I think this is a really good primer for electronic music production if you're going to start from absolutely zero.<p>If you specifically want to program beats, I recommend this quirky book "Pocket Operations": <a href="https://shittyrecording.studio" rel="nofollow">https://shittyrecording.studio</a>. It's basically guitar tabs for drum machines. Pick out some styles as a foundation and then build on top of it. Think of it as boilerplate code.<p>Being a software dev by day, and a former musician in high school, the current world of digital music production tools is as incredible as it is overwhelming. It's good to have something that orients your practice and experimentation.
I love love love Ableton Live. It's possibly my favorite piece of software today.<p>If you're a software engineer interested in UX, I think Live will fit your brain like a hand in glove. It reminds me very much of emacs or vi where the app is designed to disappear from view and let you focus on your content.<p>Also, it's incredibly programmable and generative at many many different levels:<p>* Session view lets you build arrangements on the fly in realtime.<p>* Follow actions on clips let you automatically build sequences of clips, loop, them, randomly chain them, etc. It's like control flow for clips.<p>* The various built-in synths and effects support all sorts of dynamic modulation to make timbres evolve on their own.<p>* Then, of course, there is Max4Live, a full-fledged visual programming environment integrated deeply into the app.<p>You, of course, can ignore all that stuff and just make completed fixed tracks. But if you're interested in the <i>live</i> aspects of Live, then the software really feels like a substrate that you can use to build your own bespoke instrument for playing your music in real time.<p>I love it so much.
I like Ableton, but the better way to get started making music is with your voice, singing with songs that you like. Sing the melody, and also the bass and harmony parts. If you have a phone you can use the voice memo app to do two-part stuff. If you want to move up to an instrument, my favorite is the melodica, a breath-operated keyboard that is very cheap (~ $20), sounds great, and teaches the notes of a piano, and requires no electrical power to operate. In fact for some things I think the melodica is better than a piano, since in some ways it's closer to an organ with the ability to maintain and vary the sound over time.
I tried this a few years ago and it was addictive and amazing. Highly recommend.<p>I’d also like to tangent to say: music used to be a much bigger part of our lives. Before the radio a piano was a household staple. Kids would learn, family’s would play and sing to each other. We’ve largely given that up.<p>Imagining hearing one of your family members just start singing to themselves without any background music, does that feel uncomfortable? Would you sing along?<p>I think to many the answer is clear, music, as well as many other endeavors are something to now be enjoyed but not created. And oh boy do we get to enjoy the “best” music and “best” films and “best” books on demand.<p>And along the way we lost the large bits of ourselves which created and enjoyed together. So, in short, 10/10 would do the tutorial again.
While we're on the subject of music softwares, let me point you to exceptional ones:<p><a href="https://www.bitwig.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.bitwig.com</a> : it's basically Ableton live but next gen, where everything can be modulated<p><a href="https://www.renoise.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.renoise.com</a> : the modern tracker<p><a href="https://www.beepstreet.com/ios/drambo" rel="nofollow">https://www.beepstreet.com/ios/drambo</a> : this one justifies buying an ipad, it's incredible
While we're here, if you get into electronic music and want some samples, the Library of Congress's "Citizen DJ" project has multiple gigs of public domain audio you can use:<p><a href="https://citizen-dj.labs.loc.gov/" rel="nofollow">https://citizen-dj.labs.loc.gov/</a><p>I'll also throw in some libre projects to look at:<p>Sonic Pi<p>Csound (front-ends include Blue and Cabbage)<p>Supercollider<p>Pure Data<p>LMMS<p>Mixxx
I think this is awesome and I recommend anyone interested in following it through.<p>But one problem with this kind of thing is that it has the character of "How to Draw an Owl" [1]. I have been tinkering with Ableton for 10+ years but when I got to the song structure part (especially the Photek Drum 'n Bass one) I kinda had to laugh.<p>Making music is really difficult. This kind of tutorial is step one on a thousand step journey.<p>1. <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-to-draw-an-owl" rel="nofollow">https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-to-draw-an-owl</a>
This tutorial comes up every couple years and it's got a pretty elegant UI and presentation. It seems to be a perennial HN favorite.<p>But I got a free copy of Ableton (not Ableton Live IIRC) with an interface I bought and Holy cow if Ableton isn't the most painful and disgusting UI I've seen in a while.<p>It took me about 2 seconds to get the interface working correctly in Garage Band. I literally gave up after an hour of trying to get Ableton working correctly. There were like 1000 buttons and one of them had a default value that made the interface not work right or the audio not get routed into the track. IIRC I got it to the point the audio was coming into ableton and it looked like it was working but then nothing ended up in the recorded track.<p>I play guitar as a hobby.. I have no time do put up with something like ableton, I want absolute minimal time spent futzing with a DAW and maximum time with my hands on the actual guitar.<p>This was all on top of me being a software engineer (which maybe made me less tolerant of figuring out the UI) and my interface coming with a long series of video tutorials on how to get Ableton working with the interface. Meanwhile again, got it working in about 2 seconds without looking at the help in Garage Band.<p>A lot of the differentiating features don't matter that much, micing my amp and using my pedalboard/amp sounds better than the synthetic sounds in the DAWs unless I spent a bunch more money.<p>Ableton reminds me of "configuration over convention" or something. Or ancient MS/IBM software where the user has to figure out 1000 options to get anything working.
If anyone is looking for a low-barrier-to-entry start to making music, I'd recommend they check out <a href="https://audiotool.com" rel="nofollow">https://audiotool.com</a><p>Completely free, but very deep and powerful browser-based cloud music production software, with a tight-knit encouraging community built around it.
Don't forget The Manual<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual</a><p>If you can't get a number one at least you'll be left LYFAO with an invaluable lesson on business and an intimate tour of late 80s UK techno scene.<p>Wonderful read.
Love what the team over there does with these web demos. They previously made this amazing interactive synthesizer learning resource: <a href="https://learningsynths.ableton.com/" rel="nofollow">https://learningsynths.ableton.com/</a>
I've dabbled in making music, but it makes me bump against an existential crisis. I could make nice sounding music, but what does it mean? Often, it's just an excuse to buy more gear.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXWTN1XTtI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXWTN1XTtI</a>
For a bit of inspiration after, here's Kygo's breakdown on pro production <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCe-6UprFGo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCe-6UprFGo</a>
Modern DAWs are absolutely amazing, but if you're into both programming and music I can't recommend checking out a tracker enough.
In particular I recommend the Dirtywave M8 as a fantastic blend of everything that makes trackers great, and modern convenience and power.[0]<p>[0]<a href="https://dirtywave.com/" rel="nofollow">https://dirtywave.com/</a>
It would be cool if HN had a list of popular / repeatedly submitted url's/articles like this one, and a total count. Would be a great list to look over, too.
The last time I was doing music production, I was learning how not all instruments are created equally.<p>If you want to do some pop music work, drum beats are a dime a dozen.<p>If you want to do high quality orchestral work, you're going to have to fork out some serious cash for stuff like EastWest Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphonic Library, Garritan Personal Orchestra, and others.<p>I'm sure things have since changed and you can now get some of these on cloud subscriptions, but you couldn't really achieve the same depth at all with some of the stuff you'd get as standard packs from your favorite DAW.
If you want something to mess with LMMS is pretty good as a DAW, free & open source as well.<p>Example of some tracks I made:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/p3y5fdZ94io" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/p3y5fdZ94io</a><p><a href="https://youtu.be/rSD4xZTDo9Q" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/rSD4xZTDo9Q</a><p><a href="https://youtu.be/09Hip0bRdaU" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/09Hip0bRdaU</a><p><a href="https://youtu.be/n3JmttdUXoU" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/n3JmttdUXoU</a>
I’ve been a user of those kinds of tools for more than 30 years, as an amateur, and of course i’m amazed at the progress made. However, a part of me wonder how much we lost in the process. We’ve automated so much that i wonder if the tools don’t play a role in the lack of diversity in music production. When every part of a song has to be composed or improvised by a human, note per note, isn’t it clear that the end result should be, be definition, more original , as well as more meaningful ?
If I could make a couple of suggestions for people who are trying to "get serious" with their hobbies as electronic music composers, I got a lot of value out of:<p>1. Berklee Online courses on music production. They're not cheap, but the instructors are stellar, including the guy who literally wrote the Ableton book on creative strategies.<p>2. <a href="https://www.producerdojo.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.producerdojo.com/</a> is incredible if you have the time for it. You get paired with a coach who is usually a seasoned electronic music veteran, possibly a regularly touring performer, and you get to work on becoming better at making electronic music at your pace, with their supervision. It's a lot of work, but the results are about as good as they can get.
I started learning Live after applying for a job interview at Ableton. At that point I had only known what Live was but I never touched it and never had an interest in music making. I downloaded the trial version and after just a couple of hours familiarizing myself with it, I was addicted. I never got the job, but I still open up Live when I'm bored to tinker around.<p>Here's what stands out to me:<p><pre><code> - Session view is great for experimenting with different arrangements and samples using the same processing chain without having to scroll through a huge timeline of different ideas. You can then go to arrangement view to work on your final arrangement.
- Almost everything that you create is reusable. You can string together an instrument and/or a bunch of effects, group them together, map each their controls to a unified (and smaller) set of controls, and now you have a new instrument that you can drag and drop later on. You can then chain and group those together as well.
- Max4Live is to plugins as Flash was to games. There are a ton of weird and experimental M4L devices out there available for free or for a very small price.
</code></pre>
There are some negatives though:<p><pre><code> - As others have mentioned, it is pricey, $750 as of today if you want the complete version with all their instruments and effects.
- Bouncing (re-recording) to a new track or to a file is a bit convoluted. Furthermore, bounced samples are encrypted in Ableton's proprietary format which means you can't use samples that YOU created in other plugins easily. There are a few workarounds that I found but it's just a frustrating experience. This also applies to any sample packs that come with Live or from Ableton's shop, you can't use them outside of Live's inbuilt devices or M4L devices. Again, there are workarounds but it's frustrating and there's probably something in the fine print against it.
- No facilities for batch exporting sample slices. Say you want to use Live to process some sound effects and export them to individual files, well you can't do that easily in Live. There's a paid M4L device out there that helps with this but I just use Reaper to do this now.</code></pre>
For those interested in getting started, Knobcloud.com has cheap Ableton Live intro licenses. vital.audio is a super cool free(ish) virtual synthesizer, <a href="https://www.spitfireaudio.com/bbc-symphony-orchestra-discover#listen" rel="nofollow">https://www.spitfireaudio.com/bbc-symphony-orchestra-discove...</a> is a free virtual symphony orchestra. If you just use your basic PC built in sound, you will also need to install ASIO4All ASIO drivers to reduce latency. I wish I was a kid today the tools as so amazing, instead I spent my youth learning the make DX7 patches which to be fair did prepare me for the pain of being a Microsoft stack developer in the 1990s.
> After playing with these boxes for a while, you'll discover certain combinations that you like. Many types of music are created in exactly this way — by mixing and matching small musical ideas to make interesting combinations<p>This is the bit I struggle with most; expression and intent. Sure, I can throw random shit together and with some technique it can even sound half-decent, but it is very difficult for me to express anything intentionally with music. And the oversimplification that major=happy, minor=sad is not really helpful at all here, especially with modern music which is more than ready to break any such conventions many times over.
One thing that has been amazing me recently is the current state of vocal synthesis. It seems to have improved rapidly in the space of just a few years, thanks to neural network models.<p>For example, here's a quick clip from a synth I've been using in recent weeks:<p><a href="https://vocaroo.com/125tAD40Gl6d" rel="nofollow">https://vocaroo.com/125tAD40Gl6d</a><p>It sounds almost like a real voice, and that's just using the default settings, without any effort to tweak it further to improve the realism.
If anyone is interested in a good book (in French) about the history of music electronic music (mixed with the history of electricity, recordings, and music itself) I recommend this book I enjoyed very much :
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/fous-du-son-Laurent-Wilde/dp/2246859271" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/fous-du-son-Laurent-Wilde/dp/22468592...</a>
I remember getting lots of ableton tutorials after learning how to use garage band, logic and a little pro tools. I think learning other DAWs makes the Ableton/bitwig paradigm harder but I encourage everybody that's never played on a DAW to borrow a PC/mac with one and find your inner Iggy, Sheeran or Taylor Swift.
if you want a really cheap way to get started:<p>- Reaper isn't free, but it has an unlimited, 0 trade-off trial period<p>For some free open source synths:<p>- Vital is a great wavetable synth
- Dexed is a DX7 close that is phenomenal
- dsp56300emu emulates a bunch of classic high quality synths, notably the virus
- Surge Synth<p>...there are so many excellent open source VSTs you really do NOT need to spend any money.<p>I don't really know of any high quality open source DAWs, unfortunately.
If you start with this limited mentality, you are going to be stuck with a partucular workflow, funnay that its onky workable using ableton. Its an alright program, but look around more and focus on which works for your idea of music before investing in it,
I'm a classically trained pianist with a bunch of music theory under my belt but zero idea how music is produced, and this is fascinating and addictive to the point where I need to put it away or I'll get no work done today.
their 404 error page is the best sounding one i have seen so far: <a href="https://learningmusic.ableton.com/wronglink" rel="nofollow">https://learningmusic.ableton.com/wronglink</a>
My first Ableton try out: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6oLysNagLQ&ab_channel=MazzyStar">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6oLysNagLQ&ab_channel=Mazzy...</a>
Also from Ableton: "Learning Synths" - <a href="https://learningsynths.ableton.com/" rel="nofollow">https://learningsynths.ableton.com/</a>
This is incredible. I'd love to see something similar for sound synthesis (how do you craft that perfect piano/violin/dubsteppy sound?) and mixing/mastering.
Live coding is another way for hackers to get started with music making:<p><a href="https://glicol.org/" rel="nofollow">https://glicol.org/</a>