Newborn Guide to Music Production - Here's to all the losers who want to make music

[infamousbeing]

Music Production 101

Introduction:

Greetings newborn.

Gather round class, today we're going to be looking at the age old question, I got an emo haircut (and/or dreadlocks) and I'm ready to bring back old Kanye, be the spiritual successor to Slipknot, fill in the shoes of Bob Marley, Flume, Tame Impala, AC/DC, Fleetwood Mac, Queen or any other rich commercial fucker you idealise but what the fuck do I do?

I'm splitting this guide into two sections, what to do if I have no talent and the "Yeah, I can shred guitar like Kurt Cobain, give me a Jaguar"

Index:
Music Production Thread
(PART 2 TO COME)

Prerequisites:

Spoiler: DAW

So what do I need to be a depressed, bored, "soul bearing" musician? First you need a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). I'm sure if you're at this point you've heard of Ableton, FL Studio which are great options. As the autist below explains, there's no one DAW that's perfect for everyone. DAW's depend on your style/artistic talents. I have experience using Reaper, Acid, Ableton and FL.

I suggest Reaper for newborns as it's easy to navigate, great VST support, open source and has a welcoming feel for beginners and is mostly FREE
- Reaper

At the time of writing this, Acid is on sale on Humble Bundle in a really epic music production starter pack bundle for about $30. Haven't used this in about 6-7 years and is mainly loop focused
- Acid Music Studio 11 // (Link to Humble Bundle)

FL Studio is what most people start on, however starting from Acid and jumping to Fruity Loops I had difficulty navigating the interface. This is a very good suite, especially some of the preset FL effects and you can find "legal" versions very easily. They have a free trial, however it is restricted to the basic package without any presets or VST's.
- FL Studio

My personal and go to DAW is Ableton, I feel way less restricted, Midi and VST functionality is the best of any listed, however is going to confuse the hell out of you if your a new tard. They also include a 90 day free trial but after that it's like $1,000.
- Ableton

Personally, there was a period where I was using each DAW for seperate purposes. My electronic drum kit I was running the midi support to Ableton to change the preset sounds, constructing and editing the song in Reaper then doing vocal mixing/mastering on FL.

You'll have enough tools to begin with this, however external VST'S and Plugins need to have a post of their own.

Equipment:
So, I "legally" got my workstation, now what?

Spoiler: Equipment

Microphone:
Well, you see you can't have a good song without stupid, suicidal lyrics about heart break or you could flip the script and make a song about how madly in love you are. Once you've polished off your angst, you need to find a microphone. In my initial beginnings I was using my iPhone voice memo's and uploading them to Google Drive, then converting them to WAV. Little did I know, if I bought a microphone I could of saved 10 minutes of my time. Look below at the USB condenser microphone for a cheap, decent starting point. We are not going into the territory of audio interfaces and phantom power cause otherwise you're going to want to throw yourself off a cliff.
- Rode NT USB

Headphones:

Having a good pair of reference headphones is nice, I'm currently rocking the HD600's. I would highly discourage the use of AirPods or low latency bluetooth headphones since you'll be like two beats behind where you should be.

Other Unessential Gear Right Now

Midi Keyboards, Synths, Mixers and all the fancy stuff needs to wait child.

Now I've got my shit together, what now?

Well, you need to learn to be in beat/follow a tempo. Similar to tapping your foot to a beat, you need to learn rhythm. Turn on the metronome on your DAW of choice and change your BPM (beats per minute). The BPM is going to be the most important factor in making a genuinely listenable song.

That's It?
Once you got your beat, you're out in the wild. It's hard to detail how to do each function your looking for on each DAW since I listed a few, however if you get stuck and/or confused. Drop a comment here or on the music discussion thread and I'll respond.

Notes:

Just a suggestion, maybe add some info to the OP on how one may go about getting into and learning basic music theory, if they want to write melodies or even chords and what have you. Not everyone reading the thread might know music theory yet, so it might be good to include that.

Music Theory in 16 Minutes

Hi everyone – just want to let you know about our course, Learn Music Theory. It's quick, practical and fun, and takes you from square one through to more ad...

www.youtube.com

You can find videos that go over the basics for a dime a dozen all over youtube for example, if you don't want to find a write up.


You mean, like a DAW? You can use virtual instruments like virtual synthesizers and sample based instruments (virtual piano for example) on a DAW and drag around the notes in something called a piano roll. Its kind of like a big excel spreadsheet but you drag notes into it and your virtual instrument plays these notes. Most DAWs also have an option to use your keyboard to control the piano roll as if your keyboard itself is a piano, even if it is not.

Most people just pirate DAWs that come with basic instruments then also pirate their own virtual instruments to work with them.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Is there any shit to generate electronic music without the aid of outside equipment?

 

[infamousbeing]

Is there any shit to generate electronic music without the aid of outside equipment?

When you say generate electronic music, you mean like a website?

Well my friend I have the perfect thing for you.

Okay, okay in all seriousness there are projects like Jukebox and Soundraw that are AI based music creation bots that are pretty cool.

 

[Marissa Moira]

When you say generate electronic music, you mean like a website?

Well my friend I have the perfect thing for you.

Okay, okay in all seriousness there are projects like Jukebox and Soundraw that are AI based music creation bots that are pretty cool.

I'm looking for something closer to a sound library that you can generate notes with and string together with like just a computer keyboard.

 

[infamousbeing]

I'm looking for something closer to a sound library that you can generate notes with and string together with like just a computer keyboard.

Ahhh I see, so your looking for a keyboard experience using your keyboard.

Reaper is a free music suite that I discussed above that includes this feature. It utilises A-L and I, T and E as your octaves. VST's (Virtual plugins which could be synths, keyboards, pianos, drum pads) are not featured in Reaper so you'll have to source them externally but that should be what you're looking for.

 

[Tism the Return]

I can mumble rap on my phone if you get me drunk enough, can I do it mister Rick Beato?

 

[infamousbeing]

I can mumble rap on my phone if you get me drunk enough, can I do it mister Rick Beato?

Thank you for your input, I herby present to you a certified mumble rap pass. Use it wisely.

 

[awoo]

Is there any shit to generate electronic music without the aid of outside equipment?

I'm looking for something closer to a sound library that you can generate notes with and string together with like just a computer keyboard.

I'm not a boomer but I will give you the boomer spirit answer: use a music tracker. It's a pretty simple piece of software that is essentially a giant spreadsheet that scrolls through rows and plays them. You won't be able to do any fancy EDM effects, or basically any effects at all, but you will be able to create some 90s dance hits. However like any music production, the musician's skill is far more important than the software.

 

[LTO Data Cartridge]

Neat, I've never been a musical person but this seems surprisingly accessible for the computer literate. I will definitely be tinkering around with reaper a bit.

 

[infamousbeing]

Neat, I've never been a musical person but this seems surprisingly accessible for the computer literate. I will definitely be tinkering around with reaper a bit.

Wow awesome man, didn't realize someone would actually go do it, Give me an update on how it goes, would love to see it!

 

[Console]

If you're just beginning, try Native Instruments' free Komplete Start pack. Free DAWs like Reaper or trackers like OpenMPT usually don't come with instruments or synths, the stuff that actually makes the sound, and without that you'd probably be reading a heap of random Top 10 Free Plugins articles wondering what's actually good, or genuinely free. I haven't used it much, but it helped me solve my main problem of acquiring a library of tools for producing music.

One thing that bugs me is the chiptune tracker ecosystem. Famitracker is probably the best one out there from a feature perspective, but I like non-NES stuff a whole lot more. Other trackers are just ROMs that you run in an emulator, or can't open exported tracks natively and lack conversion options to get around that. I guess it's all too niche for its own good.

 

[Coelacanth]

I'm not a boomer but I will give you the boomer spirit answer: use a music tracker. It's a pretty simple piece of software that is essentially a giant spreadsheet that scrolls through rows and plays them. You won't be able to do any fancy EDM effects, or basically any effects at all, but you will be able to create some 90s dance hits. However like any music production, the musician's skill is far more important than the software.

This. I've been messing around with OpenMPT which can load soundbanks from video games and I really like it. Not so good at learning about effects and the guides for OpenMPT are far and few between, unfortunately.

 

[mister meaner]

Just a suggestion, maybe add some info to the OP on how one may go about getting into and learning basic music theory, if they want to write melodies or even chords and what have you. Not everyone reading the thread might know music theory yet, so it might be good to include that.

Music Theory in 16 Minutes

Hi everyone – just want to let you know about our course, Learn Music Theory. It's quick, practical and fun, and takes you from square one through to more ad...

www.youtube.com

You can find videos that go over the basics for a dime a dozen all over youtube for example, if you don't want to find a write up.

I'm looking for something closer to a sound library that you can generate notes with and string together with like just a computer keyboard.

You mean, like a DAW? You can use virtual instruments like virtual synthesizers and sample based instruments (virtual piano for example) on a DAW and drag around the notes in something called a piano roll. Its kind of like a big excel spreadsheet but you drag notes into it and your virtual instrument plays these notes. Most DAWs also have an option to use your keyboard to control the piano roll as if your keyboard itself is a piano, even if it is not.

Most people just pirate DAWs that come with basic instruments then also pirate their own virtual instruments to work with them.

 

[infamousbeing]

Just a suggestion, maybe add some info to the OP on how one may go about getting into and learning basic music theory, if they want to write melodies or even chords and what have you. Not everyone reading the thread might know music theory yet, so it might be good to include that.

Music Theory in 16 Minutes

Hi everyone – just want to let you know about our course, Learn Music Theory. It's quick, practical and fun, and takes you from square one through to more ad...

www.youtube.com

You can find videos that go over the basics for a dime a dozen all over youtube for example, if you don't want to find a write up.


You mean, like a DAW? You can use virtual instruments like virtual synthesizers and sample based instruments (virtual piano for example) on a DAW and drag around the notes in something called a piano roll. Its kind of like a big excel spreadsheet but you drag notes into it and your virtual instrument plays these notes. Most DAWs also have an option to use your keyboard to control the piano roll as if your keyboard itself is a piano, even if it is not.

Most people just pirate DAWs that come with basic instruments then also pirate their own virtual instruments to work with them.

Thanks for that dude I added it too the OP

 

[Bezmenov]

One piece of advice that I would like to impart onto people that are starting out in music production is to pick a a synth (or VST) and learn it. The amount of time you waste fucking around with 400 cracked VSTs cycling through presets is time you could spend picking a synth/keyboard and really honing in on it. This is especially crucial to people who have literally no experience working with synthesizers/keyboards. A VST like TAL U-NO or Synth1 (both of which are free) are great starter plugins for learning the fundamentals. Once you understand the concept of an ADSR envelope, VCF, VCA, LFO etc. it will make navigating other, more complicated synths a LOT easier in the long run. A lot of musicians that I respect and look up to tended to start out with autistically learning one Synth/Plugin inside-out and bending it to their will to do some original/unique things with it.

Also, if you're a complete newbie, do not start with FM Synthesis, it will give you a headache and you'll hate it. Wait until you're an intermediate at the very least because it's a fucking rabbit hole.

 

[benutz]

I'm looking for something closer to a sound library that you can generate notes with and string together with like just a computer keyboard.

You can do this easy enough. You will still need these though:

1: DAW
2: Chord Generator/Arpeggiator
3: Sound Library (sound source in form of VST)


1:

EDIT: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/daw-thread.91001/

(good information on choosing a DAW in that thread)

For a DAW you can use REAPER. It has functionality for you to play notes from your computer keyboard. Start on the 'A' key and work your way from there. It's kind of mapped out like a piano keyboard. You'll work it out.

Most DAWs have a Virtual MIDI keyboard.

Ableton also has one and so does FLStudio. I think they are on by default, if not check preferences and just tick the box for Virtual Midi keyboard or wtf.


2:

So you have your DAW. You now need a plugin to do the donkey work of what it is you are trying to achieve: generating music with just one note press, which will then trigger a cascade of other notes in a musical fashion.

Xfer Cthulhu is one of many programs that can do this, but let's just go with that one for now. It's one of the best and isn't too expensive. You can download a demo from here - https://xferrecords.com/products/cthulhu

Slightly longer video with good basics -

Spoiler: Cthulu quick look

Cthulhu will generate chords in certain keys of your choosing and make it like child's play to mess about with and experiment with complex chord pairings and progressions that would take most people years of learning harmonic theory to do the same. It's easy.

It also contains an arpeggiator which is kind of like a very basic sequencer that triggers notes in a pre-determined and defined pattern and scale with regard to note steps (1/4 note, 16th note) and key (A minor, C Major, F minor), respectively.


3:

So you have your DAW, your chord generator/arpeggiator, now you need that sound library or sound source to feed it something to play. FLStudio has an excellent demo that you can try all this out in to see if it is what you want. You can even save your work so if you do buy the full version later you can recall it. Genuine licenses for Ableton Live (most basic version) are only a tenner at certain places on the net. Some give them away for free if you know who to ask. All genuine and extremely powerful software that you can use legit.

Depending on which DAW you use, the routing wil be slightly different. Cthulhu is a midi effect plugin so you would route it accordingly: inserting it on your track as an 'insert', while the Sound Library/Sound Source VST would be plugged in to whatever track you decide. Lots of tutorials on the net. It's different for all DAWs is what I'm trying to get at.

Ableton also comes with some very good sound sources and samples and VSTs you can use. In fact you can get the full blown demo of it with something like 40GB of content which will work for a month or even maybe more.

I would first worry about finding a DAW that you feel comfortable with and that you can afford to buy if you choose to use it. From there you work it out.

Some DAWs that you might want to consider even include big sampler libraries like Studio One. I can't remember if the basic version does, but I got a Komplete Select with mine a few years back. Lots of variety of sounds there.

OK, never mind that, what sounds am I going to use?

You can go fucking mad scouring through all the TOP 10 FREE VST PLUGINS on youtube. Every man and his dog has done a video on this, and very few get it right. I will say for you to start on this video -

This guy is one of the few to nail it. You won't go far wrong with anything he suggests.


---


Once you get that all hooked up you will be able to hit your QWERTY keyboard and it will trigger midi notes from the chord generator/arpeggiator, which will then trigger whatever sound library sound source VST synth you decide to plug in to it.

You then just need to arm an audio track to record it live, or record the notes in to your 'piano roll' from the QWERTY keyboard, which you can then 'export' out to a .WAV file or sometimes even .MP3 in some DAWs. There is even the ability to upload to your Soundcloud account with one click in programs like Studio One.


ETA:
OP, you might consider linking the DAW thread that already exists and has some really good information in it - not just DAW related. I would say to merge the two threads, but I don't want to interfere or know how it would even be possible. There's a certain amount of redundancy going on anyway. Perhaps the two OPs could PM each other to see if it's feasible (if it's something they want to do). It seems a shame to lose some very good information coz they are in different places.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/daw-thread.91001/

 

[infamousbeing]

You can do this easy enough. You will still need these though:

1: DAW
2: Chord Generator/Arpeggiator
3: Sound Library (sound source in form of VST)


1:

EDIT: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/daw-thread.91001/

(good information on choosing a DAW in that thread)

For a DAW you can use REAPER. It has functionality for you to play notes from your computer keyboard. Start on the 'A' key and work your way from there. It's kind of mapped out like a piano keyboard. You'll work it out.

Most DAWs have a Virtual MIDI keyboard.

Ableton also has one and so does FLStudio. I think they are on by default, if not check preferences and just tick the box for Virtual Midi keyboard or wtf.


2:

So you have your DAW. You now need a plugin to do the donkey work of what it is you are trying to achieve: generating music with just one note press, which will then trigger a cascade of other notes in a musical fashion.

Xfer Cthulhu is one of many programs that can do this, but let's just go with that one for now. It's one of the best and isn't too expensive. You can download a demo from here - https://xferrecords.com/products/cthulhu

Slightly longer video with good basics -

Spoiler: Cthulu quick look

Cthulhu will generate chords in certain keys of your choosing and make it like child's play to mess about with and experiment with complex chord pairings and progressions that would take most people years of learning harmonic theory to do the same. It's easy.

It also contains an arpeggiator which is kind of like a very basic sequencer that triggers notes in a pre-determined and defined pattern and scale with regard to note steps (1/4 note, 16th note) and key (A minor, C Major, F minor), respectively.


3:

So you have your DAW, your chord generator/arpeggiator, now you need that sound library or sound source to feed it something to play. FLStudio has an excellent demo that you can try all this out in to see if it is what you want. You can even save your work so if you do buy the full version later you can recall it. Genuine licenses for Ableton Live (most basic version) are only a tenner at certain places on the net. Some give them away for free if you know who to ask. All genuine and extremely powerful software that you can use legit.

Depending on which DAW you use, the routing wil be slightly different. Cthulhu is a midi effect plugin so you would route it accordingly: inserting it on your track as an 'insert', while the Sound Library/Sound Source VST would be plugged in to whatever track you decide. Lots of tutorials on the net. It's different for all DAWs is what I'm trying to get at.

Ableton also comes with some very good sound sources and samples and VSTs you can use. In fact you can get the full blown demo of it with something like 40GB of content which will work for a month or even maybe more.

I would first worry about finding a DAW that you feel comfortable with and that you can afford to buy if you choose to use it. From there you work it out.

Some DAWs that you might want to consider even include big sampler libraries like Studio One. I can't remember if the basic version does, but I got a Komplete Select with mine a few years back. Lots of variety of sounds there.

OK, never mind that, what sounds am I going to use?

You can go fucking mad scouring through all the TOP 10 FREE VST PLUGINS on youtube. Every man and his dog has done a video on this, and very few get it right. I will say for you to start on this video -

This guy is one of the few to nail it. You won't go far wrong with anything he suggests.


---


Once you get that all hooked up you will be able to hit your QWERTY keyboard and it will trigger midi notes from the chord generator/arpeggiator, which will then trigger whatever sound library sound source VST synth you decide to plug in to it.

You then just need to arm an audio track to record it live, or record the notes in to your 'piano roll' from the QWERTY keyboard, which you can then 'export' out to a .WAV file or sometimes even .MP3 in some DAWs. There is even the ability to upload to your Soundcloud account with one click in programs like Studio One.


ETA:
OP, you might consider linking the DAW thread that already exists and has some really good information in it - not just DAW related. I would say to merge the two threads, but I don't want to interfere or know how it would even be possible. There's a certain amount of redundancy going on anyway. Perhaps the two OPs could PM each other to see if it's feasible (if it's something they want to do). It seems a shame to lose some very good information coz they are in different places.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/daw-thread.91001/

Awesome response!

 

[coof coof]

The music industry is completely infected with buy my course bullshit and clickbait these days. Even a lot of the paid resources if you do go that route are just out of date boomer advice like, "you just need basic EQ curves," and, "let your transients be transients don't tune your kick drums." As such, I'll necro this with some of the videos I've found most useful to save for the re-watch later.

Spoiler: Talking about using SPAN/settings to use:

Spoiler: Interesting techniques and stuff for vocal processing in high energy music:

Spoiler: Good mixing tutorials for complicated/high energy music:

Spoiler: Some cool phaseplant stuff:

Spoiler: Bus mastering/routing:

Spoiler: Mostly showing off but some valuable dance music tips

Spoiler: Good Jungle/Playstation era music tutorial.

Spoiler: This guy has some cool drum processing/chopping videos

Here is also a catbox link to an flp with some of the routing I've started using with all the plugins and stuff ripped out. You can change it however you want/add vsts/sidechaining and then save it as a template.

 

[Deckard Bane]

I have my own amateur studio and have gone through some hard lessons in my music journey, so I'll add on some things and give my 2c on some stuff already mentioned:

DAWS:

If you're on Mac, use Logic Pro X or Ableton. Logic Pro X is honestly the gold standard on that platform and I actually do miss it quite a bit. Ableton has more of an ability to bounce between environments however, and is strong in it's own right. If you're on PC, use Ableton, or if you want something that is a little cheaper with a very similar workflow use Bitwig. I switched over to it and aside from some very minor quirks it's very good, and it doesn't have a habit of crashing the entire DAW when your plugins crash.

I would not go with FL Studio myself. I honestly don't like the workflow and found it too confusing, where the Ableton and Bitwig Arrangement Views are way more user friendly. Additionally, if you ever start adding hardware synths FL Studio can be really confusing to configure.

VSTs:

There are loads of free or paid VSTs. I don't have too many free ones anymore, but I can recommend some that you can either buy or perpetually demo.

Nexus: It's dated and overpriced but a lot of the sound packs are good if you are working specific genres. It's basically a rompler, meaning it uses pre-recorded samples and uses the synth to modify them.
Kontakt: Pretty much the definitive sampler VST. I don't use it much, but there are crazy amounts of sound packs for it.
Serum: Wavetable Synthesizer - you can get some really awesome sounds out of it if you know what you are doing, but it can be really confusing if you have no idea about sound design. If you don't care about making your own sounds, there are tons of preset packs that sound amazing.
Osirus/DSP56300: This is a Virus TI emulator - a fucking beast of a hardware synth that has amazing sound capabilities. I can confirm the sound is 100% accurate to the Virus TI2 hardware, but be warned: it's very resource intensive and I've heard it's very unstable, but I've used it in tandem with a real Virus and it's been fine, at least running with a single channel. You will need Virus BIOS files to get it working, but once you have it you can load custom soundsets like the real hardware and create sounds the same as the real deal.

As much as I like Roland and Arturia VSTs, I don't recommend them for beginners because honestly you will get lost just exploring them and the presets.

Hardware:

If you want to get into the hardware route, realize it's incredibly addictive and can get expensive really fast, but there are ways to snag amazing deals on gear. Plus, it's way easier to dial in a hardware synth with physical controls than with a mouse. If you're going to go that route, start simple - find a decent used VA synth off ebay from a reputable manufacturer (Korg, Roland, Yamaha, etc.). Something easy to work with, like a Minilogue, Gaia 1, Bass Station, etc. Do NOT buy a Yamaha DX-7 or Roland D-50 unless you only want to use presets as both FM and LA synthesis are nightmares to program your own sounds with. I would not recommend workstations like the Motiff/Triton/Fantom unless you are willing to put the time in to learning every in and out of using them, but even then old workstations are prone to hardware failures. If you look for used gear, always try to look for stuff on Ebay from Japan first - they are usually free shipping and the condition is generally very good, even on decades old gear.

Behringer makes good stuff for cheap, but it's generally good if you're going for a very specific sound, and even then you can usually find a VST that does the same or better. The TD-3 is a great piece of gear for $100 but you can get several different VST's of the 303 that do more and aren't a bitch to sequence on.

 

[coof coof]

I would not go with FL Studio myself. I honestly don't like the workflow and found it too confusing, where the Ableton and Bitwig Arrangement Views are way more user friendly. Additionally, if you ever start adding hardware synths FL Studio can be really confusing to configure.

Agreed with the added caveat that it really does just depend on the type of stuff you're making. FL has a lot of cool sample editing stuff that you would normally need to open another program for and the piano roll and a few other things have secret sauce but you don't have Ableton warp modes and other cool stuff like that. If you're going for the cleanest sound possible or doing stuff with lots of modulation then Bitwig or Ableton is a clear choice, for sure. Personally I'm trying to get some of the early Pendulum/The Prodigy punkiness in my music so FL is a good fit for me. Don't be afraid to do free trials for all of them to see what comes most naturally to you. It is what they're there for. Also I feel like if I'm even going to sort of shill for FL at all I should show where this is to give you an idea of what you're in for. Its literally one of the most important things and its hidden in a stupid drop down lol.

Spoiler: Last tweaked