Starting Out Advice

[mostapha]

Just pick one.

Just starting out, you have no idea what's going to work for you and what won't in 6 months. Capabilities are all basically the same. The difference is workflow and what plugin formats the DAW uses…which changes how easy/cheap it is to get anything that doesn't come with your DAW.

My advice is to look at some beginning/intermediate tutorial videos for as many as you can find…and then go back and watch them again as you start to notice things kinda making something like sense. Whichever one seems like it jives with the way you think is the one you should use.

I've owned or used Ableton Live, Reason, Pro Tools, Logic, Renoise, and Ardour. And I've tried several others like Digital Performer, Cubase, StudioOne, and Reaper. Pro Tools makes the most sense to me, but I'm in the minority of dance guys that's true for. Something about it just makes sense. That and Maschine. Maschine is awesome.

But, seriously, before you clutter your hard drive with demo after demo that you can barely figure out, I say watch videos. Or just stick with Ableton until it pisses you off (if it does…a lot of people love it) since you have a free copy of Lite.

[Roshanbhoj]

Thanks mostapha I knew you would give good advice on this. And yeah in the 4 hours so far of Ableton I've learned a few things, not about making music but about the DAW and how it works (right now I'm trying to figure out how to map the computer keyboard). It seems to be simpler or just something about it that makes it a little easier to follow. I'm liking it right now and it seems pretty good to me. I know I don't like FL so that's one I can rule out. I've tried reaper and I mean it's really I straight to the point I guess, don't know how to explain it but the way it's laid out is, I hope you kinda know what I'm talking about here.

On a side note I have a few questions. I know some people have said that you HAVE to have a soundcard when producing, is this true? And midi keyboard wise, I guess you don't NEED one but then you map it to your computer keyboard. So do these two things just make things easier for you?

On another side note there's a M-Audio Axiom 25 for $75 in my area. Thoughts?

[mostapha]

I don't think a good sound card is necessary at first. If you're entirely "in the box", you just need a way to hear what you're making. Low-ish latency is awesome if you're playing keyboards or drum pads, but it's irrelevant if you're using a step sequencer. That's the first reason to upgrade. The other big reason is a combination of quality and latency when recording audio, but I'll assume that's a little ways off unless you're an singer or guitarist or something…and that's a whole other can of worms. Fun, expensive worms.

And, yeah. My first experiments with production were on FL back when it was still called fruity loops. A friend (brendan lebonte) recommended it. I couldn't stand it, but he got a few tracks signed and ended up having one played on ASOT, so it's not like it sucks…just not the way I think.

I don't know that keyboard specifically but I think I'm done with m-audio gear. Most of the stuff I've used has been a nightmare, though my friend's fw410 finally started working this summer. Apparently it needed like a 5-year long time out to think about what it did.

[Ignotus]

reason, thick and thin... havnt gone to 6.0, dont like the flow of it...

stick to one, start watching tutorials, my best advice, is learn how to play the piano first

[Funkyfader]

^ reason <3,very easy to understand

[Clayton]

Get a few trials & see what suits you best. I tried, Ableton, Cubase, Reason & FL Studio.

Fl is the only one i got on with, i have the full version of that now & recently tried a demo of ableton again, just couldnt get into it.

Plenty online for Fl & Ableton though, i just followed a few step by step guides then started to pick things up myself.
Good Luck!

[Scott Michael]

Mostapha, is Brendan still around, talk to him at all? I remember him from the old 1.0 days. We both went to college in arizona.

[mostapha]

I haven't talked to him in a long time. Last I heard, he was engagged. Might still be making music, I know he had releases on a few labels. I think he's doing it more as a hobby, though. I think he had a real job last time I checked.

[Roshanbhoj]

I think he had a real job last time I checked.

Pffff...

So I've gotten really into Live. I have the Ableton Live Lite 8 and I got the M-Audio Axiom 25. The only thing is, I can only have 8 tracks in Lite which sucks. It took me 2 hours to figure out that I had to reset it to defaults for the Axiom to work...(This was a few days ago)It works great and it's amazing, I really like it. So glad I have drum pads built in, instead of just the keyboard. I'm almost done with my first track too! Been on it for about 20 hours and learned a lot while making it. I'll post it soon, it hasn't been released yet.

[Hygro]

Awesome, Roshan.

Mostapha is absolutely right that you pick one and stick with it until you've learned SO much that you know WHY you want to switch. I've been on Logic for 3 years, love it, and now I'm at the point I want to try other DAWs. I did Reason before Logic and I liked it, but I didn't like the work flow and routing compared to what I knew before (Garageband). So I got the super steroid garageband, Logic. It's like the difference between Mayor and President. If you're working on a computer, make it computer-intuitive, IMO.

I wanna try Ableton some more, and I want to try Protools. Protools looks pretty sweet on Pensado's Place. Automation looks more straightforward for certain things. Same like Ableton. Protools is still the final mixdown software for the pop world, so it would be good to learn what they're doing on that thing.