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Hi, I want to start making music, so I want to ask you scene-musicians if you have any good advice how to start?

I have downloaded a demo of Propellerheads Reason and it seems so overwhelming with all these buttons :(

Are there any other software you think I should check out? I don't mind paying for it if it is good.

what kind of music do you like/would you like to make? reason is good, but can easily be overwhelming for sure, especially if you have no previous experience with MIDI.

if you're just starting, i'd suggest checking out something like renoise - just to get the basics in place. tracker-experience never hurt anyone. :)

speaking for myself, i mainly use acid (with reason here and there).

Sorry, I want to make electronic music. Style: Orbital, The Orb, ambient stuff. If I get good enough I might even join a compo at a party :)

well, you'd probably start with the basics no matter what style of music you want to make, but when you get a hang of things (harmonies, tempo, groove, mixing etc.) you can move on to, say, reason and/or acid.

i started with this...



... and look where i am now!!!!

i've used garage band lately.. its a lot like reason, but without the advanced midi rack simulator. You can start off with super-simple stuff like pre-made loops, and it has the more useful synths and midi stuff there for when you're more comfortable with it. I reckon its a pretty good way to learn. Of course, you'll need a mac to use it, which might make it less appealing if you don't have one...

Yes, pre-made loops and sample-kits make great musicians! I still remember my first ejay expansion cd.
Well worth the bucks.

On a more serious note...

I use reason, soundforge, cool edit pro and some cubase. I started out with Musikator and FT2 though.

front243: I hate when a musician can't handle drums and bass. The most perfect harmonies can be ruined when there isn't "life" enought in the drums. And a really good bass line can really make a difference too a really crappy song. Try too learn how rythms are build and how you can change the color of the sound just by changing the drums. The worst thing you could do is too build your songs by just using pre-made loops, that will learn you nothing about music. It will just make things harder when you wan't too make your own "loops" in a sequencer like cubase.

Google "Reason tutorials".
Reason is a perfect peace of software to learn electronic music with.

"Piece", even :)
Btw, how many of you use Reason for your trax/demo works out there ?

I admit that I use reason - I used Logic audio for a while 2 years ago (and still run it now and then), but the development has been discontinued on PC, and I'm not buying a mac.

Besides, with reason version 3, I think reason has become really good, and finally you're able to do better mixing/mastering.

Still tracking sometimes though ;)

wilbe: i use reason sometimes, for melody-lines or bass-sounds, but i never ever mix or master anything using reason - it really sucks for doing those sorts of things imho. for mixing or mastering i export to wav-files and do it in acid - much more control, much more precise.

I tell you all a secret: Music-making is not all about software. All those "I use x", "y is crap", "no, z is better" makes me cringe (just like OS wars). Oh, and it's not all about fucking "basslines" and "drums" either.

Of course I use T-racks/cooledit etc. for mastering my tune afterwards, but the premastering(?) has become way better with reason 3 - but still not perfect at all

ooh, what a nice bass the girl has :D

also, i think there's some "tracker's handbook" available, dunno what it's like, haven't read it, maybe i should have, but i've definately seen it on the web. could be useful, if you want to track music.

A tracker is good for complex drum/sample stuff á la Aphex Twin.

If you want to make Orb'ish ambient dub, you need a mixer and an echo (delay) effect. You could pre-program the music using some software, but you'll have much, much more fun if you get a MIDI-controller or maybe even a hardware mixer for a hands-on-knobs realtime-approach. The sound source isn't that important, you could use a minidisc with a stolen reggae loop on the other channel and weird samples from synths and TV on the other channel. Then just flick the channels on and off and adjust the echo feedback & length. Then add a SL-1200 turntable etc.. :-)

For more "techno" stuff like Orbital, I guess you know you "need" a TR-909 (or clone or software), a TB-303 or two (or clone or software), plus some other synth or sampler for chords and d'n'b loops etc. Again, you can start out with a mouse, but I think you'll have more fun if you get some hardware knobs, like a MIDI controller...

Just use ALL the software that you can find, export a lot of wavs and then mix everything together in Acid. Or if you just did everything in Reason, then I guess you don't have to go to Acid for mixing :-).

IMO

Hey, that's Jose Maria Aznar there! :)

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/300px-GlockSousafonMG2003Cont.jpg[img]

I meant there

DOH, 4 posts above

:(