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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Musician's Lounge > The "how do I make electronic/club/DJ music" Megathread!
 
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Yojimb0
Oct 11, 2004

squidgee posted:

Here's my own personal tip for everyone starting out, and it's one that I just figured out:

:sun: Using Softsynths (VSTis)

If you've chosen to go the softsynth route, there's something you need to remember: softsynths are instruments. Let me just repeat that: softsynths are instruments. Treat them as such. A lot of beginners (myself included) treat softsynths as nothing more than magical music generators. They'll surf through presets, find themselves annoyed that a certain free VSTi doesn't have the sounds they're looking for in its sound bank, and download a new one.

Don't do this. Treat each VSTi like a hardware synthesizer that you dropped hundreds of dollars on (and if you're dealing with commercial VSTis, you may very well have spent hundreds on it). Learn the ins and outs of how to program it before you move on to a new one. The same goes for effects: learn how to use what you have before moving on.

I highly recommend that anyone just starting out go the software/softsynth route. Save the hardware for when you're a baller. Keeping a lot of it in the computer means you just have to buy midi controller and small, 2-4 channel audio interfaces. Software is much easier to learn because it uses the paradigms of normal windows/mac software that you have been learning since you started to use a computer: hardware interfaces are arcane and difficult. Software has tons of flexibility: download new presets, plugins, etc. You get all the built in functionality of windows and macs (copy and paste, etc.) You get to use a huge, high resolution color screen that you interact with using a mouse and keyboard shortcuts, instead of a tiny dot matrix LED that you click through with buttons. It really is the best way to go starting out.

I was banging my head in frustration trying to learn how to use my hardware in a meaningful way: once I switched to Ableton and Reason, everything became much, much, much nicer. It was like getting my car out of a muddy ditch.

That being said, when you do go the software route, treat it with respect and care, the way the nice man that I am quoting says to.

* # ¿ Mar 10, 2008 21:38
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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Musician's Lounge > The "how do I make electronic/club/DJ music" Megathread!