production diary: promise complex (pt. 3) (Patreon)

motivation has probably been the biggest thing to deal with here. i'm absolutely confident in my ability to pull of each macroscopic and microscopic part of this massive project respectively, but it's that giant looming hyperobject that starship ponyville is that intimidates me, even though i know how to handle all of the smaller pictures. so one of the ways i've been working to actually motivate myself is by forcing myself to pull up whatever it is i'm supposed to work on before i have a chance to protest or change my mind. it often happens like "well ableton is already open may as well load the project" to "well the project is open i may as well listen to it for fun," and it inadvertently tricks my brain into actually engaging with the thing i need to be doing.

having nobody to slap me around and kick my door in to get me to stay on top of my shit makes this really important. without leaving a trail of crumbs to my wips subconsciously i have a very hard time overcoming the desire to nap or game or go somewhere entertaining. there's this weird interplay with the fact that where i work is also where i hang out to do fun things. having a separate studio space to actually do work would probably make things a lot better for me, but it's not an option at this time. either way though, i've been doing it.

i genuinely think that if starship ponyville alongside all the other things i need to be doing on a particular time frame wasn't all one giant hyperobject then my motivation would probably return pretty naturally. it's the feeling of like i have to do this at this time, this for this person, this to make sure that person can work with this person on that thing, this to make sure this person has a reference point for that thing, this so i can do this thing tomorrow and tomorrow after i can finalize that. its this cycle every day, for weeks, for months, for maybe up to a year of time, and that's intimidating. without that rigid schedule i need to keep up, yeah i'd probably just feel a lot more comfortable fucking around and making random tunes like i used to do. everything is so schedule now. thats hugely why i'm looking forward to starship ponyville being complete. no more extremely rigid schedules—just light ones that keep me going more off of intuition and improvisation.

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anyway, a lot of my old production work from like being a teenager has been humbling me a lot. im known to be very clutterful and maximalist when it comes to a lot of my projects post-cutiemarks. that can be a weakness and an advantage equally. an advantage because when something needs to be insane and complicated, i know how to get there. but theres that deep seated fear of when i dont do that that im coming off as overly simplistic or boring. on top of that, often it feels like the complexity and maximalism i strive for is sometimes a crutch for the fact that the underlying simpler ideas just dont feel compelling enough to stand on their own. i've probably written about this in one diary or another. but if not, yeah.

but here's the thing. when i was a teenager i never really thought of any of that shit. and in the process of doing these new tunes to set up the additional story material of mystic acoustics in starship ponyville, i've been revisiting some of my older songs that were always intended to be a part of the lore. namely "starship ponyville / grand adventure". i remade it just the other day and now i'm doing a full overhaul of it for the new mystic songs. and what's crazy is realizing how effective a lot of the simpler ideas are, how underneath the dogshit mixing and lack of production prowess the core, simpler ideas and melodies make so much sense and make great use of the negative space the song demands. in studying this song i feel like i've unlocked a part of my brain that has been shut since fish whisperer, one where i feel more comfortable and confident embracing straightforward ideas and building around them instead of trying to overcomplicate what already was appropriate in the first place.

this is a tiny thing, but i've also like been very averse to using reverb in a lot of cases. i think a lot of artists and listeners alike can sing their praises about how much reverb can do for production and atmosphere, but i actually tend to avoid it in favour of delay instead. i've always found delay way more transparent, giving a lot of the source signals up front room to breathe. but once again in revisiting "starship ponyville / grand adventure" i've been reckoning with just how much reverb makes that song what it is. so as a result, i've been letting myself go kind of apeshit wild with it and with great results. shoutout reverb, and shoutout valhalla plugins.

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copyediting is going well for the first fanfic. i expect we should be done before the end of the year, and then i can get the physical book stuff sorted in the new year. my head is spinning about all the stuff i need to get done: new top five videos, no matter what stuff, finalizing and mastering feather's new album, songs for the country album and outdoor cats project, the mystic acoustics additional songs i'm working on, and of course the remaining three fics and promise complex the album itself. ill just keep tricking myself with the breadcrumb trail and hope it works <3