Spanish Guitar - Best Hits Vol.2 - Part 1

This will be the 100th track in my playlist of originals - I've got 124 files in my "Final Bounces" folder, but some of those are stems or alternate mixes, etc. - so I'm going to consider this my 100th finished original track, which is a cool milestone. I don't remember who said this (maybe Jauz?), but I remember some successful producer say something to the effect of "Don't worry, because the first 100 or so songs you make are going to suck."

This project file was created 4 years ago, which kind of blows my mind. I felt a little depressed and a little frustrated when I realized how old the project file was - and, to be honest, when I realized this was my 100th track. I started playing with Ableton 12 years ago, and sometimes I feel like I just haven't made much progress.

I've been turning all of this over in my head the past couple weeks, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that this project - the project of learning to produce music - feels like a microcosm of my lifelong struggle with perfectionism. Which I guess might not be that surprising or profound, but it certainly feels meaningful to me.

I've only finished 100 songs in 12 years - 8 songs a year, give or take - because I'm afraid to ever call anything finished, worried that if I upload it now, I'll regret it later or be embarrassed of it. This isn't a new revelation; I've been aware of my tendency towards perfectionism for most of life, but awareness hasn't saved me from it.

This 100-song milestone feels like a bit of a turning point though:

First of all, it's one of my favorite tracks I've ever written, and I'm so excited to finally call it finished.

Second, as I was getting ready to post this track, I had the instinct to play it on just ONE more set of speakers and make just ONE more batch of mixing tweaks - but I didn't. I've listened to this render a couples times already, and I like how it sounds, and now I'm uploading it. Done. Here's to finishing lots more songs.

(Side note: This track has been named "Demons" forever - I was going to change it to something about "secret weapons" to reference the vocal, but after writing this, I decided that Demons is a more fitting title).

D3MONS

fell into the endless cycle of tweaking the mix and composition a bit on this one, but managed to tear myself away. It's always a little hard because sometimes the changes are really good - like changing the sub bass to follow the bass plucks in this track - and sometimes they're pointless - like the second compressor that I A/B for 30 minutes before realizing it literally did not make a difference at all.

i wish i had a sixth sense to know when a track has reached like, its platonic ideal...but all i can do is eventually cut myself off and upload the damn thing. 🤷‍♂️

anyway, this song has a couple samples from Breath of the Wild in it and a little 80s drum groove that i really like.

It's All Just Binary

HyperfocusBand

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