Creativity is by definition rather the breaking of than a set of rules. But there are rules with creative work that stood the test of time and are really making the creative process easier and more results oriented.

One fundamental rule in producing (and mixing) music is: Find the most important element of the song and emphasize it!

Many mixing and songwriting tricks are kind of “subtractive” to fulfil this rule. A great melody doesnt need dozens of notes. See if you still can cut down your songtext or your arrangement. Dont play the stuff that isnt helping the main element (or mix it really soft). Try to mute clashing instruments. Prefer subtractive EQ etc… A lot of producing and mixing is “taking away”.

And i had this song with too many elements. Several minutes of multiple tracks of edited synthetic percussion, a piano melody, string hits, an acoustic drumloop and two electronic drumloops, sampled string harmonies, a lot of sound effects, re-amped synths, loops and strings… and moreover i found that fat bassline… normally i had to trash half of it and split the rest between three songs… but i wondered WHAT WOULD IT SOUND LIKE to put it ALL IN…

It was a total mess For example there really are THREE drumloops playing at the same time… here is a snippet that plays them one after the other and then together with another bassdrum and a ride cymbal like in the final song…

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That was fun and i went on producing in such a “maximal” style… the number of elements is exceeding the number of elements in three normal electronic songs by far, but i liked it somehow… mixing wasnt easy, because conceptionally i didnt want to mix parts too soft… otherwise it would count as ALL IN

Here are the elements of one part at the end of the song being played briefly one after the other - in the  song they all play simultaniously of course…

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So it began as an experiment to break a firm rule of music production for the sake of creativity, but finally it became one of my personal favourite 5 of THIRTEEN STORIES.