What to buy for making tunes on a macbook pro?

electrofilth

I bought a Macbook Pro last year with the main purpose to make tunes, got lazy and only now am I deciding to buy some software. Or even rip off someone if its mac compatible. Would prefer to buy proper edition though.

I plan to make mainly dirty techno, minimal techno and dubstep.

A friend reckons Reason would be good to start off with. Any opinions on this?

The stupid thing is i did a sound training course (in temple bar music centre) that covered all this, but that was in 1999/2000 and I since then I am out of practice and dont really know what set up would suit me....Any help would be greatly appreciated...

also there is an educational version of reason available, for teachers, students etc...does this mean i could get some teacher i know to get it for me at reduced price or has anyone heard of this before?

seannash

dont bother with reason as it doesnt let you use 3rd party apps,like softsynths or any other plugins.


logic all the way man,seriously the best one out there(well from the ones ive tried)people are gonna come along and recomend ableton ill bet but i think your wasting your time with that
logic logic logic:D:D:D

empirix

mate dont buy anything unless you change the attitude, its actually quite difficult to make a "good tune" and if your anywhere lazy then your in trouble.......i am not trying to be an $$$hole here but just putting youi wide yeah!

seannash

empirix wrote: »

mate dont buy anything unless you change the attitude, its actually quite difficult to make a "good tune" and if your anywhere lazy then your in trouble.......i am not trying to be an $$$hole here but just putting youi wide yeah!

attitude?

electrofilth

empirix wrote: »

mate dont buy anything unless you change the attitude, its actually quite difficult to make a "good tune" and if your anywhere lazy then your in trouble.......i am not trying to be an $$$hole here but just putting youi wide yeah!

attitude?

putting me wide?

lazy? yeah i said i was lazy but more in the sense that i didnt have the drive to be creative, its not a thing you can force,and now i got it back again

sorry i think you have misunderstood me....or at least you are jumping to conclusions....i used to be in bands for years, i know how to make "a good tune",i know music theory and understand electronic music deeply, i certainly am not lazy or need to change my attitude...sorry for being defensive but i dont know where you are coming from.

studiorat

ABLETON 7...

I reckon the teacher would have to be the relevant type of teacher, I suppose. Reason is pretty limited after a while, Ableton or Logic have enough drum machines, synths and samplers not to need reason anyway.

I think reason has an easier learning curve anyway.

Setun

It depends how you want to approach making music. If you're into improvising and want to remix a session on the fly, get ableton live. If you prefer linear timeline based arrangements and hands-on manipulation of sound go for logic studio pro - the capacity and capabilites of the various plug-ins that come with it are astounding.

If you are a student or a teacher/buying for an educational institution you are eligible for a generous discount on both ableton live 7 and logic studio pro. If you are not either of the above you can't get the discount, and any suggestions as to how to get around this are mostly frowned upon on boards.

electrofilth

cheers for the replies, it looks like i will go with logic studio pro, as its more for making tracks, than remixing/dj live stuff, that i want the software for... a decent shop on ebay has it for 300 euro inc delivery, might as well go for it

empirix

sorry mate didnt mean it like that, apologies. I use reason rewired into protools, personally i think the sound engine in protools is the best there is by some margin, the beats you make in reason sound a whole lot better when run through PT, immediately lose that "reason" sound, PT 8 is coming out in december and looks to be savage and will probably put it back right on the top shelf! I would also recommend getting a good synth, i use a Korg Radias, Moog voyager and a waldorf blofeld, quite a diverse range, i use a roland 555 for beatmaking, softsyntyhs are good too but they dont come near the realmthing for me, but do have their use here and there

on the educational versions, i usually just buy them on ebay from a US shop(gigasonic) never ask for id!

gsparx

If you have enough money left I would get Reason too. It's pretty essential to be able to record your own audio (hence Logic or an alternative) but Reason is loads of fun, amazing for ideas, easy to get going on and also has the advantage of being deep. I've had Reason for years and I'm still learning new tricks on it.
On top of that you're not stuck with its internal sounds (which are good, by the way) It has a great sampler and drum machine where you can import your own sounds.

seannash

i dont think reason is necessary if you get logic.the synths and instruments that come with logic are just as good if not better than reason.if youve got money left over get a soft synth like predator,minimonsta,or the arturia jupiter v8.

gsparx

seannash wrote: »

i dont think reason is necessary if you get logic.the synths and instruments that come with logic are just as good if not better than reason.if youve got money left over get a soft synth like predator,minimonsta,or the arturia jupiter v8.

fair point, sean. i don't have logic, i use digital performer as my main DAW, but i do think reason is set up in a very inspirational way, particularly for someone starting out.
it's hard not to come up with good ideas in reason!
maybe logic is equally inspirational, i've only used it briefly.

electrofilth

i think i will go with logic, its only 300 euro inc delivery from ebay. they buyer sounds grand and another poster of this forum has bought logic from the buyer with no hassle. 300 euro for an unregistered sealed logic pro 8 seems like a great bargain to me!!!!....thanks for your opinions anyway. gonna get logic first then a midi controller, then either a synth or decent portable sampler to record some weird sounds around.....cant wait!

-jethro-

ive been using reason for about 4 years now (on an ibook first and now on a macbook pro) and i think its great. im into making minimal / tech house / techie kind of stuff, similar to yourself.

However, im gonna advise you to do this: an artist whom i befriended, morgan packard, swears by it and is a huge advocate (if you hear his album 'airships fill the sky' it sounds amazing and was made mostly with sc, it seems complex at first but if your starting from scratch why not start here?

its called 'supercollider' and is free to download. im only getting the hang of it now myself as im strictly a reason head, but now im enjoying this piece of software too...

electrofilth

bought logic from that guy on ebay.

from what i see, everyone bangs on about whatever software they are most familiar using, swearing its the best, but surely its how well you understand and use reason, logic, or ableton that matters, not which one you use?

creativity comes from experimenting and doing things differently, so i' m sure you can do that just as well on any program. thanks for all the replies anyway. now all i have to do is wait for it to arrive in the post

seannash

electrofilth wrote: »

bought logic from that guy on ebay.

from what i see, everyone bangs on about whatever software they are most familiar using, swearing its the best, but surely its how well you understand and use reason, logic, or ableton that matters, not which one you use?

creativity comes from experimenting and doing things differently, so i' m sure you can do that just as well on any program. thanks for all the replies anyway. now all i have to do is wait for it to arrive in the post

well thats true in some respect.alot of people reccomend software but fail to tell you that they havent tried anything else on that software,so someone who is doing okay on reason is going to recommend it.
ive used abbleton,reason and logic and the best is logic imo.
but yeah you can klame music on all of the programmes listed above

gsparx

the best thing to do is learn what you have really well. it's almost limitless what you can do with these programmes.
you've definitely made a good choice buying logic.