I finish a lot. Although there are degrees of finished. There's having the song recorded where the track is basically complete. Then a version which is basically pollish (accents, fills, tweaks here and there, putting stems through various hardware to make it harmonically more interesting, etc). Then final mix down version. And then mastered.
I have several albums worth of the first stage, doing the pollishing is my weakest stage, the rest is easy.
The hardware actually makes it easier for me to finish tracks because I can usually jam out a whole track on the modular and do a lot of modulation manually or with CV that I would normally find tedious in-the-box. I will sometimes jam out for an hour or so and then find interesting sections to lay out. It's remarkably creative.
Modular is especially good for programmers I think, it's a very systematic way of thinking and it's quite easy to lose yourself in the process of what-if. As soon as something starts sounding repetetive it's trivial to patch in something that modulates it away. Creating self generating patches is especially rewarding, where the system is self modulating and creating controlled randomness.
The sound design aspect of it is fun for its own sake. So, I don't always fire it up just to make music. It will often lead onto me making a track, but it's just fun to see what happens.
For what it's worth I have a few bits (in various stages of completeness) on soundcloud [1]
I'm listening to "Fusion" right now. The drum sounds are fantastic. Nice and tight and punchy. The swing on the hi hat adds a lot too. What are those coming out of?
I don't exactly remember. When I made it, I made four tracks in the same evening. Fusion, Fused, Refuse, and Infusion were all done when I'd just got my new SSL Fusion - and I was putting everything through it to test it out, so it's a bit of a blur what I did!
I have several albums worth of the first stage, doing the pollishing is my weakest stage, the rest is easy.
The hardware actually makes it easier for me to finish tracks because I can usually jam out a whole track on the modular and do a lot of modulation manually or with CV that I would normally find tedious in-the-box. I will sometimes jam out for an hour or so and then find interesting sections to lay out. It's remarkably creative.
Modular is especially good for programmers I think, it's a very systematic way of thinking and it's quite easy to lose yourself in the process of what-if. As soon as something starts sounding repetetive it's trivial to patch in something that modulates it away. Creating self generating patches is especially rewarding, where the system is self modulating and creating controlled randomness.
The sound design aspect of it is fun for its own sake. So, I don't always fire it up just to make music. It will often lead onto me making a track, but it's just fun to see what happens.
For what it's worth I have a few bits (in various stages of completeness) on soundcloud [1]
[1] https://soundcloud.com/paullouth