Author Topic: How to make music  (Read 13689 times)

Argentum

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How to make music
« on: April 02, 2015, 10:47:35 AM »
I am starting to compose music.  What's some good software?  I don't want to buy and install a bunch of bullshit and find out its useless.

Enny

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Re: How to make music
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2015, 04:47:36 PM »
Like Fede said, FL-Studio is one option. It's pretty widely used, and recommended, especially among internet musicians, as well as beginners. Very capable DAW, though I'd recommend trying a couple out.

Me, personally, I fiddled with FL-Studio for a little over a year, and eventually came to the conclusion that it wasn't for me. For some people, it's everything they could want, but personally, I wasn't feeling it. Looking back, the reasons were that it felt too cluttered, especially after I'd get a lot of different instruments and VST's loaded up, and that everything was laid out so.. Hmm. Nontraditionally, I guess?

You have your more "professionally"/traditionally laid out DAWs, the ones you'll see in studios like Pro-tools, Cubase, Sonar, Logic (Favorite of Mac users) and Studio One to name a few, which are as great as any other DAW, depending on how you personally understand them. Then some that have a mix of traditional layout, with their own quirks, like Ableton, Bitwig (One of the only major DAWs with native Linux support), and Reason. Lastly, are the ones that are pretty odd, being.. FL, and something else, probably. FL is the only one I've ever looked at that's so different, but there are probably others.

OS support is probably important to you as well.

The only DAWs that have native support on Windows, Mac, and Linux devices, are Bitwig, and LMMS (An open-source, kinda watered down DAW), to my knowledge. Don't quote me on that, though.

Windows and Mac are Ableton, Pro-tools, Cubase, and jeez idunno what else.

Strictly Windows is FL Studio (At the moment, they're working on OSX support), Sonar, and maaaybe Studio One?

Mac-only is Garage Band, which comes free with your computer, and Logic.


There are probably more in each category, but that's what I know of.

My personal recommendation is Ableton. I find it cleaner and with less windows than FL, as well as a million other things, but preferences, you might completely disagree. (Edit: I can also actually link you to tutorials for understanding Ableton if you wanna try it out, can't remember what I used for FL back in the day. SeamlessR is good if you go with FL)

Lastly, what are you looking to compose? Electronic? Orchestral? Wanna plug in a guitar and track? Let us know, and I'm sure either Fede and I could recommend some libraries, VST's, or other things.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2015, 08:23:24 PM by Enny »

Argentum

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Re: How to make music
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2015, 12:22:20 PM »
Like Fede said, FL-Studio is one option. It's pretty widely used, and recommended, especially among internet musicians, as well as beginners. Very capable DAW, though I'd recommend trying a couple out.

Me, personally, I fiddled with FL-Studio for a little over a year, and eventually came to the conclusion that it wasn't for me. For some people, it's everything they could want, but personally, I wasn't feeling it. Looking back, the reasons were that it felt too cluttered, especially after I'd get a lot of different instruments and VST's loaded up, and that everything was laid out so.. Hmm. Nontraditionally, I guess?

You have your more "professionally"/traditionally laid out DAWs, the ones you'll see in studios like Pro-tools, Cubase, Sonar, Logic (Favorite of Mac users) and Studio One to name a few, which are as great as any other DAW, depending on how you personally understand them. Then some that have a mix of traditional layout, with their own quirks, like Ableton, Bitwig (One of the only major DAWs with native Linux support), and Reason. Lastly, are the ones that are pretty odd, being.. FL, and something else, probably. FL is the only one I've ever looked at that's so different, but there are probably others.

OS support is probably important to you as well.

The only DAWs that have native support on Windows, Mac, and Linux devices, are Bitwig, and LMMS (An open-source, kinda watered down DAW), to my knowledge. Don't quote me on that, though.

Windows and Mac are Ableton, Pro-tools, Cubase, and jeez idunno what else.

Strictly Windows is FL Studio (At the moment, they're working on OSX support), Sonar, and maaaybe Studio One?

Mac-only is Garage Band, which comes free with your computer, and Logic.


There are probably more in each category, but that's what I know of.

My personal recommendation is Ableton. I find it cleaner and with less windows than FL, as well as a million other things, but preferences, you might completely disagree. (Edit: I can also actually link you to tutorials for understanding Ableton if you wanna try it out, can't remember what I used for FL back in the day. SeamlessR is good if you go with FL)

Lastly, what are you looking to compose? Electronic? Orchestral? Wanna plug in a guitar and track? Let us know, and I'm sure either Fede and I could recommend some libraries, VST's, or other things.

The biggest concern is being able to make good sounding orchestral music, but on limited computing power, as my computer is ancient.  I am trying REAPER now on the suggestion of another digital composer but I am willing to try less expensive shit.

The OS is important, it must be able to run (decently) on Windows XP. 

Ableton stuff would be great, as price isn't a concern right now.

Like I said, I want to compose orchestral music.  Something in the futurist style most likely.  I am on the lookout for a good free libraries for common orchestra instruments.  I only have a cello library right now and I need some more before I can really sandbox. 


I need to get a microphone before I can record sounds.  What are some good sample libraries that I can get legally?  I am looking for something like "Piano Libary" for example, with all the piano notes recorded so I can simulate a piano.  I thought about using MuseScore to make music but hearing the samples, MuseScore is not cut out for that. 

Enny

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Re: How to make music
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2015, 04:36:37 PM »
With Orchestral, something that'll help you is having a decent amount of RAM on a 64bit OS. A lot of those really big orchestral sample libraries will be apt to kick the shit out of your rig, otherwise. I'd say eight gigs, if you can, but if not, I suppose you can always freeze and flatten until then.. 2gbRAM base, 2.0ghz or so multicore processer are also recommended as a minimum with most stuff, so if you're at least over that, I think you'll manage either way.

I don't know much about reaper, other than that it's considered cheap compared to other DAWs. Should be fine if you're liking it, though. Ableton's suite version does come with like, 4gigs of strings, brass, mallets, and woodwinds each, which are alright enough if you're just getting into it, kinda shit by professional standards, but seeing as you're wanting to go free stuff, and the suite is like, eight-hundred dollars, stay awaaayyy.

Don't know of anything else, personally, especially not free stuff. Libraries like LA Scoring Strings, and Cinebrass are what you're eventually aiming for, but can be pricy. If you're feeling adventurous and piratey though, they plug into Kontakt, so grab that first.

Argentum

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Re: How to make music
« Reply #4 on: April 05, 2015, 07:43:20 AM »
With Orchestral, something that'll help you is having a decent amount of RAM on a 64bit OS. A lot of those really big orchestral sample libraries will be apt to kick the shit out of your rig, otherwise. I'd say eight gigs, if you can, but if not, I suppose you can always freeze and flatten until then.. 2gbRAM base, 2.0ghz or so multicore processer are also recommended as a minimum with most stuff, so if you're at least over that, I think you'll manage either way.

I don't know much about reaper, other than that it's considered cheap compared to other DAWs. Should be fine if you're liking it, though. Ableton's suite version does come with like, 4gigs of strings, brass, mallets, and woodwinds each, which are alright enough if you're just getting into it, kinda shit by professional standards, but seeing as you're wanting to go free stuff, and the suite is like, eight-hundred dollars, stay awaaayyy.

Don't know of anything else, personally, especially not free stuff. Libraries like LA Scoring Strings, and Cinebrass are what you're eventually aiming for, but can be pricy. If you're feeling adventurous and piratey though, they plug into Kontakt, so grab that first.

I don't even meet those requirements, am I fucked?

The selling point with the musician who recommended it also said one of its biggest perks was that it was cheap.  Hopefully that's meant in an endearing way rather than a "wow this is shit" cheap.

Thanks for the library suggestions, I will check those out. 

Since you know so much about this shit where's your music?

Enny

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Re: How to make music
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2015, 09:38:04 AM »
I'm pretty sure Reaper is plenty capable, it might just be lacking some plugins and sounds out of the box, so ideal to find your own I guess. I don't know though, never used it, just know it's considered a major DAW.

I don't even meet those requirements, am I fucked?

Maybe. Post your specs. If they're in the ballpark, you can manage as long as you take it slow and don't get too ambitious. There are some computers I know of that are under 500 that are capable of running this kinda software fine, even if not able to do other things like gaming, so if you're ever looking to upgrade for this purpose, it shouldn't be be toooo expensive.


Since you know so much about this shit where's your music?

Haha, there isn't any. I've spent the last couple years casually learning about production because it's fun. On various computers, either really shitty laptops, the family computer, or my brother's beast rig. I'll make something someday, when I feel I'm ready, I guess. Til then, there's still so much I haven't learned how to do, or need to memorize.

Well. I've thrown stuff together in private, but haven't bothered to post it. There are already thousands of mediocre musicians on the internet putting stuff out before they know what the hell they're doing because they wanna be famous, whether I'm good or not, I don't wanna get buried by them.

In the event I can get my own computer though, and learn some of the things I've been wanting, as well as legally purchase software, I'll consider it.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2015, 12:03:27 PM by Enny »

Re: How to make music
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2015, 07:03:18 PM »
Make a fart song.

Argentum

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Re: How to make music
« Reply #7 on: April 05, 2015, 07:57:05 PM »
Maybe. Post your specs. If they're in the ballpark, you can manage as long as you take it slow and don't get too ambitious. There are some computers I know of that are under 500 that are capable of running this kinda software fine, even if not able to do other things like gaming, so if you're ever looking to upgrade for this purpose, it shouldn't be be toooo expensive.

1.75 GB RAM with a 2.2 GHz one core processor, running virgin windows xp alongside a completely worthless ubuntu install I never use.  620 GB of disk space from two hard drives.  Also has two disk drives.  Not bad for a 11 year old computer.

Haha, there isn't any. I've spent the last couple years casually learning about production because it's fun. On various computers, either really shitty laptops, the family computer, or my brother's beast rig. I'll make something someday, when I feel I'm ready, I guess. Til then, there's still so much I haven't learned how to do, or need to memorize.

Well. I've thrown stuff together in private, but haven't bothered to post it. There are already thousands of mediocre musicians on the internet putting stuff out before they know what the hell they're doing because they wanna be famous, whether I'm good or not, I don't wanna get buried by them.

In the event I can get my own computer though, and learn some of the things I've been wanting, as well as legally purchase software, I'll consider it.

I don't know nothin or nothin yet but I plan to use my first concerto as a learning experience.  Hopefully I won't be buried in a large pile of shit because there are relatively few orchestral composers on the internet compared to the large number of vaporwave post-post-post doomcore bedroom meme pop bullshit that /mu/ flagships.  Not that it's all bad.  Guess it will be nice to have a larger slice of the shit pie. 

He's just good at typing overly long posts and "I guess" a lot. Helps him distract himself from tuppers.

I, too, haven't really put any of my own anywhere in particular. There was some stuff on my "Fede's Shit" site a while back, as I'm sure you remember, and another random composition on YouTube. All experimental and quite basic. Maybe I'll get more into it one day.

Clearly written isn't overly long.  Wagner opera is overly long.

Yeah I remember super hot dog land.

If you were to get into it what sort of shit would you make?

Make a fart song.

No.

Enny

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Re: How to make music
« Reply #8 on: April 05, 2015, 08:16:11 PM »
Space is great, RAM will manage, probably. I think when I started out I was using some rinky 1.2ghz. Laptop with 2gb RAM. Your processor might be alright, but I'm no expert on older hardware.

Aha, I had to talk a friend through production a while back, as he was interested, only to learn he was using an ancient laptop with 1gb RAM, and like, a processor running at less than 1ghz.

Might not be pretty, but yeah, I think you'll be able to manage, at least long enough to learn the basics, and decide whether or not you'd like to pick it up as a full-time hobby or whatever.

Happy producing/composing, and remember that YouTube is your friend.

Re: How to make music
« Reply #9 on: April 06, 2015, 06:48:21 AM »

Argentum

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Re: How to make music
« Reply #10 on: April 06, 2015, 03:46:58 PM »
Make a fart song.

No.

Do it.

Ps. go force faggot.

I will not make a fart song.  Go make one yourself.

I might force but for the time being I am too busy with IRL bullshit.  Maybe next week, I don't know.

Space is great, RAM will manage, probably. I think when I started out I was using some rinky 1.2ghz. Laptop with 2gb RAM. Your processor might be alright, but I'm no expert on older hardware.

Aha, I had to talk a friend through production a while back, as he was interested, only to learn he was using an ancient laptop with 1gb RAM, and like, a processor running at less than 1ghz.

Might not be pretty, but yeah, I think you'll be able to manage, at least long enough to learn the basics, and decide whether or not you'd like to pick it up as a full-time hobby or whatever.

Happy producing/composing, and remember that YouTube is your friend.

Thank goodness it will probably work. 

I don't understand why youtube is my friend.  If you mean for uploading music, I am going to put it on bandcamp and soundcloud but that's all months away from now.

Re: How to make music
« Reply #11 on: April 07, 2015, 07:44:56 AM »
I think he means look up tutorials on da tube.