What was that first experience you had that made you interested in producing music?

In my case, a friend of mine showed me Guitar Pro 3 on his PC. Since we had a school band, I got excited that I could show them potential new own songs for our repertoire.
I created some really good stuff with GP until I realized how limited MIDI sounds were. The rest of the story is what we've all been through.

Would love to read about your humble beginnings.

 

MIDI sounds limited? By what, by who?

 

The singer of my first band in 2006 had a home studio. The band planned to record a demo right after I joined so I experienced studio real quick in my musical history. It was interesting but I wasn't fond of it immediately. Then in 2008 I cofounded another band and we quickly wanted to have our own demo. At that time I wanted to try it myself by sampling each part of my drums with an SM58 (...).

The (obvious) failure was enough to call my former band's singer to have a go by his studio in 2009. At this point I was fascinated and couldn't take the idea of doing it myself out of my head. Especially because our demo didn't exactly sound great and I was pretty sure I could do much better since I could spot the flaws (yup, what a fool I was !).

So Then I bought a Presonus Firestudio Project, a Samson 8-Kit, an SM57 and an E906 in 2011 and started training with friends. I had the best times of my life working with very little bands, producing our own album in 2016 and now being part of Ola Englund's SWOLA weekly challenge since January this year, challenging myself each week to make the most clean and massive production I can !

May I add that at some point in 2006, before joining my first band, I was writing music on Guitar Pro 5 with a friend and I genuinely wanted to record the RSE sound, add some vocals and publish a demo... What a terrible mistake it would have been !

@rudolph OP's speaking about Guitar Pro's General MIDI output, it obviously is more than limited to listen to a rock/punk/metal composition :D

 

Last edited: Sep 30, 2022

Hahahaha, you made me remember how sick the RSE soundbanks from GP 5 were! I'm pretty sure I put some vocals on a track that I hope nobody ever listens to.

is it still listenable on any platform?

 

Listening to Sgt. Pepper and wondering how they made an album that sounds like that. Then- listening to lots of albums and wondering why I liked the sound of some, but not others. Then getting a PortaStudio in the 80s and trying to record things on it that sounded good.

 

Drugs.
First Black Sabbath album.
Rush - Moving Pictures.

 

Last edited: Oct 1, 2022

I just wanted to record some songs I was working on, joined a friend that had some songs of his, and we started recording a demo using these (plus a cheap microphone and a cheap guitar, back in 1997):

 

Started out in the mid 70's when synths were monophonic and unprogrammable.
I learned to bounce tracks on a small 1964 Dual reel to reel tape deck.
From there graduated to multitrack tape decks and mixers. Cheap Tascams. Pro gear wasn't affordable like now
After doing my own music, others became interested in my know how and I got work by reputation.

 

used the hear many great tracks that I would change the excessive reverb on lead instruments, change the arrangement and so on

 

A friend of mine introduced me on how to make music!

 

Nine Inch Nails.

 

Since I met music software (daws + plugins) and MIDI hardware technology.

 

When I was at school (about 13 or 14) a teacher brought in a song and asked us for our interpretation of the lyrics. When it came to my turn, my actual response was. "I'm sorry but whilst everyone was listening to the lyrics, I was concentrating on the bassline and guitar riff."

 

I played in a few bands back in the 80's and 90's that went nowhere. I had a Portastudio but it was limited. By that time, computers began getting more powerful, so I used multitrack sequencers with my Soundblaster card. This was back in the late 90's when Performer, Voyetra, Cubase, etc had just started.

 

It was in Paris, beginning 80s, I was 5 years old. My uncle had a rockabilly band and an 8-track recorder. He taught me how to use it, because he saw how fascinated I was. From there on I became addicted. I learnd how to play piano, sax and guitar. A few years later I discoverd
the musical possibilities of Amiga 500.

 

Listening to spaced out music back in the day, you know, Vangelis, Jarre and those geniuses wondering just how the hell is that sound done.

At the same time the magical chiptunes of C64 and later the sampling capabilities of an Amiga made me realize that I could in fact do something myself.

 

Yes Spotify & co, band is SpitBack, album is Dissident. Hardcore metal. Warning : lack of low-end, I already know it
GP5 was a true gem, I don't think I would have written any song in my life without getting started with it. They realy did change my life !

 

Amiga 500 Cracktros, Demoscene- and 8bit/16bit Gamemusic. Early 90s Electronic Music.
My first music software was Protracker on Amiga. My first Midi sequencer was Notator Logic on Atari which was the predecessor of Emagic Logic.
I was using an Amiga tracker for midi before that. But i can't remember the name of it i think it was OctaMed.
My first synthesizer was a Kurzweil K2000. Best decision at the time. You could do nearly everything with it.

 

It was probably before this, but the earliest attempt at making music I can think of was when we got an "Adlib" sound card at our house for our PC (a very old one, back then). Eventually my dad and I found a MIDI version of Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze and I was like.. wow this is awesome. lol Eventually we got a Creative Labs Sound Blaster (and various iterations). We then got a Gravis Ultrasound, which was a large upgrade for me, musically. It was a cheap "MIDI" card with pretty good soundfonts on it, for the price. So it helped me make decently realistic (at the time) sounding music.

For "DAW", I had a very very early version of Cakewalk (we're talking DOS), and did some playing around in there. I am not sure if I was writing my own songs yet, at that point. Probably not... probably just trying to re-create existing songs, or really just playing around. Before too long I was using Trackers to make music, and a more graphical (Windows) version of Cakewalk as well.. mostly orchestral stuff, but nothing too noteworthy.

Really it was probably a whole bunch of things that added up, the first and foremost just being a love of music. Outside of that, hearing great soundtracks in games like the original Legend of Zelda and other older games or movies inspired me to want to try and make my own music.

 

Music production? What's this?
Not many years ago "we" were just composers or musicians.
Or both.
I still am.
I don't produce. I make music.
After listening to/absorbing music for years since I was born (like most of us all) music finally decided to come back out again.
Fist time with a red and yellow plastic harmonica. I was 9 years old, I think.

 

Last edited: Oct 1, 2022