Greetings to all Audioz members. HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone.
I am quite new to Digital Music World. I am very interested in music but sadly never learnt to play any musical instruments. Brought a cheap digital piano at last in 2019 (Only have basic skills) . Unfortunately the pandemic came & took its toll on me as a medic personnel. Still I kept up. Learnt about daw only 2 years back. Found and downloaded few cracked softwares from Internet sites.
Found about Audioz only 10 months back. Then I came to know about wareZ scene and VST softwares and about all the teams.
I sincerely express my gratitude to all the great teams of past from Air, Audio utopia, Assign & others to..... Present R2R, VR, RET, ect and all other teams like TCD, r4e, Bobdule.
As a newbie I only have basic piano skills a basic knowledge of DAW only. Kindly requesting Audioz members to guide me how I may proceed.
How I should streamline my learning process. What resourse and where I could find them. What tips and tricks.
BTW way I use FL and copy of Ableton and few other Plugins from sister site
Thanks a million in advance.

 

Hello. If you genuinely want to learn, maybe post a snippet of something you made so people here can listen to where you're at and offer some advice and suggestions?

Or hire a ghost producer to do it all for you and fast track yourself to flavor of the minute fame, riches, popn bottles and beeyotches JK.

 

You mean to tell me I've been doing it the hard way all this time??

 

There are resources abound on all aspects of music performance and production, but you can't streamline the act of actually doing any of it. All the piano tutorials you can find won't replace daily, disciplined practice--the same goes for all facets of music production, you will learn most by doing it all the time.
I know this doesn't answer your question, but it is easy to get caught up in watching to learn and neglecting to put any of it into practice.

 

Hi
Welcome to Audiosex.

First of all thank you and to all medic personnel for all their efforts, dedication and sacrifice. I know that states hwve been neglecting you all while all the society needs you. (That would be for an entire dedicated thread, so i stop here).

First advice: take time to chose a DAW and stick to it. Specially if you can't do music full time.
Every DAW have a of bunch tricks and specific things to know so it's much better to stick to one and progressively learn it's tricks, shortcuts, and organisation.

How to chose a DAW? All DAW today have very similar prestations. So chose the one that best fit your way of thinking. It means try a DAW and see if most things seems natural for you, if you easily find the functions you need, and that visually correspond to how you think about music. No matter what people say, you must feel fluid with your DAW.

Somehow it's the same with plugins, but not all plugins have the same quality. But you still better chose the ones you feel comfortable with.

The rest of advice I could give would depend on how do you want to make music.
Are you going to use mainly loops and samples?
Or do you prefer to use midi, programing instruments parts?

What genre(s) are you attracted by?

Several questions we need the answers to give you the best advice.

 

Thanks a lot Mr. Olymoon and Seamarus and buckaroo.
Thanks for replying

I know little bit of both FL and Ableton. Both seems OK to me. Please suggest what would benefit me in the long run.
Should I venture into Cubase or Studio One. I am on PC.

I mostly like midi & Programming over loops as I don't know how to work with Audio loops. I guess as a beginner this would benefit me to learn fundamentals. In future once I become proficient I can work with Audio like vocals, etc.
I mainly like Pop and EDM.
But I have high regard for Orchestral Music

At present I use only Plugins from sister site. I mainly use Presets since I am yet to learn how to program sounds

 

My suggestion would be to stick to what you know for now, MIDI based pop/EDM is very much at home on both of those DAWs.
Although it is not my preference, orchestral music can be done effectively in FL as well:

 

Thanks. I will stick to FL for now. I am also little bit more comfortable in FL as regard Midi & Programming and composing ideas.

BTW you are correct about resources. I am overwhelmed by videos on the Internet. I don't know where to start in the order. I guess I ll start with practice composing chords and then Melodies on top of them and then program drums. Arranging, Mixing etc can come later right?

 

I don't know how to upload an WAV file from hard drive to the site. I tried, but the "upload a file" button doesn't work

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2023

I know it sound thrash still it's the best I can do at the moment.

 

Hello @Ichos, the best thing, of course, is to buy a textbook and read it and apply what you have read and practice and then move on to the next chapter. To master a musical instrument takes about 9 years. I don't know how much time you can spend every day and if you read books at all. I also don't know what language you speak.

Learn to Play Keyboards Spiralbindung – 27. Juni 2008
www.amazon.de/-/en/Steven-Ashworth/dp/0785823654

Piano & Keyboard All-in-One For Dummies (English Edition) Kindle
www.amazon.de/Piano-Keyboard-Dummies-Music-English-ebook/dp/B08CT8WVGL

 

I can speak English. Thank you Mr. Beat 16

 

If I tell you: Use this one, but dont use that one .. there will be a fight here... Unfortunately, some people have a relation with DAW election that's far beyond considering there tools, it's like a DAW would be their family or something ... lol

Anyways, I'll tell you, for easy beginning, but able to serve your artistic work no matter how complicated it will be, if you already like Ableton, you should stick to it. It's a very capable DAW. Maybe a bit more Audio mangling oriented than MIDI composing, but still very good at MIDI too.
(By audio mangling I mean working with loops and copy/cut/paste synchronize loops etc ...)

Another DAW that have no limit is Reaper, it's cheap, it's very good at MIDI, and also good at audio, but less Audio mangling oriented than Ableton.

About Cubase, well, I read relatively often people having different problems with it, specially while using cracked plugins, not so much, but same with Studio one.

I hope this helps

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2023

Depends on what you want to do.

I'd get a very good piano plugin, a MIDI keyboard and then learn (in that order, probably) intervals, counterpoint, harmony. At that point you'll know what works and what doesn't and why it does or doesn't.

If you're looking to read, then the music theory wiki has a consensus of book recommendations.
If you're looking to watch, then the best I know of are Jacob Gran's 'Imitative Counterpoint' and 'Tonal Voice Leading' playlists.
If you want a fast recap (not introduction) on music theory subjects, then Woocha's playlist is pretty good.
If you run out of chord ideas, then Write A Song will introduce to many new types in a no-nonsense way.

Then I'd get a good drum library and learn rhythm, polyrhythm and polymeter. I don't know any comprehensive resource on this. If you want a visual & audio aid on polyrhythms, then this site isn't bad.

If you want to learn how to design and reshape synthesizer sounds, then Woocha also has a playlist on the topic. [I didn't watch this one, but I assume it's good]

If you want to learn to mix and master - no idea. But that's pretty far down the road anyway.

 

Dont be hard on yourself like that. we're all still learning. If you made all of that yourself - not using any loops AI or pre-made midi, its really not too bad. The music is basic as can be, but not bad at all. Your levels and mix are decent (and somewhat surprising its not distorting somewhere for a newbies first go at it). A couple of the bass notes sound a little off to me, so I would fix those, and the drums a bit boring.. but you're on the right path.

And I agree, Ableton is a great choice for an all in one solution. You have everything you need right there in one package. Any style of music can be produced in the suite. If you like FL, then go with that. Or use both for different purposes. I like elements of both, but mostly use Ableton myself because I know it inside and out and love the devices and fast workflow. There are no hard rules. Just have fun, experiment and dont worry about what the inevitable haters think or say, do your thing.

In the future if you want help and feedback on ideas, use a free audio hosting platform that allows for collaboration and comments etc such as Soundcloud or Fidbak, which I just love.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 12, 2023

Yes, for now stick to the one you feel more comfortable.
Only one "trap" with FL Studio: because of the way it's designed, it's easy to fall in making good ideas in loops, but not a whole song structure.
Working with a looped idea can be very good to learn arrangement, but at some point one have to think in a bigger image of a track and it's structure and different ideas.

 

Thanks for your insight.
I think I understand your point Mr. OLYMOON. It seems Ableton will be an easier alternative as a whole to invest time. And once I progress with my skills I can choose whatever available if I think my work needs it in future.
I guess Reaper, S1, Cubase are better suited if I can play an instrument and record the midi parts directly into daw!!!

 

Last edited: Jan 13, 2023

That's the right attitude to have about it.

Reaper can do everything, and is fully customizable and extensible with scripts, which makes it popular among sound designers that can set up a fast and efficient workflow for manipulating audio and batch processing multiple clips/tracks.

Studio One and Cubase are very similar, with S1 being somewhat more approachable. Cubase wrote the book on MIDI sequencing and has been iterating on its interface since the turn of the millenium, while S1 approaches DAW workflow with a fresh perspective. However the key takeaway in their differences is that S1 is most suitable for the Home Studio environment, and Cubase has a toolset that extends beyond that, with extensive multichannel support being the most obvious.

As you can see, the features in all these are beyond the scope of your current needs, but when you do need it, you'll know where to go.

 

A tweakers paradise? I tried Reaper twice, once out of curiosity and the second because of a skin that was cool. Both times I just couldn't get past the seemingly endless settings and configuration options. After hours of tweaking and menu diving, plus all the obstacles and relearning necessary for what I make and my workflow, I just said f'it. I suppose if you take the time necessary to set it all up how you like, learn the ins and outs, it can be a dream DAW. Or maybe im just dumb and impatient

 

Definitely a tweaker's dream DAW. I'm all for a certain level of customization, but not to the degree required to feel comfortable in Reaper. For some people I know, it's all they could afford and they just got used to it, but it feels weird to rely on 3rd party scripts for functionality I'm used already being baked-in.