i find myself spending way too much time overanalyzing my stuff, my mix,whatever... i'm wondering how much time on average you guys spend on a single idea, and if there is a certain time frame where you are eventually forced to come to a conclusion about your beat before you get sick of it. any rules of thumb? i'm sitting on a pile of unfinished ideas...

sometimes u spend ages and often it only takes a few hours....but that´s both ok cause it´s the creativity that counts.

i get caught up tweaking sequencing of patterns and wind up building too many 'variation' sections...but mixing and levels i tend to do once and then only tweak later if it needs it, same for synth tones

half an hour to a couple of weeks of off and on touch ups

longest beat i had in limbo was "the birds" that was sitting around for a year, i would come back make a sample and forget about it

How much time you should spend on a beat should depend on your goals.

Do you have goals planned?

If your main purpose in beat making is self amusement (hobby) then the time spent on any idea shouldn't be to important. Spend as much time as you like on any idea until you lose interest and then put it on a shelf.

If you have goals that require producing beat ideas for a homie's mixtape, a live performance act, a record demo, record contract... Then the amount of time you spend needs to be judged by what is required to reach a level of success that you deem appropriate for the end result.

I know people are going to chime in on this thread with answers that range from 3 hours to 3 months. None of the answers will be wrong because it depends on the purpose of the beat.

amen. good to hear cause everytime i see folks that know i make beats they always asking "you got a new beat, yo where the beat at?" im like maaaan dont worry about it i got a few in the works.