I Might Take A Stab At Making Music

Mind you, I'm pretty clever (ha), but I know fuck-all about music - would Garageband on my Mac be a good place to start, or is there something easier/better/get better initial results out there?

What would you all suggest I do for making sounds to work with?

Man, feels weird being a noob in my own forum! :laughing:

I would stay away from garage band. However, I can recommend hardware as a good start to learn about synthesis, etc. However, there are some good programs like Renoise out there.

anywhere is a good place to start, just anything that looks interesting to you.

Reason opened a lot of doors for me creatively. i think it's a good starting point because of just how it resembles hardware, even down to the cable system, and that makes a lot of the process easier to understand.

it's not the best, but as far as a sketchpad for music it's wonderful and inviting.

once you get a feel for the process of songmaking then tryout trackers like Renoise for something a bit different.

Cool... I like the virtual aspect of Reason. I might try it out!

mc-303

I'd personally start with a professional paradigm with a good video tutorial or book.

Its similar to learning Visual Basic before C++. You swear you understand programming, and when its time to move on you can't grasp the basics of the fundamentals.

Thats right I compared Reason to Visual Basic.

I'd just straight into Logic or DP or Pro Tools.

Ableton will suffice too but it can be esoteric.

On a side note I started with trackers and I still feel some risidual after effects of moving into a professional recording environment.

i think Reason is great starting point

starts as an all in one, then if you outgrow it -> DAW /sequencer with rewire

add VST's, etc.

i don't think it's going to hinder his thinking

Reason

Fruity Loops if you can run Windows on there. Easiest to use, period.

Reason isn't a bad starting point to learn about hardware and how sound works in a digital audio workstation.

reason or FL

i like renoise it maps notes key to key.

don't use Garageband. if you're on a Mac then I guess Ableton or Reason (probably Reason). If you're using a PC, definitely go for Fruity Loops.

Go for it! Release Joyrex J10...

http://forum.watmm.com/index.php?showtopic=18440

make a deaf tune immediately and post it in there^^^

Fruity Loops.

ooh, even better than deafcore deafnoobcore

  Adjective said:

anywhere is a good place to start, just anything that looks interesting to you.

Reason opened a lot of doors for me creatively. i think it's a good starting point because of just how it resembles hardware, even down to the cable system, and that makes a lot of the process easier to understand.

 

it's not the best, but as far as a sketchpad for music it's wonderful and inviting.

once you get a feel for the process of songmaking then tryout trackers like Renoise for something a bit different.

absolutely.. stay the fuck away from trackers if you are a noob, youll just get frustrated and not learn about keyboard playing etc

i found digital performer to be very sane and easy to get going with. but the program is also $500 if you intend to buy it legally.

other than that for doing it on the cheap i'd go with renoise if i were you. you can make music with JUST that one program, but also get pretty fucking deep with it as well, so it's not very limiting, and legally it's only $60, can't beat that.

honestly i've never fucked around with garageband so i can't say anything about that.

  Joyrex said:

What would you all suggest I do for making sounds to work with?

this is only tangentially related but one

thing i learned from drumb lessons is to

count 16th notes like this:

1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a

where plus is pronounced "and" this will

help you to plot your drumb ideas if you

count them this way and then maybe try

graphing them so you can import to renoise.

  skytree said:

I'll echo the sentiments of starting with FL if you have a Windows machine to run it on. It's a very good place to start, though you'll probably move on to other software after a while. It's extremely fun to play with, gives you lots of sonic ideas, and is relatively simple to use.

hmm. not nessecarily true. Saying that one would move on after a while implies that although a "fun" piece of software, it offerns nothing beyond a novice position. Bottom line is, the base of fruity loops is one of the strongest out there. No problem is branching out, but using FL for rhythm and general foundation of tracks is one of the best out there for PC. Im not saying that this is true in nessecarily the programming of the software.. i think we can all agree that FL isnt exactly easy on the eyes (or... maybe TOO easy is the reality of it), but if you are looking for a place to balance intuition with sound experiments (most of mine have been done using Cecilia these days, tho i am becoming increasingly interested in Blue), FL is the route to go on PC, imo.

You should rename this thread to "If you've only seriously used 1 sequencer your whole life, post the name of it here"

  acid1 said:

You should rename this thread to "If you've only seriously used 1 sequencer your whole life, post the name of it here"

Don't be a turd.

I've got prior experience working in RTE's doing video (and of course audio tracks) [i used to make commercials for cable companies at my old job 9 years ago]...

wait... 9 fucking years ago!?!? Goddamn, I'm getting old...

Anyways, I've got experience cutting up and doing transitions between video tracks and audio tracks, so this works similar, right?

I'm going to try Reason first, then if I feel totally lost, I'll try FL on my Windows side of my Mac

reason or fruity loops would be good for learning sequencing and synthesis.

i started a while back on ACID.

I still use sound forge as my main wav editor, but goldwave is decent for freeware.

garageband is pretty shit, but it's free and you can get used to sequencing tracks and step sequencing drum parts. but i wouldn't do more than just mess with it as a learning tool.

  skytree said:

  Braintree said:

  acid1 said:

You should rename this thread to "If you've only seriously used 1 sequencer your whole life, post the name of it here"

 

Don't be a turd.

Yeah man...I've used over four different major software sequencers so far to compose tracks, not to mention hardware experience. I think there are a lot of very knowledgable people on this part of the board.

Seriously. I've used cubase, logic, digital performer, buzz, pro tools, and fruity loops. I like FL the most. So sue me.

In addition to making electronic music without a computer.

I still get nostalgic urges to use Fruity Loops, but now am able to do most of what I need with Ableton these days. Overall, I definitely won't disagree that FL is a quality app with an unfair stigma in the music community.