx to the guitar or bass until all the parts were in. Definitely the move.
I'm going to commit to my first idea next time even if it's absolute musical garbage.
Biggest takeaway: the point of this project isn't to express myself or even to make better music, but to develop new muscle memory for just finishing tracks.
#non-commital
#peaceful
#100bpm
January 4, 2026
#1. 🏗️ Bridge Got You Bent
Yikes. I have a long way to go before this project is sustainable. 😅 This little dance track took me upwards of 10 hours, many of which I don’t think actually contributed to the song in a meaningful way.
I spent a lot of time being indecisive, and sunk a lot of energy into details and B characters (like complex hat delays) before fully establishing the main elements.
In the end a lot of that detail work was cut because it either competed with, or wasn't in service of the overall indentity of the song.
Writing the next track on my laptop speakers in mono until It feels finished. Then monitors, then stereo.