Drinking in the last days

Spent basically the entire weekend working on music but not finishing anything. Looking back, I did get a lot of stuff done though - I learned a lot of stuff, and I actually have some usable tracks. Did a lot of reading about production techniques, mainly automation and mixing stuff. Had a couple of days where I was rethinking the issue of whether to switch to Live but decided against it. I spent so much time learning Logic, it would be silly to let that knowledge go to waste. Later on I can use Ableton rewired with Logic as a host - but will I really need to do that just to be plugged into the hippest new software? Logic is much more powerful, and if you organize your workflow right Ableton doesn't offer much that Logic can't do - plus the quality of the stock plugs in Logic. The one thing that had me really on the fence was the fact that Ableton Suite has everything you need - high quality drum and synth plugs, and a sampler, etc. for around 500 - but all of those third party apps will cost a ton in Logic if I buy one at a time. Ah well. I think a lot can be done just working with the stock plugs - you can certainly come up with believable strings and drums if you put in the work. Actually drum programming is too much of a pain in the ass and I'll probably spring for Addictive Drums in a couple months.

Anyways, music. I tried some songwriting - I have another skeleton of a song - basically chord progression and a beat with no lyrics or fixed melody. I feel like I'm almost there, all I really need to do is make a decision about these song skeletons and finalize their arrangements. Been thinking about writing lyrics first - I initially thought that I wouldn't do that but now it seems like if I have a set of lyrics I really like it would be fairly easy to come up with a melody and chords, I can come up with those fairly easily. I feel like this long process of learning, getting my chops up to my standards, getting familiar with the process, etc. is drawing to an end, not that you ever stop learning. But every day I write music or work on music related stuff - it feels good, I'm kind of obsessed with it, I feel like I'm getting better at it. I feel like soon I'll see a breakthrough and the songs will start coming, then the real fun will begin. 12 hr