How do you know when a track is done

[Into_The_Void]

I´m very slow in music making, and I approach to the development of a track (or more tracks in their entirety) as it was somehow a painting, or a puzzle, putting together the pieces and giving them an homogeneity  which expresses what I want to channel into the music. In this sense, I give me a very wide range of time to "feel" that a track is ready.

[Cranial Blast]

Hard to say, depends on the "track/or song" that you're trying to create, for me personally when it comes to PE/Noise it can be long drawn out to fade when the track seems more "compositional" or when it's more bursted out and spontaneous, could just end in screaming and stop all at once. You'll be the decider in that outcome ultimately. I remember awhile back talking with Patrick O'Neil in regards to something similar on the matter and it seems like with some of the harsh noise and the more compositional type of stuff, like he does in more modern Skincrime that it is drawn out in length with an intent to fit a proper compositional outcome. I've tried to incorporate that idea with some of my works in PE/Noise, but obviously Patrick a lot more experienced and has a much greater "Aube" like focus for such detail can master that sort of achievement. It's a kind of like funeral doom. That entire genre is all about timing and pacing to achieve the great end results often times. I've tried to introduce that sort of pacing with my dungeon synth/dark ambient music too, but it can be a challenge, but ultimately it comes down to what you "the artist" has in mind for a goal and what you'd like to achieve in the grand scheme of things, so really there is no wrong or right way to end a track.

[Penon]

When I notice that I have reversed all of the recent "improvements" to the recording/mixing, then track is good to go. I used to be a perfectionist in all aspects of my life but it served me well over the last decade to decidedly push against that and recognise where it is enough for stuff to be 95% perfect instead of 100%.

I have convinced myself that making music falls into that category - even though it may seem at first that projecting your artistic vision 100% accurately is important for a musician, there is one thing I want to stress - ultimately listener will not know (and also potentially will not care) about your artistic vision anyway and if final track sounds 95% perfect to you, it may well sound 110% perfect to the listener.

[bad milk]

Having recently switched from using a DAW to a 4-track tape recorder for mixing / post-production, I can attest to some of the earlier statements about the endless fiddling and tweaking that come quite naturally with the apparent ease of use of digital tooling. It's too easy to lose focus of what actually is essential for the track and start attending to completely irrelevant details instead. This leads to the feeling that the piece is finished receding further and further away.

Personally the DAW work is also one of the biggest turn offs when it comes to creativity, and always was the most painstakingly boring aspect of making noise.

[tiny_tove]

once is sounds complete, it does not bore me, and I have enough of it

[Penon]

Having recently switched from using a DAW to a 4-track tape recorder for mixing / post-production, I can attest to some of the earlier statements about the endless fiddling and tweaking that come quite naturally with the apparent ease of use of digital tooling. It's too easy to lose focus of what actually is essential for the track and start attending to completely irrelevant details instead. This leads to the feeling that the piece is finished receding further and further away.

Personally the DAW work is also one of the biggest turn offs when it comes to creativity, and always was the most painstakingly boring aspect of making noise.

Agreed. While I am not brave enough to record straight to tape, I try to record all the music in a single live session in a way that doesn't require any digital modification (other than maybe fade-in or fade-out, and of course basic mastering such as compression/limit). So I only use DAW to add vocals which I record separately (only because I don't have enough brain capacity to record music and vocals at the same time) and samples. Music itself, once recorded, stays untouched.

[Leewar]

Many times have been guilty of 'tweaking' for far longer than necessary, and for the most part, not really making it any better.

These days a far more strict approach has yielded better results.

Construct the song, get it roughly sounding 'right' then record it live into the 2 tascam 4 tracks at a pretty loud volume. Makes obsessing over some tiny nuance pointless as it'll usually get lost, but the sounds of overloaded tape and equipment pushed into the red reveal a whole new set of nuances that somehow sound more 'alive', songs can therefore take on a new and interesting twist.

Capturing the energy rather than trying to capture every single sound perfectly.