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Comedy option: There's also Caustic 3, which is a DAW made for mobile use, but there's desktop versions as well. It's cheap on mobile and free on desktop, and even though the interface might be a bit odd to use with a mouse it seems people get it to work just fine.
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Apr 30, 2018 20:34
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I was messing around with Ableton Live Lite and found that I really like Ableton's Drum Racks - I like the easy drag-and-drop of samples to pads, adjusting each sample's settings with the macro knobs, and all the preset drum sets it comes with. Are there any VST's y'all recommend that have similar functionality? I ask because I use Reaper for most of my work, and I'd love to have something easy and batteries-included when I need to work on drums.
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May 11, 2018 05:33
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Native Instruments Battery fxpansion Geist
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May 11, 2018 08:54
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giogadi posted:I was messing around with Ableton Live Lite and found that I really like Ableton's Drum Racks - I like the easy drag-and-drop of samples to pads, adjusting each sample's settings with the macro knobs, and all the preset drum sets it comes with. Are there any VST's y'all recommend that have similar functionality? I ask because I use Reaper for most of my work, and I'd love to have something easy and batteries-included when I need to work on drums. I used ShortCircuit for drums in Reaper back then, but that's freeware and comes with no/very few available soundsets, so mostly useful if you just need the basic Drum Rack+Simpler functionality (ie. no macro knobs).
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May 11, 2018 15:09
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Thanks for the recs! Battery and Geist both look to be exactly what I’m looking for. At that price tag though I guess I could also decide whether it’s worth just ponying up for an Ableton license as well. I got some stuff to think about!
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May 11, 2018 15:41
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Is the copy of Live Lite yours? Does it Rewire into Reaper?
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May 11, 2018 15:58
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Yeah it’s my copy - that’s really interesting, I hadn’t thought of Rewire as an option! I can look into that.
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May 11, 2018 17:16
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giogadi posted:Thanks for the recs! Battery and Geist both look to be exactly what I’m looking for. At that price tag though I guess I could also decide whether it’s worth just ponying up for an Ableton license as well. I got some stuff to think about! If you're not in a hurry, FXpansion occasionally has sales with really good discounts for Geist (well, Geist 2 now). But I couldn't give you a timetable.
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May 11, 2018 17:58
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giogadi posted:Yeah it’s my copy - that’s really interesting, I hadn’t thought of Rewire as an option! I can look into that. I've been trying to teach myself a bit of renoise beatmaking and rewiring it to Cubase helps a lot as trying to do melodies etc in renoise is beyond me atm.
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May 11, 2018 18:28
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Holy poo poo FL Studio 20 finally added track consolidation!!!!!  finally!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuqqiuaLYJA
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May 23, 2018 16:47
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also mac support.... but lmk when someone fully supports the push2 on fl studio otherwise im staying ableton 
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May 23, 2018 17:26
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I've been listening to electronic music almost exclusively for the last... 17 years or so. However the few attempts I've had at production never went anywhere. I find myself so overwhelmed by everything that it just feels hopeless. Right now I have Logic Pro X on my MBA. I'm wondering what the next step is from here. I don't have monitors but I have some Sennheiser headphones. Honestly I open up the software and I am totally clueless. It looks like it wants me to plug in a MIDI keyboard? Is that what I should buy first? I don't want to spend too much until I decide if I can really do it... Also is there a good tutorial you'd recommend for Logic? I found several on youtube. Also wondering if getting an actual "tutor" would be a good idea. Not sure how much it would cost though. Thanks actionjackson fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Jun 6, 2018 |
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Jun 6, 2018 01:56
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actionjackson posted:I've been listening to electronic music almost exclusively for the last... 17 years or so. However the few attempts I've had at production never went anywhere. I find myself so overwhelmed by everything that it just feels hopeless. quote:Right now I have Logic Pro X on my MBA. [...] It looks like it wants me to plug in a MIDI keyboard? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaERRLo87vg (skip to 1:00 to avoid the pre-roll and PLEASE LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE) What are the downsides? Computer keyboards only have a tiny range, so forget playing melodies that span more than one octave. Computer keyboards also tend to not react well when you play several notes at a time, so forget chords unless you have n-key rollover. Computer keyboards also do not have velocity. Acoustic pianos do have velocity; the speed the hammer hits the string with corresponds to the loudness and brightness of the sound, so it's basically like TYPING IN ALL CAPS but only on an instrument. So, for a software instrument that mimics a piano, the velocity value is used to switch between pianissimo (very quiet) and pianoforte (very loud) playback of a note. For software instruments that mimic a drum kit, it's the difference between softly hitting a snare drum and wailing on it. quote:Is that what I should buy first? I don't want to spend too much until I decide if I can really do it... quote:Also is there a good tutorial you'd recommend for Logic? I found several on youtube. Also wondering if getting an actual "tutor" would be a good idea. Not sure how much it would cost though. Any beginner tutorial will do. You first need to get used to the mental model that Logic is using. All the instruments in Logic are essentially operated by robots. A MIDI track tells the robot what note it should play at what time. This is like digital sheet music. An audio track tells the robot which sound it should reproduce at what time. This is like a CD, or tape. One kind tells you what to play, but not what it sounds like; the other kind tells you what it sounds like, but not how to play it. The audio output of the instrument is routed to a mixer. If all you have is one instrument, mixing is easy - you have a slider that goes between loud and inaudible. If you have two instruments, you're dealing with the proportion between them. There are audio tracks and MIDI tracks. An audio track shows a waveform. A MIDI track shows a bunch of little squares, comparable to an old fashioned player piano roll. You cannot turn one into the other* (actually you can, but skip that for now - it's not relevant yet) So, here's a thing you can try. Start a new Logic project. Create a new Instrument track. Choose ES2 as the instrument. Open the on-screen keyboard with CMD-K. Play some notes; you should hear something. If you don't hear anything, figure that out first. Click the Record button and just play 4 quarter notes in a row, like a kickdrum. Congrats; you've now successfully recorded something. If you double-click that green box that was just created, you probably see the piano roll up close; you might notice that not all of the boxes are perfectly on the grid. You can use your mouse to snap 'm into the right spot, or you can use quantization. You can compose music by making it so that every element fits in such a green box of equal length; kind of like a pattern (this is also sort of how FL Studio used to work/works). After creating several patterns - one containing 4 kick drums, one containing a bassline playing 8th notes, one containing 2 808 claps or whatever - composing can be done by stacking these patterns on top of eachother, and then deleting or including them based on need. This can be less overwhelming since you're working on one pattern at a time, so you only have to worry about one thing and one instrument; you first assemble all the building blocks of your music, and then decide how the entire song needs to look. All this writing is basically my excuse for saying "sorry, I use Ableton Live, and I have no idea what constitutes a good Logic tutorial." 
Laserjet 4P fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Jun 6, 2018 |
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Jun 6, 2018 07:25
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actionjackson posted:I've been listening to electronic music almost exclusively for the last... 17 years or so. However the few attempts I've had at production never went anywhere. I find myself so overwhelmed by everything that it just feels hopeless. Right now I have Logic Pro X on my MBA. I'm wondering what the next step is from here. I don't have monitors but I have some Sennheiser headphones. Honestly I open up the software and I am totally clueless. It looks like it wants me to plug in a MIDI keyboard? Is that what I should buy first? I don't want to spend too much until I decide if I can really do it... I was in a same situation as you and then I realized that I had much more immediate fun with hardware. I recommend a cheap sampler like the Volca Sample or the Pocket Operator KO or Tonic. It was definitely the trigger for me to start enjoying production. Now my studio looks like this and every month I grab a few synth and join friends for a jam since all we need to have fun is a sync cable 
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Jun 6, 2018 08:20
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actionjackson posted:I've been listening to electronic music almost exclusively for the last... 17 years or so. However the few attempts I've had at production never went anywhere. I find myself so overwhelmed by everything that it just feels hopeless. Right now I have Logic Pro X on my MBA. I'm wondering what the next step is from here. I don't have monitors but I have some Sennheiser headphones. Honestly I open up the software and I am totally clueless. It looks like it wants me to plug in a MIDI keyboard? Is that what I should buy first? I don't want to spend too much until I decide if I can really do it... basically what you need to do is limit yourself. this is easily done with hardware, as someone suggested, i got my skills back up by producing on only an ipad for a few years. you could even just install a DAW on your phone, korg gadget for ios or caustic for android, or maybe just a drum synth / a sampler for one of those but you need to limit yourself, and then you can focus, and then you can learn, and expand, and grow
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Jun 6, 2018 08:49
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actionjackson posted:I've been listening to electronic music almost exclusively for the last... 17 years or so. However the few attempts I've had at production never went anywhere. I find myself so overwhelmed by everything that it just feels hopeless. Right now I have Logic Pro X on my MBA. I'm wondering what the next step is from here. I don't have monitors but I have some Sennheiser headphones. Honestly I open up the software and I am totally clueless. It looks like it wants me to plug in a MIDI keyboard? Is that what I should buy first? I don't want to spend too much until I decide if I can really do it... do you need help on how to make music or how to use logic? for the former, I always thought this ableton page was cool https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ . as for using logic. watch youtube videos. nothings gonna beat opening up the software and messing around.
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Jun 6, 2018 10:25
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i mean ive taught ppl specific tricks and workflows for $20/hr but rly itd be best to get in there and gently caress around. just grab a demo of fl studio or something and gently caress around
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Jun 6, 2018 11:31
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Thanks for all the replies. Is there a MIDI keyboard you would recommend as the first piece of hardware?
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Jun 6, 2018 13:46
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akai mpk25 is p nice for basic melody lines and it has drumpads and knobs. korg probably has equivalents if you want korg poo poo
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Jun 6, 2018 15:20
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sea of losers posted:akai mpk25 is p nice for basic melody lines and it has drumpads and knobs. korg probably has equivalents if you want korg poo poo Thanks. What about the mpk mini? Will that not have some necessary functionality that the 25 has?
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Jun 6, 2018 16:42
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It doesn't have real MIDI outputs, only USB, and it's got mini keys instead of full-sized ones. Not having real MIDI outputs is not that nice when you want to hook up hardware synthesizers and drumcomputers that don't have USB. However, if you have enough pre-USB hardware, you have to buy a MIDI interface anyway, so right now it's not much of a dealbreaker. Either way, 25 keys are better than your typing keyboard, but still not sufficient to learn piano on.
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Jun 6, 2018 17:00
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What's a good number of keys?
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Jun 6, 2018 18:49
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actionjackson posted:What's a good number of keys? I tried a 25-key controller and I found it to be too small. 49-key is the perfect size for me, but I am not a piano player. I have heard from piano players that they don't like going under 61 keys.
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Jun 6, 2018 19:00
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The akai 49 is a bit pricy for me but I assume buying a used one is fine? The 25 key is more in my budget. At least right now.
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Jun 6, 2018 19:14
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you can get a cheap 61-key and pedal for under $200, tho that mostly only matters if yr playing piano pieces. if youre not sure about this it doesnt rly hurt to get a cheap 25-key controller and have it around for later.
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Jun 6, 2018 19:45
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I like 37 keys as a good balance myself
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Jun 6, 2018 20:45
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actionjackson posted:What's a good number of keys? 49 is my absolute minimum and 61 my preference (88 is piano, but weighted keys so heavier to play), but if you're buying this just to find out if it's something you really want to do, then start with 25. Re: hardware - you could get something like a Korg Electribe 2 (not the sampling version). A volca makes more sense when you've got more infrastructure (other synths and effects) as well. These things are called grooveboxes; basically you get a selection of sounds typically suited for electronic music genres. It does work on the basis of patterns, but you've got all your sounds lined up for you and categorized so you don't really have to think about that part that much. You can learn a lot about building percussion this way. There is also groovebox software for an iPad, but it depends a bit on how much you want this stuff to feel like an instrument - then again, the same problem is there when you have a computer and a controller keyboard. Both options are definitely less overwhelming.
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Jun 6, 2018 21:46
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Is the main point of more keys that you have more things you can control at once? Is each key and pad just controlling a certain function in your software?
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Jun 6, 2018 23:59
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It *can* control functions but mostly keys are used for playing/auditioning sounds, the more you have the easier this is- you can hear how a synth/virtual instrument sounds at both high and low pitches easier, and if you are auditioning drum kits you can check more of the sounds without pressing octave keys. Space is a consideration for me so I only have 25, 37 would be my personal ideal as only 2 octaves feels a little tight sometimes, especially when dealing with Kontakt instruments (won't bamboozle you with them at this point though). Edit: pads send the same data (ie notes) as keys, but they are nicer for playing drums on. Most controllers will also let you assign the pads so that they can be used to play your drum sounds whilst the keyboard is set to play a melodic instrument. NonzeroCircle fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jun 7, 2018 |
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Jun 7, 2018 00:14
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actionjackson posted:Is the main point of more keys that you have more things you can control at once? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEGOihjqO9w The point of more keys means being able to play pieces like this. Less snarky example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6GG7V7oGoQ The thing this guy is doing here would require you to hit the TRANSPOSE OCTAVE DOWN button twice real quick, and forget playing bass and lead or bass and chord at the same time. quote:Is each key and pad just controlling a certain function in your software? Keys and pads send MIDI notes. It's up to whatever's receiving it to act on that. A middle C may cause a drum computer to play a kick. The drum computer has no idea what is generating that middle C, or that it should play a kick, or that the middle C is the kick note or something. All notes are just that - notes. Keys can be used for other purposes, but it's up to the thing that interprets that incoming message what to do with it. Sliders and rotary knobs send CC or NRPN messages. These aren't notes, they're "now turn this knob to a value between 0 and 127 (for CC) and 0 and 16383 (for NRPN)". You have Logic's ES2 and this way, instead of using your mouse you can let the rotary knob on the controller act as a remote. Laserjet 4P fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Jun 7, 2018 |
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Jun 7, 2018 10:03
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I got an MPK Mini and learned about how to quantize. Then I found out about the ultrabeat drum machines which is what I'm going to be starting with, being a techno person. I found a pretty helpful video about using the sequencer. I also successfully utilized the octave +/- buttons on my new controller. I made some sounds that weren't totally horrible so I consider today to be a major success  I think drum machines and then probably some acid sounds are the two biggest things I'm interested in starting with. I'm still overwhelmed by all the options but trying to keep focused my following youtube guides.
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Jun 11, 2018 02:53
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just be ceephax acid crew haha
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Jun 11, 2018 11:16
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I got a pair of studio monitors. I plugged them into my MBA which was fine except there was some buzzing. Apparently I need an audio interface. What would you recommend here? Focusrite?
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Jun 24, 2018 05:24
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actionjackson posted:I got a pair of studio monitors. I plugged them into my MBA which was fine except there was some buzzing. Apparently I need an audio interface. What would you recommend here? Focusrite? A Focusrite 2i2 was my first interface and it worked great. One thing to consider is how many inputs you will need. Are you planning to do any recording either from a microphone or instrument? 2 inputs is usually plenty for someone starting out since there usually isn’t a great need to record multiple instruments simultaneously.
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Jun 24, 2018 05:42
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MrSargent posted:A Focusrite 2i2 was my first interface and it worked great. One thing to consider is how many inputs you will need. Are you planning to do any recording either from a microphone or instrument? 2 inputs is usually plenty for someone starting out since there usually isn’t a great need to record multiple instruments simultaneously. No, not at all. I just have a MIDI controller plugged into the USB, no other hardware. So I was going to get their simplest but even that was $99. https://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-Sc...words=focusrite What about the cheaper Behringer ones? i.e. https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-UM...dpSrc=srch&th=1
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Jun 24, 2018 06:01
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I don’t have any experience with Behringer interfaces but it is hard to argue with that price. The only thing I noticed though is that it looks like you can only connect the interface to your monitors via RCA, but honestly I don’t know if that matters.
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Jun 24, 2018 06:19
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MrSargent posted:I don’t have any experience with Behringer interfaces but it is hard to argue with that price. The only thing I noticed though is that it looks like you can only connect the interface to your monitors via RCA, but honestly I don’t know if that matters. Yeah, so would I need a separate cable? Right now I have the cord that attaches to the monitors (one is red, other is grey) and then there's a plug for my headphone jack on my computer on the other side.
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Jun 24, 2018 06:24
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actionjackson posted:Yeah, so would I need a separate cable? Right now I have the cord that attaches to the monitors (one is red, other is grey) and then there's a plug for my headphone jack on my computer on the other side. Yah you would just need a standard stereo RCA cable, instead of one that goes to a 3.5mm headphone jack.
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Jun 24, 2018 06:32
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MrSargent posted:Yah you would just need a standard stereo RCA cable, instead of one that goes to a 3.5mm headphone jack. Okay thanks. Looking at the Focusrite solo (the smallest one), it looks like that also requires RCA to connect the speaker to the interface.
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Jun 24, 2018 06:34
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actionjackson posted:Okay thanks. Looking at the Focusrite solo (the smallest one), it looks like that also requires RCA to connect the speaker to the interface. Looks like it. The 2i2 I started with had 1/4” monitor outs instead of RCA.
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Jun 24, 2018 06:38
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