So i've been a metal type of guy most of my life, released 3 albums in this genre so far, all were well received and one could say I was somewhat successful, all music on spotify, physical releases, so on.

But i'm much more into electronic music now and i'd like to play around with that. So far i've only used Reaper to produce everything I released, I know that Ableton is pretty much the edm industry standard, how beneficial would it be to learn it instead of staying with Reaper?

My two favorite edm artists at the moment are Grimes and Crystal Castles so i'd love to play around with something in this vein.

Any overall tips, youtube tutorials, recommended plugins to start with and so on are very much welcome. Thanks!

 

reaper will work 100% fine, in fact even better because you already have a head start with it.

the concepts are pretty much the same, the only difference really is you are not playing your inputs live (sometimes).
grab yourself some free synths and samples, load them into reaper and start playing around. you will pick it up fast enough.

 

It is obligatory to have at least one loony response to any post. I thought I'd get in first this time.

 

What tutorials? Buy a synth (hardware or software) and play the notes or input them with mouse. The rest (editing, mixing) is the same as in metal or any other music style.
I checked these Grimes and Crystal castles and it sounded like a bad pop music (not only lo-fi aesthetic, but musically boring), sorry, can't help you much about this, maybe even freeware plugins will do the job. There was a free ensemble in Reaktor user library that adds pitch instability and reduces the sound quality, but I think there exist such commercial plugins, too, if you are after lo-fi sounds like these I heard from youtube music videos of these bands.

 

cool topics

 

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Is there any DAW where can't? Well, except for Cubase, you'll probably need already an hour to open and close all the menus, submenus, windows and tools to get to the very basic functions you need to actually write a song.

 

Unless you use shortcuts ofc. Most people do. I work as fast in Cubase, Reaper, Live, Bitwig or FLS.

To answer OP question, "historically" there are two types of daws. Cubase, Reaper, Logic, Samplitude, etc recreate the workflow of mixing consoles in recording studios. They offer a linear display and workflow.
Bitwig, Live and FLS or even Maschine recreate the Sampler/workstations pattern based workflow (with included sequencers) which is ideal for loop based music. All those daws are kiddies of this era, pinacle being Akai MPC.
Since it now includs patterns, Studio1 is kind of a hybrid solution.

 

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Look for vengeance sound packs for some basic samples to start with. Then just go looping shit up and play around with the synths, effects, compressors all that stuff.

Also ableton live is a godsend daw with a "fresh" (its been around) approach to daw

 

Does it? I have been away and now you got me really intrested

 

Very. How much time does it take to learn a daw? Half a day or something so get to work. Mastering it might be a different thing.

 

Yeah they've added that with v 4.
S1 also allows for macros so that's also in the spirit.
Live and Bitwig modulation systems remain quite unique though, and very usefull for those genres.

Latest updates actually enhanced the features available (in v 4.6 you can convert instrument parts in patterns) but this video gives the jist of it.

To OP : on bitwig site they propose a few tutorials for their main features.
But search on YT, plenty of channels there for Live tuts and others.

 

Studio One 4.6 is surprisingly fun. I used Cubase so far but I'm about to make the final switch to SO when I finished up some older projects. It's still lacking fairly many of the features of Cubase, but I don't use most of them anyway, and the workflow in SO is just great. Haven't had so much fun making music in a long time.

 

ditto on Ableton Live.

 

you must install it ..try it...

 

I was in a similar spot so here's what I have learned about these things.

Tutorials: Syntorial is a unique "hands on" tutorial software that teaches you synth programming and a good understanding of it.
Then there's a good intro tutorial course "EDMProd EDM Foundations". There's a version for FL Studio and one for Ableton. Heard good reviews about this series. And there's "Dance Music Production" company that does a lot of highly regarded tutorials.

If you don't want to worry about tutorials you can consider buying a pass for Groove3 or ADSR. They have tutorials for pretty much everything, although the quality can vary.

Serum is pretty much the standard synth for a lot of EDM stuff nowadays, there's a ton of preset packs for it for every EDM genre imaginable. Other popular Synths are, depending on the genre, Spire, Diva, Avenger, Dune.

As for the DAW, that is a tricky one. There's plenty of good tutorials for Reaper but almost nothing when it comes to EDM production in it. If you have a basic understanding of general DAW concepts, you can watch tutorials that are made for other DAWs and simply transfer everything to what you know in Reaper. But honestly, if you are starting out EDM from scratch, I would recommend at least taking a look at Ableton, Bitwig or FL Studio. There is a TON of tutorials for Ableton. Quite a lot for FL Studio. And a small but usable amount for Bitwig.

Also Reaper is complicated but highly configurable. Ask yourself: Do you want a package that just works and has a great workflow out of the box? Then stay away from Reaper and go for Live. Do you not mind spending a lot of time setting things up, learning a ton of details and writing custom scripts in order to tailor Reaper to exactly your needs? Then it might be just what you want.

The most important advice is to download demos and try them all out for yourself. I lost myself in threads and videos like these until I actually got my hands on some of these DAWs and tried them. Watching videos can give you an impression but it is only by using them yourself that you will understand where the strengths and weaknesses of each DAW are. As soon as I tried, it quickly became clear what I liked and didn't.

 

you not the only one , a lot of metal guys seem to get into grimes
--

 

install live..keep reaper....use both...
maybe you end up using one more but find out some short ways with other..

 

Be glad to oblige. ;-D

If you live in or near some bustling metropolis like NYC, find yourself a work crew that's digging up a street using jackhammers and sample it. That's your kick, snare, hats, claps. Plus the pulse is the right tempo. Next, find the most obnoxious, irritatingly mind numbing synth and sampled noises you possibly can. Put the two together and VOILA!!!

and there's the problem right there

 

Last edited: Jan 5, 2020

might be useful for you
https://www.admiralbumblebee.com/DAW-Chart.html

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 5, 2020

Avicii used fruity loops and dam it is really great piece of software enabling one to work fast. I just hate the mixer so much. I really wish Ableton would allow itself to be a slave. None of these are great enough on their own. One always has to make a compromise whatever the choice of daw is.