Weeklybeats is a 52 week long music project in which artists compose and publicly release 1 song a week for the entire year.
Starting January 1st 2024 GMT each participant will have one week to upload one finished composition. Any style of music or selection of instruments are welcomed and encouraged.
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I mean, now that we're almost halfway there? I'd be curious to know how people manage - a little bit each day, or all at once?
I'll confess I hardly make any music until about Friday or Saturday. Then I usually pull a late night, with about 3 hours from start to finish.
How 'bout you?
It varies, but often times lately it's ended up being a few hours on Saturday or Sunday, usually super early in the morning with my iPad and headphones on... I need to get back to using my full setup to make tracks, as I've been ridiculously dependent on Korg Gadget for my WeeklyBeats lately, and I have a pretty awesome collection of stuff to use in my full blown studio area that isn't being used. Life and all that stuff keep getting in the way.
When I'm not forced to half-ass it because of other schedule issues, I tend to spend Tue/Wed/Thur just thinking about what I might feel like working on for the week. Often that means thinking about what instruments and mood fit my current mentality (loops/rhythm, piano/synth, Samplr, distortion?).
By Friday I like to have recorded all my sounds and casually played around with how to arrange them. After that I let the sounds bounce around in my head some more and spend a few hours on Saturday and Sunday arranging everything and adding final touches.
I prefer to spend almost as much time away from the sounds as I spend working with them, as a way to keep it fresh and give my brain a chance to think of what we can do differently. All-in-all, I tend to spend about 10 hours over the week actually working with instruments and the computer. That ranges widely by week of course.
Mon - wed is generally put down chord progression and drum tracks and work and refine. Once drums are locked in then record other instruments.
Sunday I put aside 1 or 2 hours and record vocal melodies then go back and add lyrics.
Depends on what I am doing and how much time I have. Lately I've been putting in about 10-40 minutes start to finish (after conceiving of the idea itself). But other times I've spent probably 10-15 hours, or more.
Usually with colorful grey on this one - a few hours on a weekend night, after the kids go to bed. Sometimes an hour of that will be spent tracking instruments with the toddler. Occasionally I spend like an hour and a half programming and tracking just electronics.
Depends on the track--some of them with live instrumentation require several takes (Friday, Saturday nights, sometimes Thursday), while more electronic stuff is built up piecemeal in the evenings, and maybe tweaked this way or that way in a spare moment--bass drum here, oh, let's change that a bit, how about a variation there...and then by Sunday I'm trying to edit a 12-minute thing down to 5.
Start and finish my track Sunday morning master race
Interesting! Thanks for chiming in! I'm very impressed with the ways that some of you have found ways to work on this continously over the week. Chord progressions first... that's an idea. I'm struggling with making it work, but clearly the weekly beats have been good for that. It's the closest to a "band practice" that I had in a long time, so that's a good thing, and hearing from y'all every week is certainly very helpful. Thanks!
I typically spend about 3-6 hours on a track per day. Lately I've been pretty good with finishing tracks and that amount of time is enough to finish a track in 3-7 days, depending where I'm going with the track. The best feeling is starting a new track right after finishing a track. It's inspirational and urges me to finish whatever I like.
I usually start no less than 3 times in a week on my wb and i usually end up going with the one i start on sunday at sometime after like 1pm (after I wake up) and upload at just before the deadline at 5pm.
I usually start no less than 3 times in a week on my wb and i usually end up going with the one i start on sunday at sometime after like 1pm (after I wake up) and upload at just before the deadline at 5pm.
Me too.Although sometimes I'll spend the entire week (1-3 hours a day) working on a track and then sack it off at the last minute and knock something together on Sunday night with only a few hours to spare.
with being on holiday at the moment, my usual routine has gone out of the window. if i'm doing something with guitar; i have one or two ideas of guitar progressions/ tunings etc done on Monday morning. i will do a quick video on my mobile phone so i can recall what i'm doing. then i'll record the bulk of the guitar one evening in an hour block. everything else would usually be added on the sunday a few hours before the deadline.
if it's something purely electronic then it's normally done in one session on the weekend.
Not nearly enough as I want too/should.
Somtimes its me, having to fil a deadline.
I work on stems thoughout the week, LSDJ, constantly iterating, always fluctuating.
other times, like the ideal scenario,
This Week (An all nighter effort and just playing ... -- and feeling happy with the time spent
(other weeks, 'shotcut tracks'))
Last edited by Aday (August 31, 2014 10:08 pm)
recently 2-3hours, close to deadline. pressure and panic helps me to make decisions, first idea that pops up has to be nailed. if i have to much time i lose focus and enthusiasm. before WB i didn't know this scheme would work for me. despite i have to do some studio work, concerning changing the setup, feed the sampler , cleaning etc. "mise en place" so to tell. the recent setup is running out of possibilities, i get a lot of inspiration/help from the machines so i need to rearrange. winter is coming, this will probably change my working habits again. looking forward.
I spend most nights creating music unless I have rehearsals. A lot has been focused on modular synthesis this year for which I record most of my results. By the end of the week, I have a selection of material to choose from or to work with.
