How long does it take you to write a song?

[theguitarplayer]

For me, writing a song I am satisfied with takes about 20 hours of work I know to some that might sound like a lot, but that really is only 3 or 4 weeks if you spend less than an hour every day. But it's strange, I feel that my best music comes in burst of inspiration, and the music i spend the most time with I am rather dissatisfied with.

How long does it take you to write a song?

[diiz]

Depends on the length of the song.

Generally, I can produce around 1-2 minutes of song per day. Add a day or two for finishing touches, mastering etc.

[roy38]

Takes me about a day to write a piece but i am learning not to rush a project now
Some of my better pieces might take a week or two.

[theguitarplayer]

Takes me about a day to write a piece but i am learning not to rush a project now
Some of my better pieces might take a week or two.

ha ha, same here

[jphturtle]

Some of my compositions were finished within a week. Some I'm still working on since 2004!

[Eino]

Music only takes minutes, to hours, depending on the length.
A song tho.
If you have lyrics, and your writing music to it. It can take many hours before you come up with something your satisfied with.
You need to remember what inspired you to write it, and stay on subject. Too many pieces, have lost the meaning because of word changes to fit the music, rather than writing the music to fit the words..
I have pieces, I have never finish.

[elendarsilvermoon]

It depends on what I'm trying to achieve. If I'm not doing anything obscenely crazy I can put something out in a few hours (not counting mastering and other such things.) If I'm doing symphonic metal stuff with 20+ tracks of orchestra alone it can take me months if I'm in the middle of a dry spell or a week or two of 8 or so hours of working a night if the creativity is flowing, provided I'm not being OCD.

[tresf]

For me, writing a song I am satisfied with takes about 20 hours of work I know to some that might sound like a lot, but that really is only 3 or 4 weeks if you spend less than an hour every day. But it's strange, I feel that my best music comes in burst of inspiration, and the music i spend the most time with I am rather dissatisfied with.

How long does it take you to write a song?

The small bursts are a very good point. I'm glad you bring up this topic because the creative process can be disheartening.

To speak a bit on my own process, about 1 in every 10 tracks gains overwhelmingly positive peer review. We consider those tracks the "low hanging fruit" and go from there.

I agree, about 20 hours... Here's a break down:

- Original track - 3 - 4 hours
- Lyrics - 6 hour collaborative session - about 2 hours of actual production
- Melody/harmony progression - about 3 hours
- Vocal recording and editing - about 2 hours
- Tweaking - about 6 hours
- Finalizing/mastering - about 6 hours

I've only completed 3 tracks in my lifetime. One was a remix, two are originals. The first original was tremendously quick to produce, but from experience that is an exception to the process. As we work towards the "Best of LMMS #2", we're already about 7 hours in... this is a lot of work. .

Some major snags for us in regards to the amount of time...

- Compressors in LMMS aren't visual which makes them hard to use IMO (for vocals at least, I don't really do side-chaining yet)
- Lack of sample tracks make vocals hard to import. Lack of playing samples mid-sample force us to split samples up for easier alignment.
- Audacity is good and it is a free wave editor but switching between playback devices for recording (headphones) and previewing (studio monitors) seems to screw up productivity.
- Writing lyrics has proven to be extremely timely, mostly due to inexperience in writing them for an actual song. What works in our heads seldom works when sung, so this creative process is taking some time to get down.
- Without proper "live mode" withing the DAW, sometimes we find ourselves struggling to play around with variations. It takes a lot of patience and most musicians I work with simply don't work well with the LMMS mindset.
- When the software malfunctions, I find myself writing bug reports instead of continuing the composition. This can kill productivity too.



Things LMMS does better than other DAWs:

- Mouse/keyboard composition is pretty efficient out of the box. I prefer it to most commercial DAWs.
- The ability to preview so many instrument presets straight of the box is tremendously valuable. Having 100s of Zyn and 3xosc presets makes chosing and tweaking faster than any other DAW I've used.
- Once the keyboard shortcuts are learned, the song editor and piano roll editor are pretty efficient
- Built-in effects are pretty good and tremendously consistent once you learn them

[elendarsilvermoon]

I love my compressors and other tools like eq to be visual. I find myself using NastyVCS a lot. Not having visuals is a distraction, as I'm having to think more about how much I need to tweak.

[slapkev]

Not to rag on anyone here, but it is never about how long it takes to finish something, and there really isn't a definitive standard to completing songs. My personal opinion is that amazing things (anything, really) are never rushed. It would make logical sense that making absolutely mind blowing content would take a significant amount of time. It's why industry powerhouses like Knife Party and Deadmau5 (just to name a few favorites) often take more than half a year or even more to release an EP.

Rebellion took about 63 hours to complete, but my Solar Eclipse Remix was finished within about 8 hours of work (and I think that the lack of time shows). I usually only work an hour or two at a time to limit hearing fatigue.

These numbers may seem really high to some, but I don't think it even begins to touch what the cutting edge "professionals" tend to do. I'm currently sitting on two stalled projects that both have over 50 hours invested in them, which really sucks because it will be a lot of wasted time if I can't get enough inspiration to finish them (one being Entropy, I posted a preview a while back).

Things LMMS does better than other DAWs:

- Mouse/keyboard composition is pretty efficient out of the box. I prefer it to most commercial DAWs.
- The ability to preview so many instrument presets straight of the box is tremendously valuable. Having 100s of Zyn and 3xosc presets makes chosing and tweaking faster than any other DAW I've used.
- Once the keyboard shortcuts are learned, the song editor and piano roll editor are pretty efficient
- Built-in effects are pretty good and tremendously consistent once you learn them

I'm going to be very ornery for a sec here, but how many DAWs have you cross referenced to come to such a biased conclusion? You've basically described every DAW, once the user has taken the time to learn them. I wouldn't have said anything if you had said "Things I like about LMMS" but there is no way to definitively compare DAWs, it's just like trying to compare operating systems when all that really matters are what features the user needs/wants.