DAW's players:how important is it to polish sketches?

been in here for a year i think, i've noticed that the majority of the composers - me included - of game and film tend to pour out the idea, sketch (given the time limits we obviously have) and once the sketch is drawn, coloured as fast as possible we wait for starving for feedback and fold it to proceed for the next one.

from your experience did you learn more from investing as much as possible on a single piece, or just accumulating compositions and then maybe, one day go back to them and give the polish they deserve, or further development?(and of course you can say both-still!)

we always get better at something, especially after we do it, so when do we stop and say-this needs polish!! no more going down the road looking for ideas! this one stays for my portfolio!

nice topic !

I starting to use DAW's not long time ago , maybe around a month or two , from what ive done during that time . i noticed that when i compose a piece , when i reach a certain length or when i come up with something that i like , i tend to use a daw just to listen to that sketch , but lately ive been trying to finish the whole piece( composition) and then use a DAW but i tend to hurry up and finish mixing it as fast as i can to get feedback .

i think everyone of us using daw's should invest the time properly in both composing and mixing . because if you have a solid composition and you want to use it in a film , it wont sound nice unless its mixed in the right way .

Here's my take on the matter...

I've found that when I'm experimenting — so when I'm writing just for me and not for a specific project — then once it leaves Logic, I almost never go back to "polish" it. I've integrated the polishing into my workflow as much as possible and continue to strive for that. Having many pieces to show off the diversity of your skills is great, but if they're not also of good quality then you're only demonstrating a talent for producing a broad spectrum of mediocrity.

So my recommendation is to have patience and learn to work fast. Being able to produce top-notch work in a short amount of time is immensely valuable and will make you significantly more marketable to clients. Also keep in mind a client's musical imagination and time: if you have a great idea for a cue and it takes you a whole day to put together a sketch, they're going to listen and say "Okay, but it sounds kinda bad. Try a different approach." And you'll say "No no, it's actually good I just haven't gotten around to polishing it yet." Uh-huh.

You only get one chance to make a first impression with any given cue, so make it count.

Basically my philosophy is that I have to be thoroughly happy with a cue before I present it. I don't need to consider it my best work yet, nor do I measure it up against some preset standard, I judge each cue independently based on its context and so on. If I'm happy with it, THEN I consider delivering. That way, when I get commentary from a director, it's useful commentary — "Awesome vibe, but that marimba bugs me, can we lose that please?" Sure thing. "I think it's too intense for the emotions on-screen, can we tone it down?" We sure can. But gone are the superficial complaints.

In short then, I encourage you to put everything you have into everything you do. Especially if you're planning on presenting it. You won't learn unless you're pushing yourself on each thing you write. If you stop pushing and experimenting, then your talent plateaus and you won't get any better — you'll only be under the impression that you're getting better because people's opinions of your material will naturally vary wildly based on personal perspective, so even though you're writing the same crap over and over again, the variety of comments you get will lull you into a sense of progress that isn't actually there. Beware of this.

That's about all I've got off the top of my head. Good topic. :happy:

and you're 19 years old?????!!!!

great advices marius, i knew that behind every talent goes a good philosophy ;)

Yup, until July anyway! :P

Perhaps "philosophy" is a pretentious term, but I'm just using it to describe my outlook on the subject.

well modesty is becoming always, but your "approach" is very solid, at least for this competitive market we're all in.

I don't know exactly who said it, but I think it was some accomplished composer, he said: "You need about a day of work per minute of quality music" I usually get my pieces done in about 3-5 hours, and they last between 1 and 2 minutes. Thats horribly fast work. And I usually tend to leave mixing aside since I have this opinion that music and composition are the most important thing. I am very wrong, I know this, but still I do this only when I do music for myself. When I get hired to do some music for something (like a theme for a local tv show I'm doing now) I tend to work, work, review, sleep on it, listen to it, ask for fellow musicians advice, review again, work on it some more, and the usually ask my very good friend and my bass player form a band I'm in "What do you think about this piece here (not telling him it is mine)?" And if he asks me: "Its great, who's that?" I know I've done something right. When people are paying you money for the music, the music better be worth it, or you're not going to get very far in this line of work...