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What is best when making music: finished or perfect?
Question sprung out of one of the comments of below video: ”Finished is better than perfect because perfect is never finished”….
https://youtube.com/shorts/MCeAKFhUpWo?si=7AC9D5C-lTxwWRwc
I’d say go for finished and get better with bulk practice, what are your thoughts?
/DMfan🇸🇪
Comments
Imo if the sound doesn't meet your own expectation or taste, continue tinkering until it does.
Finishing stuff for the sake of it can't be the answer for me. Perfectionsim is more of a blessing than a curse for artists imo, it's certainly a hinderance for designers or business when you're serving others. Art isn't business but the opposite though, self expression.
i now believe it doesn't matter if you finish or not. The key is to create as often as you can.
Finished is better than perfect. Back in 2009, I spent 5 months on a song, trying to perfect it so I could get the mastered version as loud as possible (this was when I was still doing the "loudness wars" thing lol). Drove me damn near insane!
Perfection isn't key. Finished is better. Having fun is the best.
IMO, it’s more important to make your ideas real as quickly as possible and get something, anything really, recorded. I end up revisiting things I recorded 2 years ago or 20 years ago and suddenly have a new approach I think might be better.
If you like what you’re creating finished is definitely better. If not, then don’t be afraid to abandon and move on, or start over from scratch and pull in any parts you do like. Perfect is so relative. It really depends on what you consider “perfection”. Look up the taste talent gap. I think it’s why many artists will never achieve perfection.
I think this begets a separate question: what makes something good enough to share?
I’d agree with @Danny_Mammy , if there’s something else waiting to burst out then go for it. Perfection doesn’t exist as it’s completely subjective.
I also agree with @jerps about the ‘is it good enough to share’ question. Perhaps sharing is in between finished and perfection?
Finished is way better than perfect, from my perspective.
Most of the great music recorded over the last 60+ years is imperfect in one way or another. On a day to day basis, grinding to a halt in the pursuit of perfection is a sure fire creativity killer.
I’m also a fan of the idea that in order to be a good artist you have to allow yourself to make “bad” art, otherwise the good stuff won’t have an opportunity to get created. Interestingly, the more often you get into the creative flow, the more good stuff you’ll produce, as you’ll find when you review your finished pieces after a while (listening back to things after a break will help you listen with fresh ears, and decide if any imperfections are things you can live with, or if the piece will end up on the outtakes pile). And the only person who can decide what’s good or bad in your output is you, ultimately. You’re the only person that knows what you were trying to do.
I share unfinished stuff like 4 bar loops or screen recordings, but only if I'm happy with the sound. For me the sound design needs to be almost finished at that point. That's why I prefer quick DAWs or Grooveboxes like Drambo where I can easily (ruff) mix as I go and crank it up with a master chain.
Arranging and making tracks interesting over time (deconstructing and enhancing the 4 or 8 bar loop) is a different skill which is best practiced by marking up and analyzing other tracks, not by flying blind yourself imo.
Finished is usually good, I’ve heard plenty of basement tapes I love. I think songs tend to evolve a bit over time anyway when they get played live a lot
I'm still struggling with "started".
If something is worth doing then it’s worth doing properly.
‘Properly’ is relative. Make it as good as you can. The next one can always be a little bit better and get you closer to your goals.
I tend to keep listening to a ‘final’ mix and tweak it until I can’t find anything obvious I want to fix. That might be that there’s too much bass. Or a fill that lands a bit awkwardly. Minor, tweaky things.
The key for me is knowing when to get to the final tweak stage. I get it the song/tune itself to the stage that it’s good enough — relative to my other songs. If it’s clearly not up to my normal standards I’ll probably just ditch it, maybe to revisit later.
I’m not gonna keep going until it’s as good as (insert favourite song here) as that will never happen. So I’m more than happy if something is good enough to be a b-side for one of my better songs.
I can live with not being a great songwriter. I have fun with what I make and am almost proud of some of my tunes.
It’s definitely more of a subjective problem, but I get way too obsessive if I end up tweaking and tweaking little things on the final mix and then start probably changing things that don’t need to be changed and then just get fatigued overall from the whole thing. I’m a spectrum child though so I’m sure I’m more of an outlier.
Perfect is boring.. finished is overrated.. it’s about the journey, not the destination..
I also totally agree with @Danny_Mammy.. finished or not, it’s far more important to capture the thing that’s inside you, as often as you can.. that’s the absolute funnest part.. building the thing from nothing.. coming up with the parts.. doing that with every idea that pops into your head.. capturing the excitement of that first take.. now that’s pure joy..
In progress. The chase is always better than the catch.
Good one!
😁
/ DMfan🇸🇪
I’m the kind of guy who keeps raising the bar for what i perfect.
That is why “finished “ get my vote 😁
finished.
perfection is boring AF.
stacking dozens of EQs correcting the output of each other, staring at spectrum analyzers for endless hours, choosing the right compressor of some 500 ones, and other stuff like that is definitely not the way i want to spend my precious life.
Even if you thought it was finished at the time, you listen a month after and you think, “oh I could have used that”. So I’m afraid it’s never finished.
Just curious, what platform do you use to share them? I have a ton of unfinished work like that. I’ve considered throwing it on YT but then I want some sort of video content for it too. SoundCloud & Bandcamp seem more about “finished”/“perfect”, maybe?
FWIW I go through the exact same thing… when I’m lucky enough to get to that tweaking stage, which is not often at all.
There is of course not a “correct” answer to this as it is a very subjective matter, but I really appreciate all of you chiming in with your thoughts. Thank you!
🙏
/DMfan🇸🇪
Sounds normal, happens to me too and every artist I know.
"Save as" helps before I make new changes, and after a week I often have multiple versions of the same thing. I found it helpful to get the sound of multiple versions to a "finished" stage and then let them rest for a couple of weeks before I listen to them again.
For me there more boring elements involved in "finishing" a track (like track automation, gain staging etc.) than creating main sections of a track.
Apart from showing to friends I sometimes share stuff into production subreddits, those are short Drambo screen recordings where I jam out 4 bar loops using solo and mute or using scenes. It's also cool way to promote iOS as a viable platform I think.
Somehow I can't upload directly anymore with my current browser setup which is why I'm now linking to Streamable, but they auto delete after 2 days without account which somehow defeats the purpose.