Estevan Carlos Benson
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Not to say it's a huge deal but it's a surprising requirement.  I would argue some styles of music lend themselves more to qualities of sounding less produced - lofi, folk, sound collage.  Although this really just seems to be an initiative that runs on the honor system, I sort of feel like I'm going to have to conceptually deal with my music differently in order to compensate for less production time.  In other words, maybe I will make some lo-fi pieces of music.

Just thought I'd bring up the subject.

Derris-Kharlan
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Melbourne, Australia

The rules do not state that a track has to be well produced - just that it has to be "complete".

"Complete" is a very subjective term. However I would probably suggest that it should be treated as you not having anything more you think should be added to/changed about the piece of music. There are many artists on here of varying skill and experiences - something that I might upload as complete might sound terrible compared to another's standards. The point is that you go though the entire composition process from conception to production to mastering in the span of one week (or you can even pick up on old ideas, as long as you "complete" them this week). If you've done that - you're sweet! Obviously this is not an easy rule to police, so you should consider it more of a personal challenge than a hard and fast rule.

I personally find that imposing a time limit helps me to make compositional/mixing decisions quickly and run with it rather than labouring over small segments/elements of a track for a long time. I feel that doing WB in 2012 helped me develop an strong intuition for what sounds good and drastically increased my production time. It's worth giving it a shot I think! You might surprise yourself.

infradead
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Tacoma WA

its very subjective.

an0va
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Saturn

oh man, i hope there's no production quality standard. my mixes are whaaaack

tiasu
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Melbourne, Australia

Haha, yeah but once you do a track a week for a year your mixes will be awesome by the end!

Mark
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Scotland

The term "Tracks should be complete" is 100% objective and impossible to monitor.

One mans complete track may be another mans rough palette.

For instance there are famous "tracks" one of which is over 4 minutes long and its complete silence.

Seems like a strange "rule" to me is all i am saying, better off spending your time worrying about other stuff like copyright.

Mark

UndeadAreGo
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Milwaukee, WI

Don't get hung up on semantics. You'll find events like these in all sorts of artistic field - 48-hour film challenges, game jams, or even comedy improv sessions. No one expects perfectionism. Rather, it's about fueling creativity and dedication.

For some, this will give them a huge library of ideas for inspiration later, like an illustrator's sketchbook. For people such as myself, this is a seriously needed kick in the pants to set aside perfectionism and actually finish something. Oh, and let's not forget fun.

Mark
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Scotland

fun fun fun +1

Estevan Carlos Benson
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Derris-Kharlan wrote:

The rules do not state that a track has to be well produced - just that it has to be "complete".

"Complete" is a very subjective term. However I would probably suggest that it should be treated as you not having anything more you think should be added to/changed about the piece of music.

I know it's a subjective term but I'm saying it should be discussed because it's probably a term they should remove from their "requirements" or description because A) People will ignore it - like me B) Some less certain musicians will be intimidated by it or C) It will have an unexpected influence on the _style_ of the music.

I think it's a matter that should be discussed because it's an interesting challenge in any artist's career (Rhetorically speaking, what is a complete song to you?) but I don't think it should be included in the requirements for the reasons I list above.  I'm not suggesting I'm confused by it.  I'm suggesting it poses those other issues.

BOULDER D4SH
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Finland
an0va wrote:

oh man, i hope there's no production quality standard. my mixes are whaaaack

Nope. Go and listen some of 2012 stuff. There is lot stuff that sounds like it's done in one hour jam. Lot's of lofi stuff and distortion. My first track will be from another planet with zero distortion and actual melody tongue

infradead
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Tacoma WA

mine's not quite noise

little-scale
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adelaide

In your heart you will know that it is complete.

JoshNation
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Australia

probably more so you dont just get people uploading a loop they created

Brett Marchand
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USA

It should be easy enough, I think. The average amount of time I spend on my songs is an hour.

xyce
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Groningen, Holland

If you take the demoscene approach concerning finishing tracks you could well be done in under 45 seconds. Loop loop. Although making a decent arrangement sounds more fair to me, but I guess each his own.

colorful grey
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Schwerin I'm afraid

part of my goals for this weeklybeats thing is to write songs and not try to get them "perfect." i usually spend a long time on fine tuning. so my submission so far have really been different in that they are certainly not over-produced or overthought. i agree that having the weekly "pressure" is probably good for that (if you're into that kind of thing of course).

personally, i feel like there's usually a "core" that needs to be articulated for me to be happy with the product. that may sound like utter crap to others - like y'all said before, it's highly personal.