Day 26: Don’t Trip Over the Finish Line
It’s day 26 of 31 for #jamuary2026. I’ve done every day, and I’m feeling good about things.
To recap: I was prepared to do this mainly on the MPC, and I had a backup plan to go to the OP-1 if that wasn’t working. And if things were really bad, I’d go to Ableton.
What’s actually happened is I’ve done most stuff on the OP-1, and probably one out of every three OP-1 days is an MPC day—which I think is working, and they’re both benefiting from each other.
It’s frozen here in Texas, so I’ve been doing some reviewing. One of the dangers is this: “Hey man, I’ve got an excellent amount of tracks for a release, but I really need X, so I better get X more before the end.” You can’t fall into that trap, because then the music just stops. You’re already onto the next stage. You’re not staying in your flow state—you’re just trying to hit a target.
You can be cognizant of the end result and say, “Yeah, it’d be nice to release a record.” But the thought is: you only get what you get. If it’s a two-song release out of 31 days, great. If it’s 10 songs, great. If it’s a 40-minute release—my ideal—then great. A cassette, 45 minutes… ultimately that’s what I’d like to do: release a cassette.
But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves.
You have to stay in it until it’s over. For me, it’s over next Monday, or whatever the 31st is, and then I can start really reviewing (cutting!).
If this goes anything like the last one 2 years ago, there’s really no revising. And maybe one of the cool things about the OP-1 tracks is they’re a little rushed—especially if I don’t put the drums on until last, like track 26. Maybe it's not cool. IDK.
I tried to put some of them into Ableton the other day to make a live mix, and once you start straightening out and quantizing, it’s just a disaster. I’m going to have to figure that out for a live dj realize party thing. Maybe it’s with the super cool big EP series from Teenage Engineering… but again, that’s getting way ahead.
The only goal now is to finish jamuary. That's it! I know I’m going to have enough songs, so there’s no pressure there. Hopefully I’m cutting to get to 40 minutes, which I think is probably going to be the case.
Then I can worry about a March cassette release when that comes.
Party on