Original Music - where do I begin?

graham90

Hi guys, I've been playing around for a long time with electronic music in my room and now I'm looking to take it a step further and put some money into it.

At the moment, I have a dodgy version of Ableton 8, a comp that's ancient and prone to crashing, Line 6 Tuoneport, AKAI LPK25 and years of guitar/bass/piano playing and playing in bands to put towards my cause.

I've found the music I've made so far to be reminiscent of rock music with a very upbeat and dancy feel to it, with a big focus on unusual rhythms.

Thing is, I've very little knowledge of the Ableton software when it comes to things like sequencers, VSTI's (haven't a clue what they are) etc.

I'm looking at getting a DELL XPS (I can get one for cheap enough and will need a laptop anyway for college) with Ableton full version.

I was also looking at a Launchpad, Behringer BCR2000 and some sort of full sized synth, but can't quite decide.

Have you guys any advice on what are the best DAW controllers, synths, laptops etc for the right price and also any good ways of developing my skills with these things.

I have the talent and drive to create great music and I've written some great ideas on paper, the problem is translating them onto the computer!

Thanks

mordeith

graham90 wrote: »

Hi guys, I've been playing around for a long time with electronic music in my room and now I'm looking to take it a step further and put some money into it.

At the moment, I have a dodgy version of Ableton 8, a comp that's ancient and prone to crashing, Line 6 Tuoneport, AKAI LPK25 and years of guitar/bass/piano playing and playing in bands to put towards my cause.

I've found the music I've made so far to be reminiscent of rock music with a very upbeat and dancy feel to it, with a big focus on unusual rhythms.

Thing is, I've very little knowledge of the Ableton software when it comes to things like sequencers, VSTI's (haven't a clue what they are) etc.

I'm looking at getting a DELL XPS (I can get one for cheap enough and will need a laptop anyway for college) with Ableton full version.

I was also looking at a Launchpad, Behringer BCR2000 and some sort of full sized synth, but can't quite decide.

Have you guys any advice on what are the best DAW controllers, synths, laptops etc for the right price and also any good ways of developing my skills with these things.

I have the talent and drive to create great music and I've written some great ideas on paper, the problem is translating them onto the computer!

Thanks

Any of the commercially available DAWs should do but it's all dependent on taste which one you'd prefer. The main one is Ableton but plenty of prodcers use other software such as Logic, FLStudio, etc. You can usually download a demo to try them out first.

VSTs are virtual istruments/effects that work with your DAW and range in from being quite expensive to absolutely free.

As for translating your ideas into actual productions the intial process can be straightforward but the difference between an average production and a topclass one is often down to competent mastering and mixing which can take a long time to get right. Of course decent hooks, basslines and percussion are essential as well but depending on what synth/samples you're using the final outcome can vary greatly.

DeccyJ

Have a look at vintage synth explorer http://www.vintagesynth.com/

If you're interested in getting a digital or analogue synth they give you the pros and cons, likely prices etc, and members chip in with their own tuppence worth too. This is a great feature because some of the reviews obviously come from the manufacturer's promo material, obviously biased.

You can narrow down what you think you'd like and then just keep an eye on E-bay for a bargain. Bargains come up quite often unless you want a Roland analogue Juno or something, cause everyone wants one of those. But you can get lucky with those too if you keep enough of an eye out.

Re DAWs, etc, I'd recommend wiping your old pc and putting a Linux OS on it if you're worried about spending money. It's free, powerful, and there are many free legitimate music editing programmes available. Finding the time to use them is a different story though, and at the end of the day I suspect they may not be quite as good as Ableton. Definitely worth looking into though as it won't cost you a penny and you might not even need all the functionality that something like Ableton provides (most people don't).

Hayte

Electronic music is such a broad term that I don't really know what you mean. It helps to go back to a common point of origin because then you understand where the form of the music comes from.

So you could go back to Wendy Carlos and Terry Riley who scored pieces for synthesizers but they were modern composers. So what they did was really modern composition and I doubt its relevant to you, except for historical purposes. Even Moroder and Kraftwerk were sort of like, my influence's influences.

The common root of all of the dance music I listen to nowadays is that it was all created by people who didn't necessarily have formal training in music. They mainly used sound toys that nobody really wanted at the time like Roland TB-303s. Once you put yourself into that frame of reference, alot of things fall into place because they are a natural extension of circumstance.

So if you use a TB-303 you will find that you are locked into a 16 step sequencer with note on/off, "accent", "slide" and octave up/down. How do you make interesting music with a 16 step repeating pattern sequencer? It will close alot of doors but these are the tools that shaped modern dance music so it helps if you go get a 303 clone and a 909 clone with the sequencer and get used to programming the sequencer. The mindset follows after you have seen the tools and tried to use them.

Pretty much all of the early dance music I listened to was done either using built in sequences like on 303 and 909 and/or on Atari Music Composer with synths that were then regarded as cheap and limited (Roland Alpha Juno). Alot of it is repetitive because the tools used to create it only allow for short repeating patterns, so the challenge becomes - how do you making something repeat indefinitely without it sounding boring?

For various reasons, this chief amongst them, alot of early electronic dance music based on repeating sequencer patterns (and limited or no patch memory) are progressive out of necessity. By this I mean that it doesn't change suddenly like a verse into a chorus. Alot of these synthesizers were also monophonic which means that only one note could sound at any one time.

Polyphony and timbrality was highly limited in the early days so at best you could hope to get a synth where you could play 6 notes at once, meaning that you didn't have alot of control over overlapping notes or the precise lengths of sound and silence. You couldn't do complicated harmony so most early dance music was reduced to the fundamentals - rhythm and melody.

In some cases theres barely even melody as in the case of say, early drum and bass where even the bass was percussive (808 BDs).

Early samplers had limited memory which locked you into using short samples and the art of sampling comes about from trying to overcome the limitations of the tools by splicing and layering samples to make interesting variations. So I'm going back to stuff like early Photek.

So for me, that whole UK scene that sprang up around the M25 parties and Hacienda etc. were all homebrew. They all used cheap, limited tools and tried to make something approaching real music with them. But because they were so limited, you couldn't really make real music and the results were like early Psychic TV, Marshall Jefferson, Juan Atkins and all those guys.

Nowadays theres alot more scope to make full orchestral, live instruments, everything in your own bedroom because the tools are ridiculous now. You can pretty much do anything you want which is bad if you don't have a plan. Its also bad if you want to make music thats reminiscent of early Derrick May or something, because its the complete opposite of where that kind of music started.

krd

graham90 wrote: »

Have you guys any advice on what are the best DAW controllers

Learn to use, your mouse.

I have the talent and drive to create great music and I've written some great ideas on paper, the problem is translating them onto the computer!

What you need is a friendly person, who knows their way about a DAW, to talk over your ideas, and how to get them onto the DAW.



One of the most infuriating thing about many people who learned their music production starting with a DAW, is they pencil all the notes in. Playing a groove on a guitar or other instrument is not the same thing. And in my experience, all DAW synths have a latency that does not allow you to jam grooves in. You have to pencil.


I'm not a great producer by any means - in fact I'm really awful - but if you want a quick chat on skype or something send me a PM.

splitrmx

Hayte wrote: »

They all used cheap, limited tools and tried to make something approaching real music with them. But because they were so limited, you couldn't really make real music and the results were like early Psychic TV, Marshall Jefferson, Juan Atkins and all those guys.

The equipment being used back then wasn't as home brew as you'd think.

http://www.mobeus.org/archives/juanatkins/
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/q-marshall-jefferson/196866-marshall-studio-gear-techniques-back-day.html

shayleon

if u have the budget and are serious, check the Scope platform.