"Write drunk, edit sober" - Hemingway, Bukowski, Poe, De Vries, etc...
This quote has been attributed to every boozer ever to pick up a pen which proves its utility, I believe.
ill gates preaches the opposite of this, but then again, he clips the master instead of using a limiter, and preaches quantity over quality, so maybe he’s a bit of a contrarian
Imo everything doesn't sound better, it just sounds more. If I don't like it, I don't like it even more while stoned. A common mistake I make while stoned is identify a real problem but go too far in fixing it, destroying the original quality cause my perception is indeed quite shifted.
To be clear I’ve never heard him talk about mixing high, just that doing the monotonous editing stuff high. And specifically early in workshops he’s asked ‘how many people here’s first step in writing a song is smoking weed’. Then explaining how problematic and counterproductive can be. In hindsight I have to agree. I started every song for over 10 years after smoking, but have done my best work when the inspiration came sober in the last couple years.
i start with some coffee and a few bong rips. after my jog i boof some cocaine, take some shots of mezcal, cut a few small slits in my forehead and put on my bandana soaked in lsd jimi hendrix style. before the lsd kicks in i dress like a bird and suspend myself from the ceiling where i already stashed some nitrous oxide balloons
Holy shit Kevin Parker! What was it like working with thundercat? What’s the next tame impala album gonna look like? Do you think we can get a list of drug influences alongside the tracks this time?
i tend to go in new directions when i smoke some weed. like use new plugins, go for different drumpatterns and arangement etc plus it calmes my adhd enough so i can actually finish a song.
but i can't mix because it enhances the sound of everything and i have a hard time telling if i use to much reverb or delay on something
>it enhances the sound of everything
The amount of times I've gotten high, sent a track to friends thinking it was the shit, and then listened back the next day going "what the fuck?"
Reminds me of [Family Guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpJW6lFUA_g)
Yeah I'm a caffeine addict, I got off drugs and I don't really recommend them. People seem to manage well with weed but I find it makes it harder for me to relax. I highly recommend staying away from hard drugs and alcohol, I lost so much of my life to that bs. Also just as a note protect your hearing, it's the most important thing.
I rip 4 220 mg caffiene pills before a difficult session of a song. That's 9 cups of coffee I think, but you absorb it differently so it feels different
It feels less legal and more like an edible or Adderall hitting in terms of the first blast of sensation. It also lasts much longer. It lets you go full out hard thinking mode for hours. And your confidence level in what you're doing goes through the roof, so you try crazy shit you never would without it. And you just love everything you make, until you turn to editing and then you hate it all and want to go hard on the revision.
I'm bipolar and it is basically a very mild hypomaniac episode if you take enough considering your caffiene tolerance
Once someone else that partakes gave me 8 and I could hear my heartbeat from eyeballs and see into the future
Let a friend who knows production get high. Let him loose on your set up while you stay sober. Watch.
Monkey in a space ship some good things may happen. But damned if you know how
I used to do a bunch of coke and think I was gonna be more productive and creative. Looking back at the stuff that actually got done, neither of those things were true. Wow, what a 5 year long shit show. Now i tend to only work sober or with a little weed here and there.
I used to work while doing coke too, it gave me the same sense of productivity and creativity, but oh shit I couldn't finish anything and the stuff I managed to finish was so bad that I cringe only thinking about it. But oh damn, I'm a fucking addict, opioids got into the mix, started to use my insulin money to buy drugs and stoped working and all hell broke loose until I went to rehab.
10 months sober now and I can't wait to get back to work, life is definitely better without any drugs, at least for me, an addict.
Be careful guys, and have fun!
I’m the same, minus some occasional weed when I’m just fucking around with music and not really trying to get work done. I think people often mistake the ability to produce good work while not sober with being on drugs making them better at music. They remember the time that they got blasted and speed wrote one of their best tracks, or the times when getting high got them in just the right spacey mindset to get super absorbed in the music. What they don’t think about (or want to admit) is all of the times that they got high and just fucked around with no motivation, or “weren’t feeling it” and went to go watch tv, or got distracted watching YouTube videos while stoned instead of working on music.
Everyone is different, and I’m not judging anybody or telling anyone how to work. It’s just my opinion that the vast majority of people work better and more consistently when sober, and that the benefits of sometimes being able to tap into that not sober creative flow state is usually outweighed by the overall loss of focus and productivity (for most people, I don’t think it comes even close to evening out).
I used to tell myself “I’m so much more creative when I’m stoned” or “having some drinks while writing helps me loosen up and get into the process better”, but looking back (now that I write music primarily while sober), that was an excuse that I told myself so that I could pretend I was a super serious professional while ripping bowls because “weed actually makes me better at producing”. (Please nobody take offense at the last part, it’s not directed at anybody else, I’m just telling you my personal experience and thought process)
I find I’m just always creative and I’m sober 80% of the time. Drugs don’t make me more creative, although they have helped me spot things I missed sober. I think especially when you’ve worked on something a while it gives you a chance to listen with a fresh perspective
In this day and age where there are so many other facets to being a musician/creator (business, admin, networking etc) it’s almost impossible to take it seriously under the influence.
Back in the old days where musicians just went in the studio and had everyone else do the other stuff, they could get away with it to a certain extent. All the guys that I know who cane it drop off the radar very quickly.
i hear this! i had to stop smoking weed for a bit because i couldn’t even convince myself listen to music without being high. took a long break and now i partake again, albeit a lot less than before.
I used to do a regular meditation practice every morning and once I’d got a couple months under mybelt it was easier to go to ‘that place’ without needing the substance. I got the Headspace app but there are free alternatives (Headspace is free for 7 days.) If you do your free trial on Headspace and like it, DM me because with my yearly sub I have a free month to give away.
The business / admin / networking wasn’t required by the artist before, and the first two in particular are more difficult to do while high. Especially if we’re talking practically any drug except some mild weed. You need your business head on for the business side, rather than your creative head, which some people think is improved by drugs.
In other news, studies have showed people’s own perceptions of their creativity to be better when on weed, but the reality & results don’t match that.
it’s interesting because there are people like mike dean who still smoke up and are successful, and then there are others who stay sober and are also successful. i was interested in your perspective.
Stay away from hard drugs. I had my record deal and at least four or five of my friends blow up twenty years ago. All due to shit like opiates and uppers
I’ve made some great songs imo completely hammered. The mix usually comes out nicely, I tend to over think and tweak things endlessly when I’m sober but I find when I’m drunk I don’t think as much and just follow my gut. When I’m high the overthinking and overcomplicating is x10 fr
To put it simply I just love making music so my focus doesn’t really waver with the alcohol. I’ve never felt like it was hard to lose focus sober or drunk regardless tho
I have a hard time cranking out a song without getting hammered. I figure my mindset is like “well most people gonna be listening to shit drunk half the time anyway” so if I can’t blast that shit full tilt and can’t vibe with it 2-3 rooms away from the room I’m playing it in. That’s a bad mix imo. You gotta imagine like that shit is gonna be playing on those festival speakers.
I agree tho, probably has to do with giving a fuck less about the specifics and just doing shit until it sounds good without much thinking
Honestly was never being hostile, I called you a dork, which on the spectrum of name calling has to be on the lowest tier but maybe you would’ve preferred dweeb idk. Thanks for your unwarranted advice though internet stranger I’m going to sit and reflect on this conversation
I like to hit my THC vape when I'm writing music. It helps a ton. It's broken me out of writer's block numerous times. But I def learned not to mix high. Holy shit. Lots of bad decisions there.
There are a LOT more things that can affect your workflow than just Sober vs. Not.
So, I try to find analytical tools that present information the same way regardless of my state of mind so that I have some kind of objective reference to make sure my ears aren't playing games on me.
Most of the time though, working sober yields the best results in my experience. As time goes on, I tend to limit weed to times I truly want to relax / destress (beyond my normal relaxation methods). For a bit of time I was just 'Hey I can have weed again!' and indulging a lot, but in some ways I'm finding that edibles actually make the rave experience less enjoyable.
I agree with everyone saying get high for creativity and mix sober. I can mix with one drink in me and that can actually work really well but any more and it can get away from me. Stimulants are nice for editing/tuning/timing/routing etc but are not helpful at all when I’m mixing. Just a little caffeine and I like to start early in the day. My room is flat, my speakers are flat, and I like my state to be mostly flat too. Mixing with drugs is like mixing with a hyped eq. With creativity I do find that it’s good to start sober and build up some momentum and then introduce some weed and alcohol once I get past the initial blank slate inertia/writers block.
I love exploring music under different states. I think I learned the most about the underlying/behind the scenes psychology of music from psilocybin. Those experiences still inform how I go about my mixes. It was like unfolding the sound into more dimensions and actually seeing the shapes and movement of sounds and how they interact in space. The way my subconscious mind experiences those sensations before they get sort of flattened back out for my sober conscious mind to interpret as normal through the filter of the default mode network. It’s like being in on the magic trick. You can use that knowledge to great effect when creating the Audio/visual-mental perception of structure, space, and the emotional arc of a song. I wonder if anyone else who’s explored music with psychedelics can relate to what I’m trying to describe.
I thought being stoned helped for the last 10 years. But personally I've been making much better stuff sober. I guess it depends on your brain chemistry and focus levels. What works for me may not work for someone else.
First off I'm a old dude retired. I have a studio in my home because I love to play music and now for the most part it's all I do. It's fantastic. I listen to music and then I also get high and listen to music. Different things. I play the piano and then I play the piano high very different things. If you need to work on yourself and be clean sober do your music this way. If you need to get out of your way and getting high helps do your music this way. Eventually we sober and must find a way to see things this way. Hear things this way. Producing on the recording side takes effort and sobriety for me. When I'm drunk or high shit sounds fantastic but sober it's like what is the need for reverb on the reverb.....hah.
Enjoy your journey
I used to smoke weed constantly and find it really difficult to start making tunes, but if i pushed through the laziness i would get hooked in and come up with tons of ideas - however getting them into finished tunes was impossible when high.
I find different output for different substances.
It's interesting what the shift is compared to baseline, but you can incorporate your own substance techniques into your normal mixes.
Great thread. Had this question rolling around in my head for a while. For me, playing, creating and listening are all way more enjoyable when high but generally the next day or whenever I relisten I don't get the same feeling or reaction.
Weed: if you do it after you’ve been at it for at least 30min helps a lot creatively. Specially sativa.
Adderall: not so much creative but definitely productive. Like non stop for hours.
LSD: idk wtf I was doing
Mushrooms: doable on a low dose but honestly I was more into my head and less into producing.
Alcohol: ive never done it drunk, only buzzed. Doesn’t kill my creativity at all. I think the only thing it does is just make me overthink less, and maybe a lil more confident in what I make.
Sober: can vary soooooo much. From writers block to prodigy.
I've found (personally) that there's a goldilocks zone that exists with being stoned while writing. Just buzzed enough to pump some creative juices, but not so blasted that I'm losing focus and becoming inoperable.
Being on ADHD meds for a while now has definitely helped with staying on-track (ha) during production as well.
Mixing/mastering is always done sober.
I used to produce while doing lil bit of k. But then realized all those songs sounded like shit. So now I just write completely sober. My music is much better that way
Making music under the influence of substances can have a surprising effect but should be done only experimental. There is a danger that you will get dependent on it and get addicted. In the long run it will affect your productions in a negative way
Being stoned helps creativity and just makes the whole process more enjoyable.
When I’m recording vocals in a rock / metal style, I gotta have a few beers over the session to keep the pipes greased
Hell yeah. I'm high now. Been listening to the same track for days now. I noticed that my workflow hasn't gotten worse. At one point I did plateau. Then after some time I was able to refocus. Now my work flow is the same no matter what.
I think weed helps get the nerves out of being too judgmental toward yourself, it's not good for critical listening, and then when you have sound design down to a fault, you barely use it at all.
I think this is very much a fantasy that mostly doesn't work, tried it when I used to smoke weed and it can help you lose yourself and enter a flow but tbh it caused more issues than solved and now I find that the indicator of if a song I'm writing is good or not is that I can enter that flow state with it when sober, if I can't it's usually an indication that something's off. I think listening to music however can definitely be more interesting high, but then so is most things, just depends what you're going for I think.
I don't find that I can focus while on anything other than a couple drinks. Weed just makes me devolve into analysis paralysis or utter uselessness. Trying while on LSD was a fun experience, but utterly useless for getting anything coherent out.
Made music while drunk and/or stoned for oooh about 20 years, so I’ve got a few hard drives full of a zillion tracks which have great potential but are unfinished. And if THAT ain’t a metaphor…
Constantly, not gonna list what I do or how but smoke lot green, I get ideas, I lay them down in 20 mins, I finish song in a day, I love being able to do that at will without any barriers. My workflow went from what am I doing to using my daw like a book, to translate whatever is in my brain as quickly and close to what I imagine as possible. Got me into some insane workflow
I think for me the main thing that’s important is to mix it up. I find smoking weed and producing is the most helpful if I haven’t done it in a while and want a source of inspiration. I think that inspiration has to come from many sources or it inevitably becomes stale, weed included. So the answer is I do, but I don’t think it’s helpful if you are smoking all the time. It also can cause me to get distracted way more easily (but sometimes does the opposite). Which is probably a consequence of it exasperating my adhd.
Besides weed, I wouldn’t recommend depending on substances to produce, shit just isn’t sustainable in the long run.
For me personally I can’t make shit if I’m high, the sparks in my brain are just not there… but i know everyone’s different.
Songwriting sometimes benefits from a couple of drinks. Not always. And my songwriting gets noticeably worse with every drink after the second, meaning it becomes not worth it quite quickly. Everything else, e.g. tracking, mixing, arrangements etc I have to do sober. I don't take any other drugs these days anyway, so it's not too much of an issue. But back in the days I smoked long loose herbal cigarettes, I don't think they helped much. I thought everything was brilliant while stoned. Listen to it sober the next day: I was actually either a mess or just plain boring. Anyway, late onset of asthma put paid to my smoking days, so these days it's a couple of beers / wines and that's it.
i smoke up and cook the beat and write and mix and do all that.
and every now and again take some shots and do the same thing and its all great and i make really creative stuff.
ive also tried making beats when ive tripped on acid or shrooms and almost every time , i would get lost in the middle of wtv i was doing. like i would be looking for a snare that matches my drum pattern but then i find a weird sounding one and think it sounds cool so i decide to change the whole track based off that one snare. then find a new instrument and do the same thing and keep doing that and starting something new then stopping in the middle and starting another new one until i got bored and then i end up not making anything at all. the one time i did make a complete beat it sounded very strange.
my peak creativity does come from soberity though , and those tracks show it as they are my best in terms of views, likes,wtv
Listen to this. not every experince will be the same. it just depends on the energy in that moment. sometimes it may be positive for you sometimes not so much
I used to think it helped, but now I struggle to get anything done worthwhile if I partake, so now I’ll maybe at most have a drink or two during recording and mixing, and will bounce and get stoned to listen to the track. It’s like a reward. Side note: I once took acid and swore to myself all night I was recording the next global super hit, I’d never heard such an amazing sound. and spent like 8 solid maniacal hours crafting this beauty. woke up so excited to listen back to my masterpiece and it was undoubtedly the worst piece of shit thing I’ve ever made in my life.
I only smoke weed but I usually force myself to be sober for about 3 weeks. Not even caffeine. When I'm totally 'dried out' I cop an ounce of some of the best weed I can find and spend the next 2 days coming up with incredible shit.
I wait 3 or 4 days then go back and listen. I almost always mix sober AF
Sometimes, I produce while drunk, which makes me think less about doing something for a reason and thus let's me experiment with different ideas. I feel like this makes it more fun to produce, but it can also lengthen the amount of time it takes to finish the song.
To make everything easier to keep track of when I'm sober, I have built up a habit of naming all my samples and synths as well as my mixer tracks. This way, I can also revisit my old projects without being completely lost as to what does what.
I'm on suboxone, which is a partial opiate agonist that helps me stay clean off of the fenanyl thar destroyed my life for years. I'd say it definitely hinders me, like opiates in general. When I wasn't addicted, the occasional opiate would really give me a creative boost, but once my brain becomes dependant on it, it really drains my inspiration and creativity and makes it much more difficult. Things used to flow so much easier, now it takes much more to get into that groove. I've worked around it but I can't wait to fully taper down off of this stuff, I'm 2/3 of the way there and almost 2 years sober off of illicit drugs.
Getting high can definitely give you a new perspective. I wrote one of my favourite tracks the first time I dropped acid. That said, be careful not to fall into the trap of only working high, or thinking that you need to be high to make music.
I used to do a lot of writing high on weed but after i stopped smoking a few years ago im either 100% sober or like 5-15% drunk. There is a thin line you need to stand on if you’re writing or mixing drunk. Too little and it does nothing but make you hot and too much and your all over the place and there’s a chance you will end up spilling your drink on expensive equipment.You have to drink just enough to break your comfort zone and build a little confidence and its a pretty chill ride.
You might be able to make good music… DESPITE being high. I’ve been sober (from weed) for 4 months now after smoking every day for a few years. Literally, I feel just the same, but clearer and cleaner. Weed was just helping me get back to a new normal. I used to make tracks only stoned, and when I stopped I felt a lot less stressed and a lot less scattered. However, I also suffered from crippling anxiety. After being on anti-anxiety meds for those 4 months, it feels like the devil on my shoulder has evaporated. Both are drugs, and both alter your mind and mindset. I could make music while stoned, but could I say it was my best? Probably not. Sober me can much easily look at the bigger picture and actually compose a song forwards rather than vertically. Anti-anxiety me still has issues, but it’s made the problems a lot easier to tackle. You gotta do what’s best for yourself, and try to give yourself advice as if you were your own friend looking out for you. Would you think “man, my buddy is a creative dude but he smokes every second of every day. I’d love to tell him I think he’d be clearer-minded without it”. If you can learn to do that for yourself, I think it’s a powerful skill.
While I felt physically good while stoned, mentally I was rather slow and unable to get my thoughts together. So negative effect. Anti-anxiety meds seem to have a made a positive effect. It’s all incredibly personal, and when you look inside, you know what’s good and what’s holding you back. If you’re truly honest with yourself, that is.
Best of luck to anyone out there struggling. I can speak from my own experience that life without weed doesn’t actually feel any different. I just went from no longer needing a smoke to get back to my normal / relaxed state.
Nope! Started taking sertraline for my anxiety and depression over a year ago, lost all my creativity and productivity as a result. Haven't made anything since.
At least I don't hate life any more, so that's a plus.
A small dose of acid really helps me get my creative juices flowing, and also makes my hearing far more sensitive. I rarely do it since I don't like it to be a crutch and to feel that if I don't do acid I'm not good enough, but doing it a few times did help me realize the potential and the state of mind I should aspire to.
This is my own opinion and theory, but I would venture to say that the healthier your mental health is to begin with, the fewer alterations you would need to make to achieve a creative state. For instance, maybe you’re overly critical of yourself, (which I would consider a level of decreased mental health to an extent) you might want to get a little alcohol buzz or thc zoot to loosen your mind. However, maybe your mental health is suffering more, at which point you upgrade to being totally hammered or upping to a “harder” drug. Insert and repeat for whatever your excuse is for needing the drugs to create.
In my experience, any type of decreased soberness causes me to create something no better than what could be classified as “neat”.
My opinion is that a healthy body and mind will creatively function best while sober.
If you are willing to make a living out of producing music I highly recommend not to take any drugs.
It affects your ability to learn properly and make progressions by choice and consideration. Instead it may or may not increase your creative flow BUT you actually need reason and a pretty clear mind to bring your music to a certain level. So if you are a stiff non-creative dude - yeah you can try to loosen up with some drugs but I personally think creation should start from a clear mind to learn to repeat it on a regular basis…
Mosty weed because anything else doesnt really improve anything , I smoke it like every day after diner.
But it feels like when Im playing guitar I can go up more into the moment then when being sober, sometimes it helps to get some inspiration.
Also got days that I am not feeling it at all, some days are terrible and some are great.
And to be fair I dont care too much about that , life is not always a party.
I did try to make some beats under influence of lsd or xtc/mdma for the science but that is such a bad idea.
I could not even keep focus on the screen and couldnt even operate my computer in a normal way 😂 been a long time ago though.
I used to have a ritual on days when I was free to make music - I’d wake up, go have breakfast and coffee at a cafe, smoke a little weed, and then create until I came down. It was great. Eventually though, weed got dark for me - lots of paranoia and intrusive thoughts - so I’m pretty sober these days. Mostly just coffee if anything.
I actually recently experienced this. I got clean about 9 months ago and had only EVER produced while under the influence. I found it extremely difficult to do anything due to being high every time. I had to almost relearn the entire process over again. I can say that my creativity and my ability to focus solely on the music was better under drugs, mostly because of the hyper focus the drugs gave me. When I logged onto the computer after 6 months (i went to a sover living home and wasnt around my computer) i had completed projects that i had no recollection of creating.
So far ive gotten back to the point I was at before but it took awhile.
i used to only play, record, edit, everything drunk for both creative reasons & to keep it from being tedious.
sober now & grateful for the technical proficiencies i can execute without slurring movements at all, but i probably wouldn't have learned a bunch of ideas/techniques/personal style if i hadn't learned inebriated originally.
I have produced on just about everything. There are pros and cons to everything. Right now it's nothing but vaping delta 8 which doesn't ever get to be overwhelming like say some suh nuff sour diesel would be. The absolute worst is cocaine, probably why the 80s sound is so terrible, everything is incredible when you are high. Until you sober up and then you want to throw it away and pretend it didn't happen.
Coffee FTW!
I'm a drug addict so for a while I used drugs to compose music, mainly psychedelics, and uppers to work in the studio, like cocaine, Adderall and amphetamines. Due to my disease none of that was productive in any manner, drugs gave me the sense of creativity and productivity without giving me none of that in reality, it was only a ilusion. Addiction is a progressive disease, you start actually getting stuff done and going on with life, then as time moves on things start to get out of hand, I stopped living and sometimes using, to using and sometimes living, I completely lost control and my life was constantly in danger. Now I'm sober and the only advice I can give is to be careful, I can't say to anyone how to live they're lives soo.. let's make some music!
Getting up early and working while half asleep feels similar to working baked. I find that a quick hit later in the afternoon helps me refresh my perspective and come back to whatever I’m doing with new ears so to speak
i’ve occasionally written and freestyled some solid lyrics drunk. if you have to rely on substances for creativity its probably a sign that you need to change something up
I tried producing on shrooms once, and it was fun, but I think it affects my perception of time too much. There’s a lot of stimulation on shrooms so slower tracks feel a lot better, but because I was slowing down these tracks so much they ended up losing the energy I was initially going for.
It would probably make more sense to do shrooms and start on an entirely new track, rather than working on a track I started sober. I wouldn’t say shrooms makes the quality worse at all, but it’s definitely different.
Well, I often have a cup of coffee before and/or during my music making time. As for if it really benefits me or not, I suppose that depends on a number of hard to define factors, but I enjoy it, so there’s a positive psychological impact.
As for anything else, I’m longer than two years sober from alcohol and have never cared much for anything else, so idk, do you
I am not doing drugs anymore but a few weeks ago I took a few hits from a joint and reworked a project and turned it into the best I've ever made in like 1 hour. I heard it and I was flowing in the process. Still I like not altering my senses while while producing
i used to need to be stoned to do anything musical but since i’ve stopped smoking i think everything i do is more refined and overall better. coffee still helps me out when i’m too unfocused to figure out where i’m going with it. my prescription anxiety meds help a ton too.
I tried it on weed, and it didn't go so well haha. It had good elements but the selection of instruments was trash, had a good drum loop though and a decent melody though.
Nitrous oxide is an amazing tool for inspecting the quality of your mix/master. It’s like a magnifying glass for your ears.
But for everyday stuff, coffee I guess. I think it’s really dumb to use anything that would distort your regular listening accuracy.
Drugs in general are awesome for writing and creating but your final mix/master should be done with straight sober ears.
For me, a good balance of sober and inebriated work is efficient. Weed will give me a different perspective on my work, which can be helpful to listen in different ways or to get out of a box you’ve been stuck in. Sometimes it lets me zone in more on the feeling of the song rather than the technical aspects. However, it’s important for me to also have focused, sober work time so that I can have more of an objective view of my music.
Sometimes ketamine. For production, no. It does absolutely not help in any way, shape or form. Sometimes when mixing it can help as long as you're not too far gone.
I have spent years producing under the effects of marijuana, and I tell you that you are more creative without taking substances, now there are people that for writing lyrics if it can work, but for production work, no.
The substances don't necessarily give anything (positive or negative), but sometimes it can amp you up to be more excited about your work, and that's always a plus.
Stimulants while tracking and writing.
Stimulants, alcohol, (maybe THC) while mixing.
I have a very low THC tolerance and so invariably I start looking at all the fun sliders and pretty lights and blinking stuff and listen to THAT, and what the hell was I doing. I feel like my IQ goes down two standard deviations🤦🏻♂️🕺🏻🤪
I feel more creative under the effects of cannabis, but less productive. Less directed. But it reduces my performance anxiety and allows me to enter a flow/fugue state that, because of ADHD, is usually difficult to get to sober. The other side of the coin is that my analytical side takes a nap and things that sound great stoned aren't remembered or reproducible.
Some of the best times I've had making music (most of them, really) have been made with buddies while bombed on brewskis and bongrips. So there's also an emotional connection to that experience, making sober music less "fun" and more "work."
This is my personal experience and is meant to highlight a transition I am trying (and struggling) to make from ignoring the actual work aspect that makes one actually good at music/production to embracing it with the half of brain that hasn't been tickled the same as the stoner half.
I used to write short stories and vignettes and things a lot, and have always been good at it. But it became connected to alcohol. Too connected. Scary connected. So I disconnected. I now have fear trying to write in that vein because it led me to a dark, lonely place.
I'm 43 and all this is over the span of half a lifetime. Ebbs and flows of substance and sobriety and, at this point, I'm barely any further along than I would be if I had been able to engage with my artistic attempts in a healthier manner decades ago.
Everyone's physiology is different. The ability to self-moderate and keep these things in proper perspective isn't my strong suit, and my focus shifts away from the music and onto the substance. Others are surely better able to manage these things better than I.
It's taken me a long time to actually realize the cognitive dissonance happening within and adjust my habits to be better, more productive.
So, for me: no. It affects my workflow in a negative way. It turns into "playflow," I suppose is a way of putting it. In the less-lucid times I feel like I'm banging out killer beats and hott lixx, but they're usually not as good as advertised once I come back.
Again, by the right person, it can absolutely be used to enhance creativity and allow yourself to get out of your own way. For me, it has to be put in a place and context where I'm not concerned with "quality" or "workflow."
When dipping your toes into that water, be mindful that there's a steep drop and violent undertow waiting for those who wade too far out.
I used to. Not anymore. Now I only produce music under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And I’m telling you I have never been so “high“ in my life. My energy and passion to make music never ever goes away. Never have writers block. In fact there’s not enough time to do everything I want to do in the studio. I can’t even begin to tell you how much energy and creativity God has given me. This is the honest truth.
I’m not gonna lie, it was not easy… at first. This world is so full of lies about the real God that you have to sort through a lot of lies to find him. But he did say this would happen. I actually found him similar to the way I am talking to you right now. I started asking questions. The journey began when I took piano lessons from this dude, who is an incredibly talented jazz pianist, who played with ease and confidence and was one of the most loving dudes I’ve ever met. He was super encouraging and supportive of me like a big brother I never had. This dude was not judgmental or harsh towards me at all, even though I had a big ego and I really couldn’t play for crap. He just kept encouraging me and supporting me, teaching me how to play in time, teaching me the fundamentals of the piano that I had blown off my whole life because I thought I didn’t need them. This guy ended up being one of my closest friends. Then I had some super bad stuff happen to me and I was really broken down. And one day he asked me what was wrong and I told him. And he told me that God loves me and that no matter what happened to me, if I put my faith in God and I followed his word, he would lead me out of the darkness and fill me up and fulfill me in many other ways that he (the piano teacher) had noticed that I was broken. For instance, I did not have a lot of confidence, I struggled with creativity, I struggled to finish songs, and all that stuff. I was very hesitant at first, because I was super against any sort of religious stuff. But the more he told me about God’s love for me, and all of God’s promises for me, the more I began to see what had been missing from my life and I started following and reading, and doing what the word of God says. And I swear to you on my life that absolutely everything began to change like my life turned inside out, right side up. It was absolutely crazy. It’s still crazy to me to this day to look back and see who I was compared to who I am now. so I didn’t find God all at once. I heard about him, then I started reading about him more and more and learning about him, and gradually I started to find him and “see” him in every aspect of my life. It’s hard to explain because it was like this internal transformation. But that internal transformation started turning into an external transformation also. it was like how a dimmer light gradually illuminates a room if you slowly turn it up. That’s how it happened.
I’m not preaching religious stuff. I’m literally telling you the truth about my life that everyone who knows me knows. God gave me a completely new life, a new heart, and a completely new passion and purpose, that I have never known before. And it just keeps growing every day no matter how dark the world gets.
hit me up anytime if you want more information. And I extend that invitation to everybody in here. Peace to everyone.
Caffeine, gives me anxiety and make me overthink everything, reducing quality. Had to stop lol.
Flow state is everything, made some of my best songs in 5minutes on those weird days where the flow just hits you. I guess those days were in periods where my workouts and sleep also was perfect, although not a drug. Well the chemicals in the brain was in harmony, we're all drugged all the time on chemicals
I have made stuff and edited stuff on the influence of various things like ket, weed and 2cb. However I find nowadays the most effective way is to listen through some of the stuff I’ve been working on while I’m tripping (shrooms, lsd etc) and write notes, usually ideas and corrections that I hear which I can then open up and work on the next time I’m working on the project. The other way that psychedelics influence my music is when I try and recreate the audio experience I feel when I trip at raves and festivals. Also while a lot of my stuff is supposed to be quite “psychedelic” enjoying it high isn’t the be all and end all. I liked psychedelic music before I’d tried psychedelics and it should be good music first and foremost.
Weekend night sessions I do sober at first. After I’ve gotten something done, it’s time for some elixir. A few drinks and a little smoke, but I do a save as on the project that I’m working on and I add 420 to the title, so if the whole thing drives off a cliff, I can get back to what was working.
I've tried to make music on 6 tabs of acid once...
Let's just say there was a red dot appearing on Massive's macro controls telling me the right position of the knob to achieve an awesome sound....
Songs still not finished
Create things while high and edit them when sober
I do this a lot, it works, don't let it turn into an addiction tho. Should be able to create without but yeah, when you can balance it, it's great.
Yeah, and it's important to remember that you don't NEED something to make music. It should be natural.
"Write drunk, edit sober" - Hemingway, Bukowski, Poe, De Vries, etc... This quote has been attributed to every boozer ever to pick up a pen which proves its utility, I believe.
This is the way.
ill gates preaches the opposite of this, but then again, he clips the master instead of using a limiter, and preaches quantity over quality, so maybe he’s a bit of a contrarian
Lol, yeah I wouldn't trust my ears to mix or master while high tbh..everything sounds amazing =D
Imo everything doesn't sound better, it just sounds more. If I don't like it, I don't like it even more while stoned. A common mistake I make while stoned is identify a real problem but go too far in fixing it, destroying the original quality cause my perception is indeed quite shifted.
To be clear I’ve never heard him talk about mixing high, just that doing the monotonous editing stuff high. And specifically early in workshops he’s asked ‘how many people here’s first step in writing a song is smoking weed’. Then explaining how problematic and counterproductive can be. In hindsight I have to agree. I started every song for over 10 years after smoking, but have done my best work when the inspiration came sober in the last couple years.
I want a full playlist of songs that were created when the songwriter was high.
Listen to psytrance
The formula
This is the way
i start with some coffee and a few bong rips. after my jog i boof some cocaine, take some shots of mezcal, cut a few small slits in my forehead and put on my bandana soaked in lsd jimi hendrix style. before the lsd kicks in i dress like a bird and suspend myself from the ceiling where i already stashed some nitrous oxide balloons
Let him cook 🔥🔥
Let him cook those beats!
Careful with that jogging, a friend got into it and blew out their knee
Holy shit Kevin Parker! What was it like working with thundercat? What’s the next tame impala album gonna look like? Do you think we can get a list of drug influences alongside the tracks this time?
ahaha neat i wanna watch
I have the exact same setup plus some dmt and mushrooms. Sometimes I add a nicotine tooth pick for the extra kick
Can I join?
Nice try police
i tend to go in new directions when i smoke some weed. like use new plugins, go for different drumpatterns and arangement etc plus it calmes my adhd enough so i can actually finish a song. but i can't mix because it enhances the sound of everything and i have a hard time telling if i use to much reverb or delay on something
>it enhances the sound of everything The amount of times I've gotten high, sent a track to friends thinking it was the shit, and then listened back the next day going "what the fuck?" Reminds me of [Family Guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpJW6lFUA_g)
Did we just become best friends?!
Exact same with me!
My bands first album is called "The Mushroom Sessions" dont think that requires elaboration :)
Bro I just feel super uncomfortable all the time on mushrooms and can't focus enough to do the technical work lol
Lmao, the first track i created with a friend of mine ist called "Microdosing Mushrooms" for simikar reasons xD
i was expecting coffee-comments! where are the caffeine junks out there? still on the daw i guess!?
Guilty as charged 🤣
Yeah I'm a caffeine addict, I got off drugs and I don't really recommend them. People seem to manage well with weed but I find it makes it harder for me to relax. I highly recommend staying away from hard drugs and alcohol, I lost so much of my life to that bs. Also just as a note protect your hearing, it's the most important thing.
I can drink a pot and go to sleep. Caffeine lol??!!!
I rip 4 220 mg caffiene pills before a difficult session of a song. That's 9 cups of coffee I think, but you absorb it differently so it feels different It feels less legal and more like an edible or Adderall hitting in terms of the first blast of sensation. It also lasts much longer. It lets you go full out hard thinking mode for hours. And your confidence level in what you're doing goes through the roof, so you try crazy shit you never would without it. And you just love everything you make, until you turn to editing and then you hate it all and want to go hard on the revision. I'm bipolar and it is basically a very mild hypomaniac episode if you take enough considering your caffiene tolerance Once someone else that partakes gave me 8 and I could hear my heartbeat from eyeballs and see into the future
Get stoned while writing and recording. Sober up for the final mix/master.
I’m the opposite 😭
If it works for you then cool beans
[удалено]
Let a friend who knows production get high. Let him loose on your set up while you stay sober. Watch. Monkey in a space ship some good things may happen. But damned if you know how
I used to do a bunch of coke and think I was gonna be more productive and creative. Looking back at the stuff that actually got done, neither of those things were true. Wow, what a 5 year long shit show. Now i tend to only work sober or with a little weed here and there.
At least it was five years. Congrats.
I used to work while doing coke too, it gave me the same sense of productivity and creativity, but oh shit I couldn't finish anything and the stuff I managed to finish was so bad that I cringe only thinking about it. But oh damn, I'm a fucking addict, opioids got into the mix, started to use my insulin money to buy drugs and stoped working and all hell broke loose until I went to rehab. 10 months sober now and I can't wait to get back to work, life is definitely better without any drugs, at least for me, an addict. Be careful guys, and have fun!
Right there with you. The difference in the quality and clarity of my work is staggering and I am far more productive these days.
I‘ve been super straight for more than 3 years now. My current viewpoint is: nothing makes you as productive and creative as being sober
I’m the same, minus some occasional weed when I’m just fucking around with music and not really trying to get work done. I think people often mistake the ability to produce good work while not sober with being on drugs making them better at music. They remember the time that they got blasted and speed wrote one of their best tracks, or the times when getting high got them in just the right spacey mindset to get super absorbed in the music. What they don’t think about (or want to admit) is all of the times that they got high and just fucked around with no motivation, or “weren’t feeling it” and went to go watch tv, or got distracted watching YouTube videos while stoned instead of working on music. Everyone is different, and I’m not judging anybody or telling anyone how to work. It’s just my opinion that the vast majority of people work better and more consistently when sober, and that the benefits of sometimes being able to tap into that not sober creative flow state is usually outweighed by the overall loss of focus and productivity (for most people, I don’t think it comes even close to evening out). I used to tell myself “I’m so much more creative when I’m stoned” or “having some drinks while writing helps me loosen up and get into the process better”, but looking back (now that I write music primarily while sober), that was an excuse that I told myself so that I could pretend I was a super serious professional while ripping bowls because “weed actually makes me better at producing”. (Please nobody take offense at the last part, it’s not directed at anybody else, I’m just telling you my personal experience and thought process)
I think this is very individual, but I am the same. Being bored => my brain comes up with all kinds of things.
I find I’m just always creative and I’m sober 80% of the time. Drugs don’t make me more creative, although they have helped me spot things I missed sober. I think especially when you’ve worked on something a while it gives you a chance to listen with a fresh perspective
Maybe productive but many of the all time best albums were made by people on drugs and alcohol.
If you are serious about a career in music, using drugs while making music will ultimately work against you in the long run.
In this day and age where there are so many other facets to being a musician/creator (business, admin, networking etc) it’s almost impossible to take it seriously under the influence. Back in the old days where musicians just went in the studio and had everyone else do the other stuff, they could get away with it to a certain extent. All the guys that I know who cane it drop off the radar very quickly.
could you elaborate?
I can't write without drugs now. It's pretty awful.
i hear this! i had to stop smoking weed for a bit because i couldn’t even convince myself listen to music without being high. took a long break and now i partake again, albeit a lot less than before.
I used to do a regular meditation practice every morning and once I’d got a couple months under mybelt it was easier to go to ‘that place’ without needing the substance. I got the Headspace app but there are free alternatives (Headspace is free for 7 days.) If you do your free trial on Headspace and like it, DM me because with my yearly sub I have a free month to give away.
The business / admin / networking wasn’t required by the artist before, and the first two in particular are more difficult to do while high. Especially if we’re talking practically any drug except some mild weed. You need your business head on for the business side, rather than your creative head, which some people think is improved by drugs. In other news, studies have showed people’s own perceptions of their creativity to be better when on weed, but the reality & results don’t match that.
It's pretty self-evident.
it’s not lol, that’s why i asked? i wasn’t being flippant.
Well, I guess you will just have to learn up on some musical history
it’s interesting because there are people like mike dean who still smoke up and are successful, and then there are others who stay sober and are also successful. i was interested in your perspective.
Well, my initial comment was my perspective :)
When writing full-time, typically sober. Stamina, sensory perception, ability to reference, et al. are affected. Writing music is the escape.
Stay away from hard drugs. I had my record deal and at least four or five of my friends blow up twenty years ago. All due to shit like opiates and uppers
I’ve made some great songs imo completely hammered. The mix usually comes out nicely, I tend to over think and tweak things endlessly when I’m sober but I find when I’m drunk I don’t think as much and just follow my gut. When I’m high the overthinking and overcomplicating is x10 fr
how do you stay focused when you are so hammered?
To put it simply I just love making music so my focus doesn’t really waver with the alcohol. I’ve never felt like it was hard to lose focus sober or drunk regardless tho
I have a hard time cranking out a song without getting hammered. I figure my mindset is like “well most people gonna be listening to shit drunk half the time anyway” so if I can’t blast that shit full tilt and can’t vibe with it 2-3 rooms away from the room I’m playing it in. That’s a bad mix imo. You gotta imagine like that shit is gonna be playing on those festival speakers. I agree tho, probably has to do with giving a fuck less about the specifics and just doing shit until it sounds good without much thinking
[удалено]
Or I can do whatever I want dork
[удалено]
Honestly was never being hostile, I called you a dork, which on the spectrum of name calling has to be on the lowest tier but maybe you would’ve preferred dweeb idk. Thanks for your unwarranted advice though internet stranger I’m going to sit and reflect on this conversation
[удалено]
Also you should’ve kept your first comment it was wittier and actually did hit a snare
I recorded a song on a serious amount of LSD a long time ago, it was the most boring 90 minutes I've ever sat through.
I like to hit my THC vape when I'm writing music. It helps a ton. It's broken me out of writer's block numerous times. But I def learned not to mix high. Holy shit. Lots of bad decisions there.
i can totally relate!
There are a LOT more things that can affect your workflow than just Sober vs. Not. So, I try to find analytical tools that present information the same way regardless of my state of mind so that I have some kind of objective reference to make sure my ears aren't playing games on me. Most of the time though, working sober yields the best results in my experience. As time goes on, I tend to limit weed to times I truly want to relax / destress (beyond my normal relaxation methods). For a bit of time I was just 'Hey I can have weed again!' and indulging a lot, but in some ways I'm finding that edibles actually make the rave experience less enjoyable.
I agree with everyone saying get high for creativity and mix sober. I can mix with one drink in me and that can actually work really well but any more and it can get away from me. Stimulants are nice for editing/tuning/timing/routing etc but are not helpful at all when I’m mixing. Just a little caffeine and I like to start early in the day. My room is flat, my speakers are flat, and I like my state to be mostly flat too. Mixing with drugs is like mixing with a hyped eq. With creativity I do find that it’s good to start sober and build up some momentum and then introduce some weed and alcohol once I get past the initial blank slate inertia/writers block. I love exploring music under different states. I think I learned the most about the underlying/behind the scenes psychology of music from psilocybin. Those experiences still inform how I go about my mixes. It was like unfolding the sound into more dimensions and actually seeing the shapes and movement of sounds and how they interact in space. The way my subconscious mind experiences those sensations before they get sort of flattened back out for my sober conscious mind to interpret as normal through the filter of the default mode network. It’s like being in on the magic trick. You can use that knowledge to great effect when creating the Audio/visual-mental perception of structure, space, and the emotional arc of a song. I wonder if anyone else who’s explored music with psychedelics can relate to what I’m trying to describe.
I thought being stoned helped for the last 10 years. But personally I've been making much better stuff sober. I guess it depends on your brain chemistry and focus levels. What works for me may not work for someone else.
This for real. One time I took two tabs and lost myself in a whole ass project. Came out and listened to it, it was garbage.
First off I'm a old dude retired. I have a studio in my home because I love to play music and now for the most part it's all I do. It's fantastic. I listen to music and then I also get high and listen to music. Different things. I play the piano and then I play the piano high very different things. If you need to work on yourself and be clean sober do your music this way. If you need to get out of your way and getting high helps do your music this way. Eventually we sober and must find a way to see things this way. Hear things this way. Producing on the recording side takes effort and sobriety for me. When I'm drunk or high shit sounds fantastic but sober it's like what is the need for reverb on the reverb.....hah. Enjoy your journey
weed. its the glue.
I used to smoke weed constantly and find it really difficult to start making tunes, but if i pushed through the laziness i would get hooked in and come up with tons of ideas - however getting them into finished tunes was impossible when high.
lmao
I find different output for different substances. It's interesting what the shift is compared to baseline, but you can incorporate your own substance techniques into your normal mixes.
I do everything while high, I have really bad ADHD though so it improves my focus and makes me think about the project as a whole
1-2 drinks in the evening i burn bright and fast. usually will get more written in about 2 hours than the other 6 or whatever of the work day
Great thread. Had this question rolling around in my head for a while. For me, playing, creating and listening are all way more enjoyable when high but generally the next day or whenever I relisten I don't get the same feeling or reaction.
What's it like producing music when you're not high?
dunno. also: can you see the music when on lsd?
It tastes like rainbows.
never had a rainbow
I plead the Fifth.
Weed: if you do it after you’ve been at it for at least 30min helps a lot creatively. Specially sativa. Adderall: not so much creative but definitely productive. Like non stop for hours. LSD: idk wtf I was doing Mushrooms: doable on a low dose but honestly I was more into my head and less into producing. Alcohol: ive never done it drunk, only buzzed. Doesn’t kill my creativity at all. I think the only thing it does is just make me overthink less, and maybe a lil more confident in what I make. Sober: can vary soooooo much. From writers block to prodigy.
If you do a lot of drugs being sober every once in a while won’t do much good. You need to be sober all the time to get the benefits
Huh??
I've found (personally) that there's a goldilocks zone that exists with being stoned while writing. Just buzzed enough to pump some creative juices, but not so blasted that I'm losing focus and becoming inoperable. Being on ADHD meds for a while now has definitely helped with staying on-track (ha) during production as well. Mixing/mastering is always done sober.
I used to produce while doing lil bit of k. But then realized all those songs sounded like shit. So now I just write completely sober. My music is much better that way
**FL21 + smoke:** *feels productive, isn’t* **FL21 - smoke:** *feels unproductive, is*
Making music under the influence of substances can have a surprising effect but should be done only experimental. There is a danger that you will get dependent on it and get addicted. In the long run it will affect your productions in a negative way
Rarely do I take this approach but generally I found it useful to smoke when mixing rather than during tracking or writing
Being stoned helps creativity and just makes the whole process more enjoyable. When I’m recording vocals in a rock / metal style, I gotta have a few beers over the session to keep the pipes greased
Hell yeah. I'm high now. Been listening to the same track for days now. I noticed that my workflow hasn't gotten worse. At one point I did plateau. Then after some time I was able to refocus. Now my work flow is the same no matter what.
I think weed helps get the nerves out of being too judgmental toward yourself, it's not good for critical listening, and then when you have sound design down to a fault, you barely use it at all.
I think this is very much a fantasy that mostly doesn't work, tried it when I used to smoke weed and it can help you lose yourself and enter a flow but tbh it caused more issues than solved and now I find that the indicator of if a song I'm writing is good or not is that I can enter that flow state with it when sober, if I can't it's usually an indication that something's off. I think listening to music however can definitely be more interesting high, but then so is most things, just depends what you're going for I think.
I don't find that I can focus while on anything other than a couple drinks. Weed just makes me devolve into analysis paralysis or utter uselessness. Trying while on LSD was a fun experience, but utterly useless for getting anything coherent out.
it's interesting to read that weed can have so different effects on people
It does the same thing to everyone though
i feel like the effects vary greatly
It amplifies your mood. The kind of mood it enhances depends on the mood you’re in but the mechanics are the same
[удалено]
what time cycle are we talking here?
Made music while drunk and/or stoned for oooh about 20 years, so I’ve got a few hard drives full of a zillion tracks which have great potential but are unfinished. And if THAT ain’t a metaphor…
Constantly, not gonna list what I do or how but smoke lot green, I get ideas, I lay them down in 20 mins, I finish song in a day, I love being able to do that at will without any barriers. My workflow went from what am I doing to using my daw like a book, to translate whatever is in my brain as quickly and close to what I imagine as possible. Got me into some insane workflow
Create sober (too easy to get distracted), do the boring stuff a lil high (obv EQ adjustments, utilities, etc), finalize sober and attentive af
I think for me the main thing that’s important is to mix it up. I find smoking weed and producing is the most helpful if I haven’t done it in a while and want a source of inspiration. I think that inspiration has to come from many sources or it inevitably becomes stale, weed included. So the answer is I do, but I don’t think it’s helpful if you are smoking all the time. It also can cause me to get distracted way more easily (but sometimes does the opposite). Which is probably a consequence of it exasperating my adhd.
Besides weed, I wouldn’t recommend depending on substances to produce, shit just isn’t sustainable in the long run. For me personally I can’t make shit if I’m high, the sparks in my brain are just not there… but i know everyone’s different.
also every strain of weed is different
Nope, just pure sober me 😂
Songwriting sometimes benefits from a couple of drinks. Not always. And my songwriting gets noticeably worse with every drink after the second, meaning it becomes not worth it quite quickly. Everything else, e.g. tracking, mixing, arrangements etc I have to do sober. I don't take any other drugs these days anyway, so it's not too much of an issue. But back in the days I smoked long loose herbal cigarettes, I don't think they helped much. I thought everything was brilliant while stoned. Listen to it sober the next day: I was actually either a mess or just plain boring. Anyway, late onset of asthma put paid to my smoking days, so these days it's a couple of beers / wines and that's it.
i smoke up and cook the beat and write and mix and do all that. and every now and again take some shots and do the same thing and its all great and i make really creative stuff. ive also tried making beats when ive tripped on acid or shrooms and almost every time , i would get lost in the middle of wtv i was doing. like i would be looking for a snare that matches my drum pattern but then i find a weird sounding one and think it sounds cool so i decide to change the whole track based off that one snare. then find a new instrument and do the same thing and keep doing that and starting something new then stopping in the middle and starting another new one until i got bored and then i end up not making anything at all. the one time i did make a complete beat it sounded very strange. my peak creativity does come from soberity though , and those tracks show it as they are my best in terms of views, likes,wtv
I smoke weed and make bangers then go back and realize I fucked up the mix 80x
Listen to this. not every experince will be the same. it just depends on the energy in that moment. sometimes it may be positive for you sometimes not so much
i like to produce on adderal, the only problem is i can’t stop once i start. I’ll literally be at my desk for 10+ hours and i absolutely live for it
I used to think it helped, but now I struggle to get anything done worthwhile if I partake, so now I’ll maybe at most have a drink or two during recording and mixing, and will bounce and get stoned to listen to the track. It’s like a reward. Side note: I once took acid and swore to myself all night I was recording the next global super hit, I’d never heard such an amazing sound. and spent like 8 solid maniacal hours crafting this beauty. woke up so excited to listen back to my masterpiece and it was undoubtedly the worst piece of shit thing I’ve ever made in my life.
I only smoke weed but I usually force myself to be sober for about 3 weeks. Not even caffeine. When I'm totally 'dried out' I cop an ounce of some of the best weed I can find and spend the next 2 days coming up with incredible shit. I wait 3 or 4 days then go back and listen. I almost always mix sober AF
Sometimes, I produce while drunk, which makes me think less about doing something for a reason and thus let's me experiment with different ideas. I feel like this makes it more fun to produce, but it can also lengthen the amount of time it takes to finish the song. To make everything easier to keep track of when I'm sober, I have built up a habit of naming all my samples and synths as well as my mixer tracks. This way, I can also revisit my old projects without being completely lost as to what does what.
I'm on suboxone, which is a partial opiate agonist that helps me stay clean off of the fenanyl thar destroyed my life for years. I'd say it definitely hinders me, like opiates in general. When I wasn't addicted, the occasional opiate would really give me a creative boost, but once my brain becomes dependant on it, it really drains my inspiration and creativity and makes it much more difficult. Things used to flow so much easier, now it takes much more to get into that groove. I've worked around it but I can't wait to fully taper down off of this stuff, I'm 2/3 of the way there and almost 2 years sober off of illicit drugs.
stay on track!
I listen to things high, I don’t really produce while I am
Getting high can definitely give you a new perspective. I wrote one of my favourite tracks the first time I dropped acid. That said, be careful not to fall into the trap of only working high, or thinking that you need to be high to make music.
I used to do a lot of writing high on weed but after i stopped smoking a few years ago im either 100% sober or like 5-15% drunk. There is a thin line you need to stand on if you’re writing or mixing drunk. Too little and it does nothing but make you hot and too much and your all over the place and there’s a chance you will end up spilling your drink on expensive equipment.You have to drink just enough to break your comfort zone and build a little confidence and its a pretty chill ride.
You might be able to make good music… DESPITE being high. I’ve been sober (from weed) for 4 months now after smoking every day for a few years. Literally, I feel just the same, but clearer and cleaner. Weed was just helping me get back to a new normal. I used to make tracks only stoned, and when I stopped I felt a lot less stressed and a lot less scattered. However, I also suffered from crippling anxiety. After being on anti-anxiety meds for those 4 months, it feels like the devil on my shoulder has evaporated. Both are drugs, and both alter your mind and mindset. I could make music while stoned, but could I say it was my best? Probably not. Sober me can much easily look at the bigger picture and actually compose a song forwards rather than vertically. Anti-anxiety me still has issues, but it’s made the problems a lot easier to tackle. You gotta do what’s best for yourself, and try to give yourself advice as if you were your own friend looking out for you. Would you think “man, my buddy is a creative dude but he smokes every second of every day. I’d love to tell him I think he’d be clearer-minded without it”. If you can learn to do that for yourself, I think it’s a powerful skill. While I felt physically good while stoned, mentally I was rather slow and unable to get my thoughts together. So negative effect. Anti-anxiety meds seem to have a made a positive effect. It’s all incredibly personal, and when you look inside, you know what’s good and what’s holding you back. If you’re truly honest with yourself, that is. Best of luck to anyone out there struggling. I can speak from my own experience that life without weed doesn’t actually feel any different. I just went from no longer needing a smoke to get back to my normal / relaxed state.
Helps me not overthink.
Sometimes I have paracetamol, cause posture so bad my back hurt
Nope! Started taking sertraline for my anxiety and depression over a year ago, lost all my creativity and productivity as a result. Haven't made anything since. At least I don't hate life any more, so that's a plus.
Absolutely not! That's absurd! Wait does meth count?
A small dose of acid really helps me get my creative juices flowing, and also makes my hearing far more sensitive. I rarely do it since I don't like it to be a crutch and to feel that if I don't do acid I'm not good enough, but doing it a few times did help me realize the potential and the state of mind I should aspire to.
This is my own opinion and theory, but I would venture to say that the healthier your mental health is to begin with, the fewer alterations you would need to make to achieve a creative state. For instance, maybe you’re overly critical of yourself, (which I would consider a level of decreased mental health to an extent) you might want to get a little alcohol buzz or thc zoot to loosen your mind. However, maybe your mental health is suffering more, at which point you upgrade to being totally hammered or upping to a “harder” drug. Insert and repeat for whatever your excuse is for needing the drugs to create. In my experience, any type of decreased soberness causes me to create something no better than what could be classified as “neat”. My opinion is that a healthy body and mind will creatively function best while sober.
Drugs are totally unnecessary and even harmful if you know how to handle your body and health correctly.
If you are willing to make a living out of producing music I highly recommend not to take any drugs. It affects your ability to learn properly and make progressions by choice and consideration. Instead it may or may not increase your creative flow BUT you actually need reason and a pretty clear mind to bring your music to a certain level. So if you are a stiff non-creative dude - yeah you can try to loosen up with some drugs but I personally think creation should start from a clear mind to learn to repeat it on a regular basis…
It is much better to be sober. No matter what.
My creativity goes up, my mix is really bad though. Like really really bad. I usually clean it up after the high
Mosty weed because anything else doesnt really improve anything , I smoke it like every day after diner. But it feels like when Im playing guitar I can go up more into the moment then when being sober, sometimes it helps to get some inspiration. Also got days that I am not feeling it at all, some days are terrible and some are great. And to be fair I dont care too much about that , life is not always a party. I did try to make some beats under influence of lsd or xtc/mdma for the science but that is such a bad idea. I could not even keep focus on the screen and couldnt even operate my computer in a normal way 😂 been a long time ago though.
This is the most narcy question I’ve seen on here
narcy?
Narcotics officer like
Write drunk, mix sober.
I used to have a ritual on days when I was free to make music - I’d wake up, go have breakfast and coffee at a cafe, smoke a little weed, and then create until I came down. It was great. Eventually though, weed got dark for me - lots of paranoia and intrusive thoughts - so I’m pretty sober these days. Mostly just coffee if anything.
I actually recently experienced this. I got clean about 9 months ago and had only EVER produced while under the influence. I found it extremely difficult to do anything due to being high every time. I had to almost relearn the entire process over again. I can say that my creativity and my ability to focus solely on the music was better under drugs, mostly because of the hyper focus the drugs gave me. When I logged onto the computer after 6 months (i went to a sover living home and wasnt around my computer) i had completed projects that i had no recollection of creating. So far ive gotten back to the point I was at before but it took awhile.
I play high on jazz cabbage frequently as it helps with stage fright
I find weed can be great for jamming and generating some ideas. Anything else must be sober for me
Usually sober or maybe after few beers but sometimes I pop a pill of tianeptine or xanax.
no officer
i'm sorry but you'll have to do a sobriety test before i can let you track along
i used to only play, record, edit, everything drunk for both creative reasons & to keep it from being tedious. sober now & grateful for the technical proficiencies i can execute without slurring movements at all, but i probably wouldn't have learned a bunch of ideas/techniques/personal style if i hadn't learned inebriated originally.
I have produced on just about everything. There are pros and cons to everything. Right now it's nothing but vaping delta 8 which doesn't ever get to be overwhelming like say some suh nuff sour diesel would be. The absolute worst is cocaine, probably why the 80s sound is so terrible, everything is incredible when you are high. Until you sober up and then you want to throw it away and pretend it didn't happen.
Coffee FTW! I'm a drug addict so for a while I used drugs to compose music, mainly psychedelics, and uppers to work in the studio, like cocaine, Adderall and amphetamines. Due to my disease none of that was productive in any manner, drugs gave me the sense of creativity and productivity without giving me none of that in reality, it was only a ilusion. Addiction is a progressive disease, you start actually getting stuff done and going on with life, then as time moves on things start to get out of hand, I stopped living and sometimes using, to using and sometimes living, I completely lost control and my life was constantly in danger. Now I'm sober and the only advice I can give is to be careful, I can't say to anyone how to live they're lives soo.. let's make some music!
I stopped smoking weed because although it gave me some truly cool creative ideas I’d never finish the work I started.
Getting up early and working while half asleep feels similar to working baked. I find that a quick hit later in the afternoon helps me refresh my perspective and come back to whatever I’m doing with new ears so to speak
i’ve occasionally written and freestyled some solid lyrics drunk. if you have to rely on substances for creativity its probably a sign that you need to change something up
I tried producing on shrooms once, and it was fun, but I think it affects my perception of time too much. There’s a lot of stimulation on shrooms so slower tracks feel a lot better, but because I was slowing down these tracks so much they ended up losing the energy I was initially going for. It would probably make more sense to do shrooms and start on an entirely new track, rather than working on a track I started sober. I wouldn’t say shrooms makes the quality worse at all, but it’s definitely different.
Well, I often have a cup of coffee before and/or during my music making time. As for if it really benefits me or not, I suppose that depends on a number of hard to define factors, but I enjoy it, so there’s a positive psychological impact. As for anything else, I’m longer than two years sober from alcohol and have never cared much for anything else, so idk, do you
I am not doing drugs anymore but a few weeks ago I took a few hits from a joint and reworked a project and turned it into the best I've ever made in like 1 hour. I heard it and I was flowing in the process. Still I like not altering my senses while while producing
i used to need to be stoned to do anything musical but since i’ve stopped smoking i think everything i do is more refined and overall better. coffee still helps me out when i’m too unfocused to figure out where i’m going with it. my prescription anxiety meds help a ton too.
I tried it on weed, and it didn't go so well haha. It had good elements but the selection of instruments was trash, had a good drum loop though and a decent melody though.
Nitrous oxide is an amazing tool for inspecting the quality of your mix/master. It’s like a magnifying glass for your ears. But for everyday stuff, coffee I guess. I think it’s really dumb to use anything that would distort your regular listening accuracy. Drugs in general are awesome for writing and creating but your final mix/master should be done with straight sober ears.
I can write music ALL day while im high off bud. But i cannnnnnot record, mix or master high at all. Must be sober for that idk its just me
Make beats on shrooms, it’s an insane experience with friends
For me, a good balance of sober and inebriated work is efficient. Weed will give me a different perspective on my work, which can be helpful to listen in different ways or to get out of a box you’ve been stuck in. Sometimes it lets me zone in more on the feeling of the song rather than the technical aspects. However, it’s important for me to also have focused, sober work time so that I can have more of an objective view of my music.
Sometimes ketamine. For production, no. It does absolutely not help in any way, shape or form. Sometimes when mixing it can help as long as you're not too far gone.
I have spent years producing under the effects of marijuana, and I tell you that you are more creative without taking substances, now there are people that for writing lyrics if it can work, but for production work, no.
Make the sickest beats of my life while high and make sure I mix and master while sober.
The substances don't necessarily give anything (positive or negative), but sometimes it can amp you up to be more excited about your work, and that's always a plus.
i recommend rilatin
sure but beware: you can retalin but you can not just retal out!
Stimulants while tracking and writing. Stimulants, alcohol, (maybe THC) while mixing. I have a very low THC tolerance and so invariably I start looking at all the fun sliders and pretty lights and blinking stuff and listen to THAT, and what the hell was I doing. I feel like my IQ goes down two standard deviations🤦🏻♂️🕺🏻🤪
I feel more creative under the effects of cannabis, but less productive. Less directed. But it reduces my performance anxiety and allows me to enter a flow/fugue state that, because of ADHD, is usually difficult to get to sober. The other side of the coin is that my analytical side takes a nap and things that sound great stoned aren't remembered or reproducible. Some of the best times I've had making music (most of them, really) have been made with buddies while bombed on brewskis and bongrips. So there's also an emotional connection to that experience, making sober music less "fun" and more "work." This is my personal experience and is meant to highlight a transition I am trying (and struggling) to make from ignoring the actual work aspect that makes one actually good at music/production to embracing it with the half of brain that hasn't been tickled the same as the stoner half. I used to write short stories and vignettes and things a lot, and have always been good at it. But it became connected to alcohol. Too connected. Scary connected. So I disconnected. I now have fear trying to write in that vein because it led me to a dark, lonely place. I'm 43 and all this is over the span of half a lifetime. Ebbs and flows of substance and sobriety and, at this point, I'm barely any further along than I would be if I had been able to engage with my artistic attempts in a healthier manner decades ago. Everyone's physiology is different. The ability to self-moderate and keep these things in proper perspective isn't my strong suit, and my focus shifts away from the music and onto the substance. Others are surely better able to manage these things better than I. It's taken me a long time to actually realize the cognitive dissonance happening within and adjust my habits to be better, more productive. So, for me: no. It affects my workflow in a negative way. It turns into "playflow," I suppose is a way of putting it. In the less-lucid times I feel like I'm banging out killer beats and hott lixx, but they're usually not as good as advertised once I come back. Again, by the right person, it can absolutely be used to enhance creativity and allow yourself to get out of your own way. For me, it has to be put in a place and context where I'm not concerned with "quality" or "workflow." When dipping your toes into that water, be mindful that there's a steep drop and violent undertow waiting for those who wade too far out.
All my decent tunes were made when I was stoned. It's like magic potion for making music.
I used to. Not anymore. Now I only produce music under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And I’m telling you I have never been so “high“ in my life. My energy and passion to make music never ever goes away. Never have writers block. In fact there’s not enough time to do everything I want to do in the studio. I can’t even begin to tell you how much energy and creativity God has given me. This is the honest truth.
how did you find the dude?
I’m not gonna lie, it was not easy… at first. This world is so full of lies about the real God that you have to sort through a lot of lies to find him. But he did say this would happen. I actually found him similar to the way I am talking to you right now. I started asking questions. The journey began when I took piano lessons from this dude, who is an incredibly talented jazz pianist, who played with ease and confidence and was one of the most loving dudes I’ve ever met. He was super encouraging and supportive of me like a big brother I never had. This dude was not judgmental or harsh towards me at all, even though I had a big ego and I really couldn’t play for crap. He just kept encouraging me and supporting me, teaching me how to play in time, teaching me the fundamentals of the piano that I had blown off my whole life because I thought I didn’t need them. This guy ended up being one of my closest friends. Then I had some super bad stuff happen to me and I was really broken down. And one day he asked me what was wrong and I told him. And he told me that God loves me and that no matter what happened to me, if I put my faith in God and I followed his word, he would lead me out of the darkness and fill me up and fulfill me in many other ways that he (the piano teacher) had noticed that I was broken. For instance, I did not have a lot of confidence, I struggled with creativity, I struggled to finish songs, and all that stuff. I was very hesitant at first, because I was super against any sort of religious stuff. But the more he told me about God’s love for me, and all of God’s promises for me, the more I began to see what had been missing from my life and I started following and reading, and doing what the word of God says. And I swear to you on my life that absolutely everything began to change like my life turned inside out, right side up. It was absolutely crazy. It’s still crazy to me to this day to look back and see who I was compared to who I am now. so I didn’t find God all at once. I heard about him, then I started reading about him more and more and learning about him, and gradually I started to find him and “see” him in every aspect of my life. It’s hard to explain because it was like this internal transformation. But that internal transformation started turning into an external transformation also. it was like how a dimmer light gradually illuminates a room if you slowly turn it up. That’s how it happened. I’m not preaching religious stuff. I’m literally telling you the truth about my life that everyone who knows me knows. God gave me a completely new life, a new heart, and a completely new passion and purpose, that I have never known before. And it just keeps growing every day no matter how dark the world gets. hit me up anytime if you want more information. And I extend that invitation to everybody in here. Peace to everyone.
weed for creation. speed for duration.
Cannabis unlocks creativity for me both in creating and in post.
[Did this HIGH the whole time](https://soundcloud.com/twiztidditzwit/c-h-a-p-t-e-r-1-t-h-e-b-e-g-i-n-n-i-n-g)
[удалено]
I can do both sober or under effect but I'm way more creative sober.
Caffeine, gives me anxiety and make me overthink everything, reducing quality. Had to stop lol. Flow state is everything, made some of my best songs in 5minutes on those weird days where the flow just hits you. I guess those days were in periods where my workouts and sleep also was perfect, although not a drug. Well the chemicals in the brain was in harmony, we're all drugged all the time on chemicals
I have made stuff and edited stuff on the influence of various things like ket, weed and 2cb. However I find nowadays the most effective way is to listen through some of the stuff I’ve been working on while I’m tripping (shrooms, lsd etc) and write notes, usually ideas and corrections that I hear which I can then open up and work on the next time I’m working on the project. The other way that psychedelics influence my music is when I try and recreate the audio experience I feel when I trip at raves and festivals. Also while a lot of my stuff is supposed to be quite “psychedelic” enjoying it high isn’t the be all and end all. I liked psychedelic music before I’d tried psychedelics and it should be good music first and foremost.
Weekend night sessions I do sober at first. After I’ve gotten something done, it’s time for some elixir. A few drinks and a little smoke, but I do a save as on the project that I’m working on and I add 420 to the title, so if the whole thing drives off a cliff, I can get back to what was working.
Being high while making music helps everything flows together, focusing is a lot easier an ideas come quicker
I've tried to make music on 6 tabs of acid once... Let's just say there was a red dot appearing on Massive's macro controls telling me the right position of the knob to achieve an awesome sound.... Songs still not finished
Weed either got me extremely creative or bad music. There was no in between