Limitations...

I know we’ve talked about this before, but it’s always fun to harp on a subject near and dear to your heart. I’ve recently begun working on a new Micronaut EP, and I decided, since I was already set up for it as a result of the RT60 material (and also, I’ll admit, due to a current fascination with the Chosen Lords album), to make it entirely hardware.

Notice I didn’t say “analog.” I’m not a complete masochist. And you can have my Lexicon 300 and Eventide H8000FW when you pry them from my cold, stiff fingers, and even then you risk a zombie attack.

Since I can’t make a track without a heaping spoonful of AD plug-ins any more, and I’m recording in to a DAW (Live 8, for this project), realistically the only limitation is that I won’t let myself use samples or soft-synths; all the originating sounds are generated outside the DAW. The track in the post prior to this one is a fairly good example of the palette involved: a couple monosynths for basses and “lead” sounds, and I’ve got the alphaSyntauri, TX802, and MKS80 for more sophisticated fare. Drums from various boxes, including the afore-mentioned synths.

Anyhow, as a return to the subject at hand, I’ve found that in my advancing years, with a few thousand songs under my belt, I’m not able to actually create anything at all unless I have a framework or paradigm in which to work. I have to say “for this one, I’m only going to use PureData” or “for this one, the lyrics will contain no proper nouns” or something of that ilk before I can even start. Just happening across a cool groove and building on it doesn’t seem to do the trick any more, and my hard drive is littered with 1/3rd-finished tracks to prove that.

So, it comes as no surprise that I’m a big proponent of setting limitations for oneself. My question is thus: is that a proper method of working for someone just starting out? At what point is your personal palette and experience perhaps too large that you need to purposefully limit it in order to keep yourself (and thus your audience) interested?