How do you keep flow in a track?

LRA has given me more confidence and inspiration to play, so I've been doing some stuff. I feel like it's let me be a lot better, but I still can't finish tracks. I feel like I have really cool openings (video below), but I always end up losing flow and giving up. The stuff in the video is basically the point I felt it looked good, and after 30 minutes, every line I added felt wrong and bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckIAVk12Cvw&feature=youtu.be

i think flow is acquired through time/increases as you grow more comfortable with the game

you also have to have an eye for whether whats currently being made works or not with the rest of the track

never not be willing to replace what you've made with something else that might look better, even if what youre replacing is cool on it's own.  flow is about the bigger picture

also, rotation plays a big part.  bosh should almost dance through a track, whether it be a ballet or some other dancing style thats more chaotic, i dont know what the styles of dance are.  

most important is the time part.  just keep playing and the flow will come to you

edit: another thing i do is never try to make too much track at once. I usually start out strong and gradually decrease until I hate what im making. I try to never make more than 5-10 seconds in a day, sometimes even less.

My style is known for its "fuck it" flow. Just playing the game, making what I think is fun.

My method usually involves planning it out extensively in my head (basically always with the music as a starting point), and then churning it out quickly over a short period of time. Whenever I've tried just making stuff on a blank canvas with no plan I usually end up making terrible half assed shit and hating it, lol.

With track (not scenery) I struggle to make track slower than about 2-3 seconds per hour, and I struggle to work on it for longer than 2-3 hours in one sitting.

Here's my process!

When thinking about "flow," you have to ask-- what makes something "flowey?" Lots of things "flow," but aren't consistently moving-- anyone who's watched Leomur or Votale or Splash has seen this in action. The contrapositive of this is also true-- there are several tracks that maintain consistent movement, but lack that special -something- that makes certain tracks really WATCHABLE.

What's that something? Well, as anyone who (ironically or not) listens to vaporwave would say...

a e s t h e t i c .

Start with a feeling. What do I want people to feel when they watch my track? Happy? Excited? Sad? Scared? Relaxed? World's your oyster here-- very few tracks explore the rare emotions of Line Rider (fear, disgust, bleakness, meditation... the list goes on), but you can do some of the basic ones with little to no technical expertise.

Next: what songs make me feel that way? When I made COME TO DADDY, I got sucked into a couple of things-- "Gyroscope" by Boards of Canada and shortwave "numbers" stations. These things creeped me out immensely, and were also things I felt would resonate with other people.

(I should also add-- when I started work on C2D, it was initially a way to channel residual anger I had IRL into something visible-- the change when I realized the possibility of spooky times really kicks in around ten seconds in).

After that, ask yourself this: how can I make the track I'm making reflect that feeling I get from that music? Let's say the music is full of little Flashbulb-esque breakbeat drum sequences. Maybe in that case, you'd add a lot of little twists and turns, with quick rotation and little stops here and there. If you want some kind of orchestral movement, constancy is definitely called for!

This is why I had a hard time getting behind Kramwood's original presentation of Forbidden, and why I ended up making my own-- he was trying to apply the "aesthetic" from the music (and thus what the audience expects to feel) to a myriad of track styles, some of which worked with the music, some of which didn't. Note that the reinterpretation only works because Kramwood's track was so patchwork-- when I tried it with, say, Handlebars, it was just another take on something which was already presented in a way that was just as good, if not better, than my own.

This is all totally subjective-- it's how I view Line Rider! If you're not feeling any of this, I don't mind-- I actually think tackling it from multiple perspectives will make for more and better art! I'm excited to see the direction you take with your trackmaking.

t l ; d r        l i n e        r i d e r        i s        v a p o r w a v e

efrazable wrote:My style is known for its "fuck it" flow. Just playing the game, making what I think is fun.

That's what I do as well.

OTDE wrote:After that, ask yourself this: how can I make the track I'm making reflect that feeling I get from that music? Let's say the music is full of little Flashbulb-esque breakbeat drum sequences. Maybe in that case, you'd add a lot of little twists and turns, with quick rotation and little stops here and there. If you want some kind of orchestral movement, constancy is definitely called for!

As someone who usually starts with a song i like, I do this same thing too. I like picking songs that create unusual results at this stage.

Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0UtgIFxtBY

The exceptions to this rule are basically every other track I've ever made unfortunately.

Spoiler:

So I have no real evidence this method actually works, lol. I sort of feel like all my art thus far has been mostly accidental and now I'm trying to actually do it for real. But basically every project I have on the chopping block is this method, including solo tracks and collabs. We'll see how it goes lol

I think maybe we all sort of blindly stumble on a lot of our best ideas. Come to Daddy was that way. So was Supersonic Motion. So was Assault. So was Retrograde. So was Funspiration. Even Valence 3 (it was started to test out conun's version and the song was picked about 30% in).

Tracks I can find that I can be sure were actually planned out from the beginning:
don't worry we'll keep in touch by gao (but it wasn't synced to a song at all)
intro by ryder (and preacher actually, which make ryder the only one to release 2)
handlebars by rofl
explosivo by cereal
happily ever after by CC (doubt this was synced to a song at all though)
no one dreams anyway by wolf spirit
evolution of line rider by the lcc (but the song wasn't picked/discovered until 60% in)

You can see it's a pretty small list, heh. But they're all really good tracks, no?

OTDE wrote:After that, ask yourself this: how can I make the track I'm making reflect that feeling I get from that music? Let's say the music is full of little Flashbulb-esque breakbeat drum sequences. Maybe in that case, you'd add a lot of little twists and turns, with quick rotation and little stops here and there. If you want some kind of orchestral movement, constancy is definitely called for!

this is exacccctltlltllty what I am doing with my current project. Method works, can confirm. Allthough I think it also depends on the level of control the player has over bosh.

N I C E  A E S T E T H I C S   B T W

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Another trail of thought:

Line rider is vaporwave. The thought has struck me before. The only difference, granted it is a big one, is the lack of irony and fuckery in the line rider community.

I long for tracks who fuck with people. Sudden change in beat or tempo. Unpredictable jaunts and movement. Annoying repetitions. Art is supposed to make you feel things. But not all feelings are positive. Considering my current sync-project, I might come off as slightly hypocritical, but I think it should be said either way:

PLAY WITH THE FORM. Be controversial. Do the undone. Have fun with it.

Anton wrote:Method works, can confirm.

I've seen tons (and I mean literally dozens and dozens) of people use this method to start tracks that never get finished. See my list above for tracks that actually got started and finished with this method (there are seven EDIT: there are eight, and only one person has made more than one EDIT 2: There are only 5 if you only want to count tracks synced to music from the beginning).  So, I'd say we should all hold our tongues until we are able to actually release a couple successful tracks using this method

The majority of great tracks getting released are either:
1) people who just hammer away like kram and then slap a song & stall on when it's long enough, or
2) people who experiment with a thing and blindly stumble on something that works, and work the remaining 50-80% of the track to fit that idea (often a song someone discovers syncs really well to the first part of the track)

I'm glad theres other vaporwave boys on this site

I'm waiting for someone to look for hidden links in my post.

FLOWEY CONFIRMED.