Let's face it, you've spent way too long on that tune now. You're not Tears For Fears or The Blue Nile, so you probably don't have endless time and very patient record companies awaiting the results of your genius. You have a song. On your hard drive. It's been there for weeks, months… years even! That song has gone from being your greatest ever idea to becoming your sonic albatross. So the question is: what are you going to do with it?
For starters? Stop! Don't carry on tinkering with it. You've hit the wall, it's clearly going nowhere, so recognise that drastic action is now needed. And that action? Well, try these…
Just Get Rid Of It
It takes two seconds to drag a file to your trash can. Problem solved. But, surely this is defeat, right? You've given into a lazy solution and wasted all that time you spent tweaking and twisting those amazing ideas into, well, something that you still haven't finished. Or look at it this way: it's a very satisfying victory and something you should have done months or years ago. You've saved your future self time, all of which could be spent on getting on with your next masterpiece. Try it. You'll be amazed at how satisfying deleting a track is – especially if it has a 'last modified date' of early this century attached to it. It will free up your mind and your hard drive.
End It. Now!
The next option is that you could *whisper* finish it. Yes, that song you've been d*cking around with all this time really can be finished. In fact, you know what? It might already be finished! The fact that you are stuck for ideas for any additions really does suggest that it's going no further, so just mark the song as a moment in time, commit it to a stereo bounce and it's done. Burn it to a CD – remember those – or upload it to Soundcloud. Once it's on a medium that is not your local hard drive, it is effectively done, dusted and out of your inbox, right? Ripping a song or even a set of ideas to some kind of stereo file can bring closure or, if nothing else, spur you through the finish line.
Or Focus
But what if your idea is clearly not complete, perhaps just a bunch of loops? We've got a complete feature on breaking out of the loop, but the main way to finish a track is to focus on the track itself. Get rid of everything around it, the endless list of reasons you have not to finish it: other tunes and remixes, all those video games, all that work you have to complete… Lose it! (Ok, maybe not the work). Focus is your friend. Grab the task in hand and finish it. You could even pretend you are completing this masterpiece as part of a commission. Nothing gets the adrenaline going more than trying to get something done within a certain timeframe (and don't lazily make your own deadline 2049 – it doesn't work like that!). Didn't complete it in time? You're fired. Return to solution 1!
Tangent Time
If you are still left with a wretched, uncomfortable and empty feeling, and a festering song file is still demanding your focus, then try taking it off on a tangent; it might be time to take the original idea into a completely new direction. Remix it, make the beats and notes trigger different sounds, up the tempo, down the tempo, change the genre… Be drastic, be bold. Software like Loopmasters’ Loopcloud can let you change your direction fast by letting you audition new genre samples in an instant. Or try deleting all but one or two elements in your tune; strip it right back to the core idea, knock the house down to the foundations and build something completely new instead. You may well end up with a palace rather than a shed.
Drastic Measures
If you are still torn, then there's only one thing for it: give that song to someone else. After all, you may simply be too close to it, in too deep, too immersed in your own tweaking or too blinkered to take it anywhere decent, so another pair or eyes – better still, ears – might be needed. And if the thought of sharing this once incredible idea with someone else fills you with fear, then maybe it is time to finally let go. If you can't bear one set of ears hearing it now, there may well be no hope for it after all.
Your Fate Awaits
Finally, how about just accepting that your song will never be finished and that true perfection can never be attained. Knowing that your song will always have imperfections might just give you the closure you need. Accept that you could be wasting months or years striving for something simply impossible to attain and move on… to the next unending track!
So delete it, finish it, burn it to CD (or just burn it!), make it trigger something else, remix it or throw it someone else's way. But don't leave it too long. After a while, old loops start laughing at you, you know…