[HN Gopher] Get started making music
___________________________________________________________________
Get started making music
Author : prhrb
Score : 1075 points
Date : 2023-05-14 06:28 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (learningmusic.ableton.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (learningmusic.ableton.com)
| evo_9 wrote:
| It would be cool if HN had a list of popular / repeatedly
| submitted url's/articles like this one, and a total count. Would
| be a great list to look over, too.
| eweise wrote:
| Ableton is really expensive. Logic is just as good if not better,
| and much cheaper.
| pacomerh wrote:
| Ableton is really good for live performance though. I don't
| know about Logic but the session view in Ableton is really good
| for improvisation
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| Logic is garbage in all those areas.
| eweise wrote:
| True. They started out with different purposes and now are
| trying to incorporate each others features.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Making music is easier than ever! Making a living doing it is
| harder than ever!
| Supernaut wrote:
| I also always think of a very important point that I saw
| concisely expressed in an interview with Daniel Miller, about
| fifteen years ago. (If you don't recognise the name, Miller
| founded Mute Records and signed Depeche Mode, and is an
| influential electronic musician in his own right). The
| journalist commented on the ever-increasing availability of
| inexpensive recording equipment and asked, "is making good
| music easier than ever?" Miller replied, "Yes. But making great
| music is as difficult as it ever was."
| gabereiser wrote:
| I think that was the quote I misquoted. I had heard it
| somewhere years ago backstage. Or maybe on a podcast. It
| resonated with me to the point where I remembered it (my way
| apparently) and put it in the old Rolodex.
| bryans wrote:
| > Making a living doing it is harder than ever!
|
| It's extremely easy to make a living from music right now. With
| a weekend's worth of YouTube training, any decent musician or
| songwriter should be able to invest 40hr/wk and reliably
| generate $5k/mo within a year.
| ben_ wrote:
| You have anything to back this up? Seems like a stretch to
| say a weekend of training is all it takes
| analog31 wrote:
| Anything can be proven possible by a single exceptional
| example. The question I would ask is what's _probable_.
| bryans wrote:
| There aren't that many topics to learn. If you pick one
| music industry content creator, they will have around two
| days worth of videos that you can watch. If you do the
| things they say, you will make money. There's no magic to
| it.
|
| Many thousands of live streaming musicians have had no
| trouble going from $0 to $5k/mo. You're welcome to check
| out Twitch or TikTok any time for evidence of this.
| viraptor wrote:
| That's a territory of 1M views per month (or more, not sure
| what's the pay/ad-tolerance on music videos). That's a
| slightly higher level of views than Postmodern Jukebox and
| Pomplamoose are at. Being able to pull that off easily is
| pretty optimistic...
|
| Also "reliably" is optimistic given YouTube's issues with
| policy/copyright enforcement and channel restrictions. (I.e.
| do you want your 5k income to be dependent on a few sudden
| bogus claims you can't dispute?)
| gabereiser wrote:
| Add Patreon + Merch sales. You know, where they interrupt
| the song to pitch stolen t-shirt designs on their shopify
| site. Yeah, if you're just making YT content w/ patreon
| support and stuff you might be able to crack $5k/mo if
| you're decent at music theory. That's a lot of hustle.
| Where-as you used to be able to record a master, work your
| shitty job for duplications, go tour clubs and spots
| selling t-shirts you designed and your album to your
| audience as well as on your online shop. Now, you can just
| sit in your bedroom, where a mask, start up twitch, and let
| AI generate beats while you look like you're DJ'ing.
| bryans wrote:
| You're absolutely correct. And it shows how out of touch
| Hacker News is that the people who understand the
| existing market get downvoted, while the people who claim
| "YouTube ads are the only way to make money" somehow get
| upvoted. What a sad state this site is in.
| gabereiser wrote:
| IYKYK
| bryans wrote:
| You're pretending that YouTube ads are how musicians make
| money, and that's just not the case. YouTube is one tiny
| piece of the marketing map -- not the revenue one.
| zaplin wrote:
| Making music is SIMPLER than ever. Making music is never easy.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It was never easy making a living as a musician. If you were
| really good, and at least a bit lucky, you could. The vast
| majority had to have other jobs.
|
| I agree it's probably tougher today though. The fact that
| producing and recording is something anyone can do with a
| laptop just makes the S/N ratio even smaller. And a lot of the
| surrounding industry jobs have probably gone away too, since
| big physical mixing desks and multi-track tape machines and
| record cutting and pressing machines are no longer used nearly
| as much.
| nologic01 wrote:
| This is quite inspiring.Is there a js library to help build
| simple music training exercises?
| jjarvis wrote:
| Ableton used Max's RNBO library for these pages. RNBO is
| essentially Max but compiles to web assembly.
| https://rnbo.cycling74.com/explore/learning-synths-and-rnbo
| makach wrote:
| I can't believe that I navigate through the entire course on that
| website, very interesting
| robotnikman wrote:
| As someone who wants to start doing some music as a hobby but has
| 0 experience with how music works, this is very helpful and
| informative!
| mattchamb wrote:
| I just started learning guitar at 34 with absolutely no musical
| experience, and it's such an amazing new world to learn.
| fat-chunk wrote:
| My wife only started learning drums a few years ago, and now
| she's regularly gigging with a band in a bunch of iconic
| venues around London. It's never too late to start! :)
| williamcotton wrote:
| I've been playing guitar for almost 30 years and it never
| stops being an amazing world to learn! It is endless!
| nrjames wrote:
| I just started at age 49 and I'm loving it! I'm focusing on
| fingerstyle acoustic, which I've always loved.
| antmaper wrote:
| Ableton Live, while a respected tool in music production, appears
| to be falling behind in terms of embracing new technologies and
| features.
| [deleted]
| dkh wrote:
| How so?
| dottjt wrote:
| I've switched from Ableton to Bitwig and man, you don't
| realise how behind Ableton is until you try Bitwig.
|
| I think it's a case of death by a thousand cuts with Ableton.
| For example, Ableton does not have customisable shortcuts!
| Which is a huge workflow blocker.
|
| Arguably, a lot of the issues are UX related, as opposed to
| feature related. But UX is a core part of the product and
| subsequent usability of the product.
| notmypenguin wrote:
| Meh, I disagree. I've owned Bitwig for about a year now and
| there are some frustrations with it I didn't have with
| Ableton. Nothing is perfect, neither is ahead of the other.
| If I wasn't on Linux I would go back to Ableton, to be
| honest. Bitwig has the synthesizer thing and effects thing
| down pat, but it's audio editing is frustrating to say the
| least. I want to turn of this track comping nonsense but I
| can't, I hate track comping and have used DAWs since they
| were invented so...
| dcist wrote:
| Who is pulling ahead?
| dottjt wrote:
| Bitwig, by far.
|
| It's more-or-less the same program (made by ex-Ableton devs),
| just well designed for 2023.
|
| With that said, Ableton has the advantage of being more
| mature. What I mean by that, is that the stock plugins are
| generally better, and it has a bigger use-base, which I would
| argue is important if you're starting out.
|
| If on the other hand you're a medium/advanced user, then
| Bitwig is a much better choice.
| morserer wrote:
| Check out Bitwig and the Bitwig Grid. Made by some of the
| Ableton devs who ditched the company to make their own DAW.
| pahn wrote:
| their 404 error page is the best sounding one i have seen so far:
| https://learningmusic.ableton.com/wronglink
| medguru wrote:
| The tutorial is really thorough.
| ksenzee wrote:
| I'm a classically trained pianist with a bunch of music theory
| under my belt but zero idea how music is produced, and this is
| fascinating and addictive to the point where I need to put it
| away or I'll get no work done today.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| For those interested in getting started, Knobcloud.com has cheap
| Ableton Live intro licenses. vital.audio is a super cool
| free(ish) virtual synthesizer, https://www.spitfireaudio.com/bbc-
| symphony-orchestra-discove... is a free virtual symphony
| orchestra. If you just use your basic PC built in sound, you will
| also need to install ASIO4All ASIO drivers to reduce latency. I
| wish I was a kid today the tools as so amazing, instead I spent
| my youth learning the make DX7 patches which to be fair did
| prepare me for the pain of being a Microsoft stack developer in
| the 1990s.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| If I could make a couple of suggestions for people who are trying
| to "get serious" with their hobbies as electronic music
| composers, I got a lot of value out of:
|
| 1. Berklee Online courses on music production. They're not cheap,
| but the instructors are stellar, including the guy who literally
| wrote the Ableton book on creative strategies.
|
| 2. https://www.producerdojo.com/ is incredible if you have the
| time for it. You get paired with a coach who is usually a
| seasoned electronic music veteran, possibly a regularly touring
| performer, and you get to work on becoming better at making
| electronic music at your pace, with their supervision. It's a lot
| of work, but the results are about as good as they can get.
| bsaul wrote:
| I've been a user of those kinds of tools for more than 30 years,
| as an amateur, and of course i'm amazed at the progress made.
| However, a part of me wonder how much we lost in the process.
| We've automated so much that i wonder if the tools don't play a
| role in the lack of diversity in music production. When every
| part of a song has to be composed or improvised by a human, note
| per note, isn't it clear that the end result should be, be
| definition, more original , as well as more meaningful ?
| bowsamic wrote:
| I think the problem is that tension creates interesting results
| as the limitations are subverted and the open possibilities of
| Ableton Live make this way harder since it is not immediately
| obvious what is interesting to do when you can do anything.
|
| Even Robert Henke, the guy who made the precursor to ableton
| and the co founder of ableton, laments this about ableton
| https://youtu.be/iwOaYxSJGqI
|
| People here are saying that you are wrong but when the creator
| of ableton is agreeing with you then maybe they should listen
| eweise wrote:
| I just use a DAW like I used a four track recorder back in the
| 80's. Put down a drum beat, bass line, guitar and voice
| individual tracks. Then do some light processing. A lot of
| times, I'll copy paste the music then go back and play each
| part all the way through so it has a looser band feel.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _However, a part of me wonder how much we lost in the
| process_
|
| A lot. But those born into the new era wont even know what we
| lost, and those born before will be dismissed as "boomers".
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Literally nothing has been lost, because all of the methods
| available to create music are still available, and people are
| still using them. Aside from that, the net gain on music
| technology is a massive net gain however you see it.
|
| I'm not dismissing you because you're a 'boomer', I'm
| dismissing the point because it's just willfully ignorant.
|
| If you think 'modern music' lacks diversity, you're simply
| not looking for anything original. Because you can find it,
| by the bucketload.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Why not both? Lots of the live (power/symphonic) metal bands I
| see will have at least 5 artists singing/playing and then
| backing tracks that add even more depth to what they are
| playing.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| if you think there's a "lack of diversity in music production"
| you're just not listening to enough music.
|
| Not only are people taking newer music production technology in
| every different possible direction, they're still pushing the
| limits of old methods as well as combining them with the new
| stuff.
| honkycat wrote:
| Ableton and modern music software are wonderful tools.
|
| If we have lost anything, it is due to Spotify and other
| corporations whittling away musicians opportunities to make
| money off of their work.
|
| Tools definitely guide the music, however. Pick up a drum
| machine, and it is funny how quickly you start to write trap /
| jungle beats.
| fat-chunk wrote:
| I'm inclined to disagree. I believe the progress in music
| software has opened up new avenues and genres, it hasn't
| stifled existing ones. Instrument players are going to keep
| playing their instruments, just that now it's easier than ever
| for them to make their own professional sounding recordings and
| songs. On the flipside you have more and more people getting
| into music without requiring any formal musical background.
|
| I also think the older we get, the more we think most music
| sounds the same because music inherently changes over time, and
| will be different to what we grew up on, but we also become
| more distanced from the subcultures and communities pioneering
| modern music trends. A young person today probably thinks all
| rock music from the 50s-90s sounds the same
| notmypenguin wrote:
| I disagree and think there are objective measures of cynicism
| in music today that are unprecedented.
|
| I agree that the paths you suggest are possible and that the
| tools available have never been so available.
|
| I see cultural problems as the root issue. We've reduced
| music to a recorded consumable and thereby reduced the role
| of the humans communicating telepathically via music, which
| is the social function of music, as I understand it
| tekni5 wrote:
| If you want something to mess with LMMS is pretty good as a DAW,
| free & open source as well.
|
| Example of some tracks I made:
|
| https://youtu.be/p3y5fdZ94io
|
| https://youtu.be/rSD4xZTDo9Q
|
| https://youtu.be/09Hip0bRdaU
|
| https://youtu.be/n3JmttdUXoU
| s-xyz wrote:
| Great tutorial and design
| cmsefton wrote:
| Previous discussions:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14299628
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965386
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29055433
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Get started making music_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29055433 - Oct 2021 (144
| comments)
|
| _Get Started Making Music_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965386 - Sept 2019 (184
| comments)
|
| _Get started making music_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14299628 - May 2017 (461
| comments)
|
| _Get started making music_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291332 - May 2017 (2
| comments)
| cmsefton wrote:
| Ah, thanks for that dang, if I get that weird deja vu feeling
| again, I'll try follow a similar format!
| reducesuffering wrote:
| For a bit of inspiration after, here's Kygo's breakdown on pro
| production https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCe-6UprFGo
| munificent wrote:
| I love love love Ableton Live. It's possibly my favorite piece of
| software today.
|
| If you're a software engineer interested in UX, I think Live will
| fit your brain like a hand in glove. It reminds me very much of
| emacs or vi where the app is designed to disappear from view and
| let you focus on your content.
|
| Also, it's incredibly programmable and generative at many many
| different levels:
|
| * Session view lets you build arrangements on the fly in
| realtime.
|
| * Follow actions on clips let you automatically build sequences
| of clips, loop, them, randomly chain them, etc. It's like control
| flow for clips.
|
| * The various built-in synths and effects support all sorts of
| dynamic modulation to make timbres evolve on their own.
|
| * Then, of course, there is Max4Live, a full-fledged visual
| programming environment integrated deeply into the app.
|
| You, of course, can ignore all that stuff and just make completed
| fixed tracks. But if you're interested in the _live_ aspects of
| Live, then the software really feels like a substrate that you
| can use to build your own bespoke instrument for playing your
| music in real time.
|
| I love it so much.
| cageface wrote:
| Ableton is great but these days I prefer Bitwig. It does most
| of what live does but lets you do more modular stuff without
| the massive context switch into Max.
| nassimm wrote:
| I've used Ableton for about 12 years before making the switch
| to bitwig, it's the best thing I've ever done.
|
| There are very, very few Ableton features that I miss. The
| only thing I can think of is the automations rescaling I wish
| Bitwig would implement, otherwise it's vastly superior to
| Ableton in any other way. Especially the bounce/audio editing
| workflow, this thing makes me 2 to 3 times faster than when
| using Ableton (no hyperbole)
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| It's also massively cheaper. For a lot of the things
| available on stock Bitwig (~399$, often discounted at 249$)
| you need Live Suite + Max 4 Live + Cycling Max MSP, the
| asking price is no less than 1300$.
|
| Live main selling point right compared to Bitwig now is
| ubiquity, basically. You can expect to go into any recording
| studio, anywhere, and find a Live desk available.
| winternett wrote:
| I use Acid Pro 10... I think it allows me to have a more
| original sound to be honest. At this point I've found that
| tools are leveling off in terms of capability and now it's
| more a matter of what a producer knows how to manipulate
| best. There are nuances like how audio clips and knowing how
| built in efx work that make transitioning to a new DAW
| painful until you catch up, the deep learning curve is steep
| for advanced production... Rather than switching, I already
| know how my current DAW works, and it works, so there's no
| need to change right now.
| FractalHQ wrote:
| I agree, and with over 15 years of experience with Live and a
| fruitful music career thanks to it, I have a deep respect for
| it. It's hard to use anything else because of how many small,
| seemingly insignificant workflow features it has which add up
| quick in a session.
|
| _But_ - man is it far behind the modern DAWS like Studio One
| and Bitwig in the low-level fundamentals like plug-in
| isolation, multithreading, and flexibility in terms of your
| ability to offload frozen tracks from RAM. This puts a
| bottleneck on the max size of a session before it becomes
| unstable and unusable. Even with 32GB RAM and a top-shelf CPU,
| my ability to finish a song grinds to a halt around the 100
| track range. My songs can have 150 tracks with 1-20 plugins and
| 1-30 automation lanes per track by the time they are finished,
| and the number of hours I've lost from crashing or just waiting
| for it to respond could easily add up to months at this point.
|
| And small things like the inability to know if a plug-in is the
| VST2 or VST3 version have been driving me nuts for over a
| decade.
|
| My music is absurdly abnormal in terms of complexity though,
| and the vast majority of people will never encounter these
| problems. I worry, however, that the glacial pace of
| development likely due to the prehistoric tech stack at Ableton
| will prevent it from ever closing the growing gap made by the
| increasingly valuable feature sets of modern DAWs have been
| able to push out quickly and consistently.
|
| Either way, Ableton Live is a great demonstration of the
| incredibly fine nuance involved in a good UX. They got a lot of
| little things right, and that alone has been the largest
| contributor to their success in the industry.
| honkycat wrote:
| What I want to see from Bitwig is better integration with daw
| controllers.
|
| I'm addicted to my ableton push... i can't move over just
| because of that.
|
| I've tried the driven by moss stuff and it works great but
| eh... just not quite as good overall.
| lmpdev wrote:
| Wouldn't the onus be on the controller manufacturers to
| ensure compatibility?
| honkycat wrote:
| Bitwig is extremely niche. Waiting around for controller
| manufacturers to implement isn't going to happen.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Push is made by Ableton. I am not sure they are willing
| to help a company build by some of their ex developer who
| left them to build a new DAW with possibly stolen code
| and at least many ideas that were discussed internally.
|
| Despite the headquarters proximity, I think they are not
| the best friends.
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| Not so sure about the "stolen" part. Bitwig code has a
| completely different code base (Java backend with UI
| written using Juce), and the sentiment at the time was
| that a few devs were frustrated by Ableton management
| rejecting several proposals that ultimately were
| implemented in Bitwig.
|
| Also the multitake tracks UI that was implemented in Live
| 11 is basically a (slightly improved) copy of the same
| feature on Bitwig.
| enqk wrote:
| I think it's the other way around, the Bitwig UI is what
| appears to be coded in Java.
| earthnail wrote:
| The stolen part mostly relates around the sales and
| distribution network, less around the code. Basically the
| sales equivalent of IP theft, and a really huge douche
| move by their CEO. Makes him very unsympathetic to me.
| Not as bad as Behringer but close.
| [deleted]
| SSLy wrote:
| They just released native support for those:
|
| Controller script added for Novation Launchpad Pro MK3
| Controller script added for Novation Launchpad X (via
| reassigning the Rec Button) Controller script added for
| Novation Launchpad Mini MK3 (via the special 4th row
| buttons) Controller script added for Akai APC Mini MK2
| Controller script added for Akai APC Key25 MK2 Controller
| script updated for Novation Launchpad Pro (MK1)
| flxy wrote:
| As a hobbyist musician even I notice Live's flaws. And while
| it does indeed get out of your way most of the time, when it
| doesn't you can't change it and it becomes frustrating. While
| other larger players in the industry are farther ahead, just
| how far behind Live really is becomes especially apparent
| when you look at Reaper. They're fundamentally different in
| their approaches, yes. But Reaper's pace for adding new
| features and how up-to-date they are in terms of the changing
| landscape of the industry (CLAP plugins, ARA2 support, etc.)
| is impressive considering their small team. But Ableton's
| focus with Live seems to be more towards adding content
| rather than features or large overhauls. At least that's my
| impression.
|
| I genuinely love Live's workflow. It feels the most natural
| to me. But the ever growing list of annoyances and
| shortcomings make me look into other DAWs fairly frequently.
| Though sadly no other one has really stuck with me so far.
| enqk wrote:
| There was a defect in Live's implementation of VST3's UI that
| lead to poor UI performance (lag) that got fixed in the
| upcoming 11.3, it's in beta test right now.
|
| It most affected users with hundred of tracks and VSTs in
| most of them. No impact on VST2.
| anthonypz wrote:
| I've always been curious about synths and how they are
| programmed. I'm a JS dev learning Rust and was having ideas
| about building my own synth. Is Max4Live a good choice for
| building audio plugins in 2023? Also, is Rust a viable option
| for creating VST plugins?
| tumult wrote:
| I don't think Max4Live is not a good choice for building
| audio plugins. It's a weird platform that was designed for
| 'institutionalized academic music,' as I once read someone
| describe it. It's difficult to program in and not efficient.
| None of my favorite music software is made with it. It's also
| quite buggy, in my experience. For doing some basic
| extensions to Ableton Live specifically, beyond what VST
| allows access to, it's OK, since it's the only official way
| to do so.
|
| If you want to just dive into DSP using wires and boxes, with
| some additional code sprinkled in, SynthEdit or Reaktor Core
| are faster, more fun, and produce better results. If you
| don't mind C++, check out iPlug from REAPER's WDL codebase:
| https://www.cockos.com/wdl/ -- there are some forks of it.
|
| There's also JUCE. You'll find some people complain about it
| and some people regret using it, despite it being relatively
| popular.
|
| There are some Rust things for doing VST (and AU)
| development. Here's one that I've seen a few things made
| with: https://github.com/robbert-vdh/nih-plug/tree/master I
| wouldn't worry too much about the differences between C++ and
| Rust in this world. Audio software tends to be buggy, so the
| bar for being considered 'good enough' is pretty low.
| tumult wrote:
| Can't edit this comment now, but the opening sentence has a
| typo. It should say, "I don't think Max4Live is a good
| choice for building audio plugins."
| easyThrowaway wrote:
| Max and M4L have a very specific jargon and tech legacy that
| makes them quite different compared to regular VSTs (not
| better nor worse, just different). Reaktor gets closer in
| terms of performance and limitations to regular VST
| development compared to Max, while still using a visual
| programming approach.
| [deleted]
| fauria wrote:
| Also from Ableton: "Learning Synths" -
| https://learningsynths.ableton.com/
| IKLOL wrote:
| [dead]
| terrycody wrote:
| What a sweet site! I will learn how to music for later india
| gaming usage, this is very fun and useful website, thanks!
| mazzystar wrote:
| My first Ableton try out:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6oLysNagLQ&ab_channel=Mazzy...
| musicam wrote:
| One thing that has been amazing me recently is the current state
| of vocal synthesis. It seems to have improved rapidly in the
| space of just a few years, thanks to neural network models.
|
| For example, here's a quick clip from a synth I've been using in
| recent weeks:
|
| https://vocaroo.com/125tAD40Gl6d
|
| It sounds almost like a real voice, and that's just using the
| default settings, without any effort to tweak it further to
| improve the realism.
| squidsoup wrote:
| Interesting, thanks. What's the name of the synth?
| musicam wrote:
| It's Synthesizer V from Dreamtonics, with that clip using the
| SOLARIA voice database of Eclipsed Sounds:
|
| https://dreamtonics.com/synthesizerv
|
| https://www.eclipsedsounds.com/solaria
| superchroma wrote:
| In light of what we learned with vocaloid in Japan, is this
| even meaningful? Singers don't make the song. You can have
| crowds fill stadiums to watch a hologram, it has already been
| proven.
|
| To boot, isn't this the fidelity vs fun argument of videogames
| again, too?
|
| Madonna's "Ray of Light" is still a good song without her;
| William Orbit is a master producer after all. I hope we see a
| refocusing away from personalities to producers out of this.
| musicam wrote:
| It depends on the audience, and the producer. Some people are
| content with listening to robotic-sounding Vocaloid type
| synths, others prefer something closer to an authentic
| singing voice with the more complex range of emotion that can
| be expressed.
|
| Even just from a technology point of view, I find it
| fascinating to see how the envelope is being pushed via
| machine learning models.
| tehnub wrote:
| >Some people are content with listening to robotic-sounding
| Vocaloid type synths, others prefer something closer to an
| authentic singing voice with the more complex range of
| emotion that can be expressed.
|
| Let me just point out the nuance that many people,
| including myself, appreciate both types of music.
| canoebuilder wrote:
| Hey, nice writing on that vocal part! What is the synth?
| musicam wrote:
| Thanks! The synth is Dreamtonics' Synthesizer V, using the
| SOLARIA voice database from Eclipsed Sounds.
|
| What really sold it to me was listening to some beautifully
| crafted covers from this YouTube channel:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX0lcVr9ugI
|
| Prior to this, I'd been experimenting with pitch-shifting the
| output of Google's Text-to-Speech service
| (https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech), which was quite
| interesting and somewhat pleasant sounding for spoken word
| vocals, but didn't really have the range or expressiveness I
| was looking for more generally.
| anthonypz wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this. The Solaria AI video you linked to is
| impressive. Some of my favorite EDM tracks have guest vocals in
| them. As an electronic music producer and a terrible singer,
| it's mind blowing to think you can now produce an instrumental
| beat and attach realistic sounding AI generated vocals to it.
| osigurdson wrote:
| It would be funny if someone became a famous DJ just using this
| web page. I was impressed with some of the beats that I "came up
| with".
| comet-engine wrote:
| [dead]
| westernaccess wrote:
| i wish their native ui/ux matched this level of design
|
| side note: is there any DAW that supports realtime collaboration?
| fat-chunk wrote:
| https://audiotool.com
| ijustlurk wrote:
| Spotify's Soundtrap claims to have live collaboration, haven't
| tested it though so I don't know if it's actually realtime or
| just a step in that direction.
| ben7799 wrote:
| This tutorial comes up every couple years and it's got a pretty
| elegant UI and presentation. It seems to be a perennial HN
| favorite.
|
| But I got a free copy of Ableton (not Ableton Live IIRC) with an
| interface I bought and Holy cow if Ableton isn't the most painful
| and disgusting UI I've seen in a while.
|
| It took me about 2 seconds to get the interface working correctly
| in Garage Band. I literally gave up after an hour of trying to
| get Ableton working correctly. There were like 1000 buttons and
| one of them had a default value that made the interface not work
| right or the audio not get routed into the track. IIRC I got it
| to the point the audio was coming into ableton and it looked like
| it was working but then nothing ended up in the recorded track.
|
| I play guitar as a hobby.. I have no time do put up with
| something like ableton, I want absolute minimal time spent
| futzing with a DAW and maximum time with my hands on the actual
| guitar.
|
| This was all on top of me being a software engineer (which maybe
| made me less tolerant of figuring out the UI) and my interface
| coming with a long series of video tutorials on how to get
| Ableton working with the interface. Meanwhile again, got it
| working in about 2 seconds without looking at the help in Garage
| Band.
|
| A lot of the differentiating features don't matter that much,
| micing my amp and using my pedalboard/amp sounds better than the
| synthetic sounds in the DAWs unless I spent a bunch more money.
|
| Ableton reminds me of "configuration over convention" or
| something. Or ancient MS/IBM software where the user has to
| figure out 1000 options to get anything working.
| enqk wrote:
| Compared to a lot of DAWs like Reaper, Ableton is actually
| convention over configuration! It doesn't offer that many
| preferences / options..
| [deleted]
| 6581 wrote:
| > But I got a free copy of Ableton (not Ableton Live IIRC)
|
| Ableton is the company. Live is the product.
| zoogeny wrote:
| I think this is awesome and I recommend anyone interested in
| following it through.
|
| But one problem with this kind of thing is that it has the
| character of "How to Draw an Owl" [1]. I have been tinkering with
| Ableton for 10+ years but when I got to the song structure part
| (especially the Photek Drum 'n Bass one) I kinda had to laugh.
|
| Making music is really difficult. This kind of tutorial is step
| one on a thousand step journey.
|
| 1. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-to-draw-an-owl
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Any open source tools for this?
| coldtea wrote:
| Some "wannabe" ones, nothing to write home about compared to
| the quality, scope, and stability of the commercial (even the
| free commercial version) offerings.
| Jach wrote:
| LMMS is a passable FruityLoops-style clone. If you're not
| following a guide the initial barrier is hunting around online
| for quality VSTs you like but once you have them (they tend to
| run fine through LMMS via wine) you can make your patterns and
| use them to make tracks.
| roblh wrote:
| Honestly, not really. I feel like this is one of the very few
| areas that doesn't really have any great open source options.
| Reaper is about the closest you're gonna get. It's not open
| source, but as far as fair licence and good price without
| sacrificing any usability, it's kind of in a league of its own.
| It was started by the guy who made Winamp.
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| Yeah Reaper isn't open source, but the licensing system is an
| amazing breath of fresh air. You can just download it and
| start using it with no account sign up process and once the
| free trial (60 days) ends all that happens is a nag screen
| pops up. You can literally just keep closing the nag screen
| and never buy the software (though this is an illegal use of
| the product) but why would you do that if you have the money
| to support the devs? I bought it as soon as I realized how
| easy it was to demo and start using.
|
| If one of the primary points of open source software is to
| promote accessibility, Reaper goes a long way towards this
| without actually being open source. There is no DRM, there is
| no need to make an account and do some long sign up process
| to get Reaper up and running, there is no iLok required (
| _vomits in mouth a little_ ). You can download it in and
| start working on a project as quickly as your computer can
| finish installing it.
|
| From Reaper's license popup:
|
| > We are showing this message, instead of crippling this
| evaluation version of REAPER, because we do not feel
| technological enforcement of licensing policy is in the best
| interest of our customers
|
| Reaper is the only professional artistic software (sold as a
| product) I have ever come across that is remotely realistic
| about how people use it. Nobody has ever pirated Reaper in
| the history of Reaper, there is no point and that is how
| software should work in a more sane world.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| One of the Reaper devs once said on their forums (or maybe
| it was KVR) that they never want to add anti-piracy
| measures to Reaper because it's just a cost-center for
| development with no real payoff. It can potentially hurt
| paying customers, and it almost never converts pirates. If
| someone doesn't want to pay, music software is easy to
| pirate. If it's somehow not easy to pirate (Cubase was
| crack-free for several years), there's so many competing
| products with the same utilities, they will just pirate one
| of your competitors.
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| Exactly anti-piracy measures only punish paying customers
| because the pirated version won't have them. I think
| several big name musicians (with the money to pay for a
| software license) have been caught using the pirated
| version of music software simply because the pirated
| version doesn't require some stupid BS that the legal
| version does. I.e. you can get it running on your gigging
| laptop and not have to worry about juggling how many
| computers are currently using your license, stupid iLok
| usb dongles or some other nonsense. The pirated version
| just works.
|
| Further, 99% of digital audio workstation customers start
| off as broke kids with no money to feasibly drop on a
| music production software that costs $150 or more. So a
| huge amount of future paying DAW customers are piracy
| converts anyways. Making a DAW that can't be pirated is a
| sure way to shove your future customer base onto somebody
| else's DAW that can.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| It's worth it to pay $60 for a Reaper license after using the
| trial version. The amount you get for what you pay is
| astounding.
| viraptor wrote:
| FTR, Reaper is not open source. (But agree it's ridiculously
| good value and I recommend as well)
| squidsoup wrote:
| It really isn't worth the pain - the whole open source sound
| stack is a bit of a mess. If you happen to own some Apple
| hardware, Logic offers incredibly good value for money, and a
| perpetual license, although there are signs of it transitioning
| to a subscription model.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Zrythm is on the comeup.
| input_sh wrote:
| Ardour (http://ardour.org/) is probably the most fleshed out
| one, but it's still pretty bad compared to popular commercial
| options (Albeton, Bitwig, Reaper, FL Studio, Logic Pro).
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Hey, I think it's extremely unfair to call Ardour bad, even
| if only by comparison with well-known commercial options.
| Ardour has a very specific use case and is designed to fit
| that use case well.
| bandrami wrote:
| While we're here, if you get into electronic music and want some
| samples, the Library of Congress's "Citizen DJ" project has
| multiple gigs of public domain audio you can use:
|
| https://citizen-dj.labs.loc.gov/
|
| I'll also throw in some libre projects to look at:
|
| Sonic Pi
|
| Csound (front-ends include Blue and Cabbage)
|
| Supercollider
|
| Pure Data
|
| LMMS
|
| Mixxx
| efields wrote:
| I think this is a really good primer for electronic music
| production if you're going to start from absolutely zero.
|
| If you specifically want to program beats, I recommend this
| quirky book "Pocket Operations": https://shittyrecording.studio.
| It's basically guitar tabs for drum machines. Pick out some
| styles as a foundation and then build on top of it. Think of it
| as boilerplate code.
|
| Being a software dev by day, and a former musician in high
| school, the current world of digital music production tools is as
| incredible as it is overwhelming. It's good to have something
| that orients your practice and experimentation.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| I just bought that book a couple months ago. It's really cool
| for punching in drum beats real quick
| albert_e wrote:
| excellent
|
| is there a simple / Lightweight software tool that will let
| kids get into drums and music..using this book as a starter?
| chaosprint wrote:
| You can use https://glicol.org/ in the browsers.
| prmoustache wrote:
| A groovebox in the browser: https://tahti.studio/
| poisonarena wrote:
| > recommend this quirky book "Pocket >Operations"
|
| edit: oops
| darkvertex wrote:
| Uhhh... Did you read the site? That book is a free PDF.
| smcnally wrote:
| Thank you for reminding about Paul Wenzel's music stuff.
| Building atop boilerplate is also good to remember and do.
|
| > and a former musician in high school
|
| s/former/recovering
| ilyt wrote:
| It's not a disease to be recovered from lmao
| efields wrote:
| Well...
| 867-5309 wrote:
| this book needs to be turned into an interactive website
| dcist wrote:
| This is great! Thanks for sharing. If you have any more
| recommendations like this, I'm all ears.
| efields wrote:
| It's the only thing I've found/needed. Just like any
| instrument, drums/drum machines can be pitched, respond to
| velocity, and are affected by sounds played around them.
| Understanding where your sounds fall in the EQ spectrum is
| huge. Don't sleep on amplification, saturation, and EQ.
| filoleg wrote:
| This is fantastic, thank you for sharing!
|
| Literally a no-fluff cheatsheet for drum patterns presented in
| the simplest to digest form possible, and without losing any
| important parts. Programming drum patterns has always been
| daunting to me, as it seemed like everyone just "knew" their
| patterns and how to play around them. Even though I knew that
| it wasn't the case, it was still difficult to approach. But
| with this boilerplate, it's like a massive blocker is just gone
| for me. And by going through even just a a portion of the
| patterns, I can easily see how one can acquire a sense for them
| and is able to come up with their own takes.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Or you could just try to reproduce the beats of your favorite
| songs. It will be incredibly difficult at first, but after
| some tens of hours you should be able to slowly program the
| simpler ones.
|
| Obviously you need some native beat tracking capabilities, it
| seems some people just lack this skill.
|
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.0077.
| ..
| murphm8 wrote:
| For anyone who is interested in structured learning around
| the idea of listening and reproducing, I suggest Audible
| Genius Building Blocks[1].
|
| [1] https://www.audiblegenius.com/buildingblocks
| completelylegit wrote:
| For what it's worth there is a builtin feature(s) with
| Ableton where you can:
|
| * Convert audio clip to MIDI drum track
|
| * Convert audio clip to MIDI melody
|
| * Convert audio clip to MIDI harmony
|
| None of them work exceptionally well but they get they get
| enough done that they're useful for a first pass
| approximation in many situations.
| efields wrote:
| > Or you could just try to reproduce the beats of your
| favorite songs.
|
| Depends! I went into hobbyist music production a few months
| ago probably bc I saw a cool midi controller that my kids
| might find interesting. Fast forward a few months and I've
| bought and sold a few $100s of gear and now I have these
| great immersive music making sessions with just a Korg
| Volca Beats and a MicroFreak.
|
| I'll save you all hours of YouTube synth hype bois by
| stating that the MicroFreak is hands down the best way to
| learn synthesizers. It packs SO MUCH into a small, tactile
| form factor. The manual is actually a fun read and explains
| each and every parameter in an engaging way. It is a
| masterclass in approachable documentation for a complex
| subject, (and was probably translated from French, since
| Arturia is a French company).
| agmand wrote:
| There's a music teacher at NYU, Ethan Hein, that seems to
| be working on this exactly in the context of groove
| pedagogy. For example, he recently picked apart the amen
| break in a blog post [0] and tried to replicate it in
| ableton from scratch, methodically. He first lies out the
| basic pieces or the groove, then builds up the groove
| adding and removing elements, gradually complexifying it.
|
| As someone who has trouble with drum patterns as well I
| really liked the idea.
|
| [0] https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2023/building-the-amen-
| break/
| completelylegit wrote:
| Look for the Ableton live realtime "reproducing prodigy's
| fire starter in ableton", it's really a wonderful
| example. You'll appreciate it.
| dpflan wrote:
| Wow, thank you!
| notmypenguin wrote:
| Might I suggest simply playing with a basic drumset in
| real life for a few hours? A kick snare and hihat are the
| principal components needed. I contend that you will
| organically discover a kind of conversational dialogue
| between the kick and snare that known beats are a result
| of. It's something that will inform your drum programming
| immensely, even if you never pick up drum sticks again
| vlachen wrote:
| This pings on something I've been wishing for locally: I
| would like there to be a music shop that has a short time
| studio rental (30min to an hour) where you can access a
| trap set (specifically for me) or other piece of gear,
| already setup with headphones and monitors, such that you
| could just go in an play for a while, without an
| investment. A place to just jam for a little bit and
| explore, able to be separated such that any awkwardness
| or shyness can be reduced. Maybe this is a common thing
| and I just don't know how to ask for it.
| soperj wrote:
| You can go into pretty well any music store and play the
| drums there for as long as you want. Even electronic ones
| with headphones on. I used to work in one, and there was
| a guy who would come in on his lunch hour everyday and
| just play. Honestly don't even know if he owned a drum
| kit at home.
| vlachen wrote:
| In my head, which is based on decades old experience and
| the occasional stop by a music store, what I'd be wailing
| on is demo kit, out on the main floor. To me, that's
| different from getting a small, private soundproof-ish
| room where I can pop a few songs onto the headphones and
| hit it.
|
| I don't want to be a drummer and I'm not interested in
| performing publicly. I just want to rock out and suck as
| hard as I can, without feeling the social awkwardness of
| being out in the middle of the store.
| soperj wrote:
| I guess I've never been to a music store that has the
| drums on the main floor. Nearly all the main sections are
| dedicated to guitars because that's what sells. I've even
| been to some where the drums are on a different floor.
| Personally, as a computer programmer, I've embraced
| social awkwardness as a core part of my being though, so
| being terrible at drums in front of bunch of people I
| don't know would be right up my alley haha.
| acomjean wrote:
| thats a pretty good idea. I went to a university that had
| a music department and practice rooms. (Keep people from
| playing in the dorms). They were pretty soundproof rooms,
| and many had a piano. I used to walk around and sometimes
| duck into an empty room and play the pianos (not a music
| major..) I'm not great but it was a fun break from
| studying.
| vlachen wrote:
| That's what I'm thinking. Just a small room, soundproof.
| Cost for entry covers upkeep plus some margin. Hook your
| phone into the monitor or headphones and go to town.
| freedomben wrote:
| What would a reasonable fee/rate be like for such a
| thing? It's an interesting idea but I'm considering the
| economics of it.
| vlachen wrote:
| I don't have the information to say. I would say that the
| kit doesn't have to be top of the line gear. The fee
| would need to cover wear and tear (and maybe a deposit or
| kicker if someone gets a little overzealous,) hourly rate
| of whomever is maintaining the setup, plus some margin.
|
| What I'd be willing to pay is something on the order of
| up to $50 for a session. I think the sweet spot would be
| $30-$40 for something like 20 to 30 minutes.
| chaosprint wrote:
| Have you tried to use the code to make drum/note patterns:
|
| https://glicol.org/tour#sequencer
|
| I am open to all feedbacks!
| LelouBil wrote:
| If anyone is interested in a good book (in French) about the
| history of music electronic music (mixed with the history of
| electricity, recordings, and music itself) I recommend this book
| I enjoyed very much : https://www.amazon.com/fous-du-son-Laurent-
| Wilde/dp/22468592...
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| The last time I was doing music production, I was learning how
| not all instruments are created equally.
|
| If you want to do some pop music work, drum beats are a dime a
| dozen.
|
| If you want to do high quality orchestral work, you're going to
| have to fork out some serious cash for stuff like EastWest
| Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphonic Library,
| Garritan Personal Orchestra, and others.
|
| I'm sure things have since changed and you can now get some of
| these on cloud subscriptions, but you couldn't really achieve the
| same depth at all with some of the stuff you'd get as standard
| packs from your favorite DAW.
| ChristianGeek wrote:
| The BBC Symphony is available as a free plugin that works with
| all major DAWs (including free versions):
|
| https://www.spitfireaudio.com/bbc-symphony-orchestra-discove...
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Oh man, I forgot about the BBC Symphony library! Thanks for
| mentioning this.
| porkbeer wrote:
| If you start with this limited mentality, you are going to be
| stuck with a partucular workflow, funnay that its onky workable
| using ableton. Its an alright program, but look around more and
| focus on which works for your idea of music before investing in
| it,
| nextlevelwizard wrote:
| You have to start somewhere or rather if you try to start with
| everything at once on your own you are going to have a hard
| time.
|
| That is sort of like saying one shouldn't start with one
| programming language, but instead sample all languages and
| various frameworks before investing their time, but that
| completely ignores the fact that if you start with zero
| knowledge you can't just randomly sample different things -
| most of which you haven't even heard of - before you even get
| to see if you like the thing you are doing in the first place.
| zerbinxx wrote:
| Most DAW's impose a workflow and set of tools on you. Hell, any
| set of notative or formal tools will do that - it's part of
| what makes music-making possible. If you've ever messed around
| with a complete alien tool like the therimin or Tenori-On, you
| quickly figure out some hacks to cram its operations into
| something your mind can work with. A "limitless mentality"
| would be something like Cage or Reich where you're so advanced
| about making music that you know how to break those boundaries
| elegantly. For most people "getting started with Ableton Live"
| will do.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| While we're on the subject of music softwares, let me point you
| to exceptional ones:
|
| https://www.bitwig.com : it's basically Ableton live but next
| gen, where everything can be modulated
|
| https://www.renoise.com : the modern tracker
|
| https://www.beepstreet.com/ios/drambo : this one justifies buying
| an ipad, it's incredible
| EmilyHughes wrote:
| I also use Bitwig. I switched from Ableton because it was
| cheaper. It's objectively a better DAW from a technical
| standpoint.
|
| But I have to say the sounds and plugins it comes with are not
| on par with ableton, some presets really have me scratching my
| head and it took forever until they gave us a decent
| convolution reverb. For the longest time I was not able to get
| a simple sine-wave out of the synthesizers it comes with
| (wtf?). It's also worth mentioning that back in the days this
| DAW was promoted with a feature that lets you collaborate with
| others over the network, now 10 years later there is no more
| mention of this feature and I think most forgot it was even
| planned. Recently they tried to sell you stock-plugins for a
| premium but back-pedaled quickly. That is just ridicoulous
| after I sunk hundreds of dollars in their update plans.
|
| That being said I still recommend it.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| > I was not able to get a simple sine-wave out of the
| synthesizers it comes with (wtf?)
|
| It's not uncommon for synths (even hardware ones) to come
| without a sine wave. In fact some of the most famous ones
| don't have it (hello TB-303, SH-101, Minimoog and many
| more...). Of course, now that we have the grid, we can have
| whatever waveform we like. Also FM4.
| raincole wrote:
| I personally use Bitwig. It's probably the most "think like a
| programmer" type of DAW. But man it's expensive.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| Expensive ? Of course your mileage may vary, maybe where you
| live it's a lot, but this is a professional tool starting at
| $99 with the full version being $399. Given what it does,
| it's effectively given. Back in the days, I can remember
| paying a lot of money just for RAM expansion on an Akai
| sampler. These days, for music tools, we're all spoiled kids.
| abhinavk wrote:
| It's $99 to own. Not a subscription/month.
| raincole wrote:
| No, it's $399. The killer features of Bitwig are modulation
| and Grid, and you will need the $399 version for that. $99
| version is basically a generic DAW with a modern UI but
| less built-in instruments than other DAWs. Of course it's
| still useful... but to be honest using the $99 version is
| hardly "using Bitwig".
| commoner wrote:
| Bitwig Studio also supports Linux and comes with a large
| collection of sound content. It's nice to have an all-in-one
| package for Linux that's in the same league as the other well-
| known DAWs for Windows and macOS.
|
| If don't want to pay full price for Bitwig, wait for their
| summer and winter specials which happen every year. They also
| have an educational discount.
|
| Bitwig uses a subscription model for upgrades, but if you end
| your subscription, you retain access to the last version
| available during the subscription (plus minor updates to that
| version) for life. When you buy Bitwig, it includes a 1 year
| upgrade subscription. When you're on the subscription, you also
| get access to a rotating selection of content from Bitwig's
| partners (https://www.bitwig.com/circle/) in the form of
| license keys, but unfortunately, many of these partner tools
| don't work with Linux.
| fat-chunk wrote:
| If anyone is looking for a low-barrier-to-entry start to making
| music, I'd recommend they check out https://audiotool.com
|
| Completely free, but very deep and powerful browser-based cloud
| music production software, with a tight-knit encouraging
| community built around it.
| erwinh wrote:
| Love what the team over there does with these web demos. They
| previously made this amazing interactive synthesizer learning
| resource: https://learningsynths.ableton.com/
| efields wrote:
| This one is also so good!
| javajosh wrote:
| I like Ableton, but the better way to get started making music is
| with your voice, singing with songs that you like. Sing the
| melody, and also the bass and harmony parts. If you have a phone
| you can use the voice memo app to do two-part stuff. If you want
| to move up to an instrument, my favorite is the melodica, a
| breath-operated keyboard that is very cheap (~ $20), sounds
| great, and teaches the notes of a piano, and requires no
| electrical power to operate. In fact for some things I think the
| melodica is better than a piano, since in some ways it's closer
| to an organ with the ability to maintain and vary the sound over
| time.
| courseofaction wrote:
| Good advice - no matter what you play, whether you produce
| electronically or acoustically, singing will help you
| internalize music, ready to be transferred to any sound-making
| object.
| musicam wrote:
| I do similar to this, recording to a voice notes app, but then
| importing the clip into my DAW, which quite helpfully
| visualizes an approximation of the pitch I was singing at, and
| using this as a template to build instrumental parts upon.
| Usually my vocal tracks aren't in the final mix, once I've
| replaced them.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Yeah, I wasted years sorta playing guitar and sorta fucking
| around with the computer.
|
| I knew how to practice effectively from my years in band, but I
| didn't use them because I was too busy rejecting who I was in
| high school.
|
| Now I'm learning piano and I've joined a choir, and I'm
| actually getting better at things instead of being a
| perpetually mediocre guitarist/singer.
| askafriend wrote:
| It sounds like you just didn't like playing guitar?
|
| I much prefer playing guitar to piano or a choir.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| That was probably it too. I'm more wired for classical
| music, but I had to try to look cool in my 20s.
|
| I had discovered that music was one of my few interests
| that I could actually trade for social credit.
| askafriend wrote:
| I guess guitar is much less of a statement these days
| (being in a band is no longer the coolest thing to do) so
| the social pressure bit feels less relatable to me. I did
| catch the tail end of that era though so I know what
| you're talking about.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| I never wanted to be a guitar god but I loved indie rock
| in the mid aughts.
| herewulf wrote:
| What about classical guitar? I.e: Nylon stringed, Spanish
| guitar. I've played Beethoven and Bach pieces on one.
| Granted one can do that on an electric or steel string,
| but something about the timbre lends classical guitar to
| classical music. Plus it's the only style of guitar which
| really sees regular classical concert performance.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Alternatively / my personal preference and hot tip: Start with
| rhythm. Get a practice pad and some drum sticks and a free
| metronome app or website and try doing single, double, quarter
| and triple notes (I'm naming triples later because they're an
| odd number and as a first-time drummer they did me a bamboozle
| at the time).
|
| Then there's some exercises you can do with just paper and
| pens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eqLmkWOU6A
|
| A really versatile, affordable and fairly compact percussion
| instrument you can start off with as well is the Bodhran; you
| can make some really great beats with it, see e.g. the opening
| scene of the film The Magdalene Sisters, just bodhran and
| singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxXFs8EL35o. Here's
| another version of the same song where the artist plays it with
| just his hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mjWhMn-VnU
| syntheweave wrote:
| You can also go the route of dispensing with phones and learn
| to transcribe solfege into a notebook. This is something I just
| started exploring and while it does take practice to gain the
| ear to transcribe things, you can start by learning to write
| down children's songs like Baby Shark(do re fa fa fa fa-fa fa-
| fa)and gradually work up to pop melodies - and once you do
| that, songwriting becomes a very natural process. All the
| precision stuff, you can work out in the DAW once you have a
| general indication of melody and rhythm.
| anthonypz wrote:
| That's a funny instrument! I'm definitely getting one of these
| since I'm a terrible singer but I always have a tune in my head
| that I need to hum out loud.
|
| A few ios app recommendations I'd like to make are:
|
| - Rassel (a free and absurdly accurate pocket shaker app)
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rassel-pocket-shaker/id1575364...
|
| - Ableton Note (Best 6 dollars I ever spent. It's a really fun
| way to experiment with musical ideas on the go. You can even
| record vocals and add effects.)
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ableton-note/id1633243177
| Lapsa wrote:
| bitwig is better
| nextlevelwizard wrote:
| Do they have as good or better tutorial to get started?
| superb-owl wrote:
| This is incredible. I'd love to see something similar for sound
| synthesis (how do you craft that perfect piano/violin/dubsteppy
| sound?) and mixing/mastering.
| smcnally wrote:
| https://learningsynths.ableton.com/
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| It's not free, but Syntorial is exactly what you want.
|
| https://www.syntorial.com/
|
| I don't know a suitable tool for mixing/mastering except many
| years of trial and error. Lots of things exist to get you the
| basics and aware of what all the major tools do, but nothing I
| know of (yet) really teaches you how to put them together to
| make a great mix nearly as well as making 100 bad mixes first.
|
| I can't remember the speaker, but I watched a lecture (probably
| a decade ago) where the speaker said you could give the same
| project file to a great engineer who is only allowed to use the
| volume faders, and an amateur who is allowed to use any
| software tools and any expensive rack hardware. And the great
| engineer will make a better mix 100% of the time. I very much
| believe that statement is true.
| chaosprint wrote:
| Live coding is another way for hackers to get started with music
| making:
|
| https://glicol.org/
| davidy123 wrote:
| I've dabbled in making music, but it makes me bump against an
| existential crisis. I could make nice sounding music, but what
| does it mean? Often, it's just an excuse to buy more gear.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXWTN1XTtI
| bowsamic wrote:
| As a long time dabbler in music making I've often felt the
| same. The music I make never feels novel or creative, so what
| am I even doing it for?
| antipotoad wrote:
| It doesn't have to mean anything. Music is pure pleasure.
| Vibrations in the air that tickle our brains just so.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I listen to a lot of music but I don't experience it in this
| way at all. It has to be very interesting or high quality for
| me to enjoy it
| davidy123 wrote:
| I think I'd rather find a way to enjoy developing tech for
| universal friendly anonymous healthcare workflow identifiers.
| But if anyone can write supporting music, please do.
| mirkules wrote:
| It's funny, music was what solved my existential crisis.
| Software is always being replaced. When I die, chances are my
| kids and grandkids will never be able to point to a piece of
| software and say "my dad did this". Even for my grandfather,
| who architected several buildings in my home town - his
| buildings are gradually being replaced and I can't point them
| out to my kids anymore.
|
| Music (and other arts), on the other hand, is yours forever and
| exists forever, and it's a way for future generations to
| connect with their ancestors and even pass on a legacy.
| balfirevic wrote:
| > Often, it's just an excuse to buy more gear.
|
| Honestly, that's good enough for me!
| honkycat wrote:
| For me, making music is like climbing a mountain I will never
| summit.
|
| It is the journey, not the destination.
|
| I live in a major city, though, and a lot of my friends are
| much more talented musicians than me. There is a musician
| community for me to participate in.
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| ConanRus wrote:
| [dead]
| ericzawo wrote:
| Ableton's documentation is so clear and well done, and this is
| another example of it. Big fan of their DAW and content.
| Animats wrote:
| Melody? What's that?
| honkycat wrote:
| if you want a really cheap way to get started:
|
| - Reaper isn't free, but it has an unlimited, 0 trade-off trial
| period
|
| For some free open source synths:
|
| - Vital is a great wavetable synth - Dexed is a DX7 close that is
| phenomenal - dsp56300emu emulates a bunch of classic high quality
| synths, notably the virus - Surge Synth
|
| ...there are so many excellent open source VSTs you really do NOT
| need to spend any money.
|
| I don't really know of any high quality open source DAWs,
| unfortunately.
| tincholio wrote:
| Ardour is pretty good, actually.
| marricks wrote:
| I tried this a few years ago and it was addictive and amazing.
| Highly recommend.
|
| I'd also like to tangent to say: music used to be a much bigger
| part of our lives. Before the radio a piano was a household
| staple. Kids would learn, family's would play and sing to each
| other. We've largely given that up.
|
| Imagining hearing one of your family members just start singing
| to themselves without any background music, does that feel
| uncomfortable? Would you sing along?
|
| I think to many the answer is clear, music, as well as many other
| endeavors are something to now be enjoyed but not created. And oh
| boy do we get to enjoy the "best" music and "best" films and
| "best" books on demand.
|
| And along the way we lost the large bits of ourselves which
| created and enjoyed together. So, in short, 10/10 would do the
| tutorial again.
| mbork_pl wrote:
| > Imagining hearing one of your family members just start
| singing to themselves without any background music, does that
| feel uncomfortable? Would you sing along?
|
| No need to imagine, pretty normal at my home. (Sometimes I am
| that family member.) And to answer the questions, no, and yes.
| (And none of us is a trained musician.)
|
| But I agree, we (as a society) lost a lot of that. I have a
| feeling that it's cultural; I strongly suspect that in some
| countries people sing a lot more.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I'd also like to tangent to say: music used to be a much
| bigger part of our lives. Before the radio a piano was a
| household staple. Kids would learn, family's would play and
| sing to each other. We've largely given that up._
|
| Music fandom used to be a bigger part of lives after that.
| Pop/rock stars were royalty. Now with all the other stuff
| competing for eyeballs it's just another thing. Aside from a
| much smaller music-obsessed demographic, most teens could not
| care less today.
| sgustard wrote:
| This seems to ignore the phenomenon of people paying to sit
| in a parking lot outside a Taylor Swift concert?
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2023/05/15/taylor-
| swift...
| coldtea wrote:
| That's more about the ticket price, and just going to have
| some fun with friends (plus the trend), than the music.
| People do similar shit for iPhone or console launches,
| movie premieres, social media stars, and so on.
| gabereiser wrote:
| This was my house growing up. All my siblings, including
| myself, learned music and instruments we picked out. It helped
| that my mother had a degree in music, but still. At 40 I find
| myself singing out loud without music often.
| vlunkr wrote:
| This feels overly pessimistic to me. Since you mentioned
| pianos, they are big, unwieldy, expensive, and require
| maintenance. They were a household staple if none of that was
| an issue for you. There are cheaper and more convenient paths
| now, and tons of content online to learn from. If you want to
| play music, there's never been a better time.
| marricks wrote:
| > If you want to play music, there's never been a better
| time.
|
| People used to learn from... people. In fact, many people
| prefer that still.
|
| And I'd say, I'd rather have a dozen friends who play music
| and actually want to hear my music than have the _potential_
| to get a million fans I'd end up rather not meeting because
| it's just awkward and unnatural.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I'm not sure what your point is. You still have those
| options.
| anthonypz wrote:
| IIRC Paul McCartney grew up listening to his father play pop
| tunes in a room full of guests and family members. It was a
| rich musical environment. As Paul got older, he started playing
| pop songs for the guests just like his father. It's interesting
| to learn that this was a common social activity back then.
| rodgerd wrote:
| > music used to be a much bigger part of our lives. Before the
| radio a piano was a household staple. Kids would learn,
| family's would play and sing to each other. We've largely given
| that up.
|
| Recorded music, and our reaction to it, has pretty much crushed
| that. On the one hand, it's marvellous that I can listen to
| Jussi Bjorling or Maria Callas any time I want, but we then
| tend to criticise anything less than "the best". Heck, the
| process of recorded music has often deceived us: the Wrecking
| Crew made most of the great US pop/rock albums of the late 50s
| and 60s[1].
|
| The net result is that when people break out a guitar or sing,
| we tend to critique them harshly. Why listen to a mediocre
| performance when we could have perfection? And, of course, who
| wants to perform when you'll just be compared to the recordings
| of the best ever?
|
| [1] An enjoyable documentary:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrecking_Crew_(2008_film)
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > the Wrecking Crew made most of the great US pop/rock albums
| of the late 50s and 60s
|
| as it happens, that movie is my Substack post for this
| Friday, complete with YouTube playlist for all the music
| mentioned.
|
| I just, this afternoon, talked to an old friend who played in
| a jam session with Hal Blaine!
| ehnto wrote:
| Internet exceptionalism is a phenomenon to watch out for in
| all parts of life. The internet surfaces the top percentile
| examples of talent, and if we aren't careful we can find
| ourselves unhappy with anything less. Worse yet, people find
| themselves unhappy with their own talents and equipment in
| comparison.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| There's now the meme that one guy will bring a guitar to any
| event and start playing Wonderwall, lol.
|
| I was at a Wardruna concert a few months ago, and the artist
| had a (somewhat awkward because he doesn't like speaking
| English) speech about this very thing, he encouraged people to
| make music, to sing to their children, to bring less
| manufactured, casual music back into people's lives.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| > Before the radio a piano was a household staple
|
| Uh, maybe for wealthier households. Definitely not the case for
| people who grew up a bit poorer than average. Piano upkeep is
| not a trivial expense!
| viraptor wrote:
| That's very true. However people on the poorer side did what
| they could historically (see cigar box guitars, washboards,
| jug bands, singing, tap dance).
| marricks wrote:
| Half of households had a piano:
|
| https://daily.jstor.org/what-player-pianos-meant-to-
| american...
|
| So... good point it was middle class status symbol, but a
| huge number still had access.
|
| My real point was music creation was more a part of people's
| daily lives.
| notmypenguin wrote:
| We were poor as dirt. We had a piano. It got tuned once a
| year at best
| ROTMetro wrote:
| I strongly disagree. My lower class sets of grandparents both
| had pianos. Other family members had violens, accordions,
| portable little organ things. Making music was the norm
| before the radio just like the original poster said. Do you
| think classic blues pianists came from rich families?
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Honestly I think I just misread "before the radio" as
| "before the internet" and didn't realize it until it was
| pointed out a second time to me. I don't actually know what
| life was like before the radio, even my grandparents would
| have been too young for that.
| slothtrop wrote:
| That's a single generation. What about before then?
| marricks wrote:
| Guitars, mandolins, just singing together...
| slothtrop wrote:
| And no pianos.
| sickcodebruh wrote:
| I can only respond anecdotally but from where I'm sitting, the
| DIY music world has never been larger or more diverse and
| younger people are a huge part of that. Friendly digital
| recording, platforms line SoundCloud, YouTube, and Bandcamp,
| plus the magic of internet communication platforms have broken
| down so many barriers. There's a micro-sub-genre for every
| mood, combination of styles, level of production, topic, and
| day of the week. I've been performing and releasing music for
| 20 years and I've never seen so much happening at once.
| notmypenguin wrote:
| Im seeing everyone stuck inside screens in consumer mode, and
| when playing instruments it's for YouTube popularity contests
| doing cover songs or showing physical prowess and definitely
| copying some already cool thing, and definitely not showing
| us the mistakes made along the journey , just the gloss of a
| perfect performance...
|
| A neighbor kid started crying when he could not ride the
| bicycle the first time like his online hero did perfectly.
|
| This is a messed up transition time of some sort, no doubt we
| will make some cultural choices to free ourselves of this
| tyranny of our own mentation.
| sickcodebruh wrote:
| There's certainly a lot of that but it's still a version of
| music being part of our lives, even if the people trying to
| participate in musical "me too" experiences aren't creating
| what we'd all consider art. These things have always
| existed, they are many people's way of engaging with the
| things they love. What's new is our ability to share it and
| see others do it.
|
| Besides, popular music has existed in a "perfect
| performance" place for, what, two decades now? The virtues
| of imperfect performances are lost on most people. Speaking
| as a performer and occasional producer, I simultaneously
| enjoy the imperfections in my favorite albums and invest
| serious energy to purge them from my own releases, so I get
| it.
|
| None of this changes the fact that DIY music scenes are
| thriving. Physical album sales are healthier than they have
| been in years. Playing guitar seems... cool again???? None
| of these are bad things, even if there's one too many
| videos 14-year olds playing perfect Dimebag Darrell solos
| on YouTube.
| ilkke wrote:
| Modern DAWs are absolutely amazing, but if you're into both
| programming and music I can't recommend checking out a tracker
| enough. In particular I recommend the Dirtywave M8 as a fantastic
| blend of everything that makes trackers great, and modern
| convenience and power.[0]
|
| [0]https://dirtywave.com/
| cwillu wrote:
| A fantastic blend of salesmanship and freedom from ethics?
|
| "This is a preorder. Estimated starting ship date is July 2023.
| Thank you for your patience and understanding."
| cwillu wrote:
| I retract my comment.
| JaggedNZ wrote:
| Dirtywave have shipped plenty of M8's in the last year. They
| just produce them in batches, there have also been shortages
| of the Teensy 4.1 microcontroller used IIRC and they are
| highly sought after. You can also "build your own" from
| supplied firmware
| https://github.com/Dirtywave/M8HeadlessFirmware
|
| This is not the fly-by-night kickstarter you are implying.
| cwillu wrote:
| Fair.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Patience not necessary. Renoise. https://www.renoise.com/
|
| A terrific modern tracker, runs on Win/OSX/Linux. Renoise is
| wonderful.
| agentultra wrote:
| +1. I've been experimenting with using it in a live setup.
| It's very flexible and lets you set up macros that can be
| triggered with midi. It's kind of nuts what it can do.
| Highly underrated.
| benniomars wrote:
| I love Live, but I just think it's too pricey. Just the standard
| version is $400 with taxes (in my country).
| zokier wrote:
| > After playing with these boxes for a while, you'll discover
| certain combinations that you like. Many types of music are
| created in exactly this way -- by mixing and matching small
| musical ideas to make interesting combinations
|
| This is the bit I struggle with most; expression and intent.
| Sure, I can throw random shit together and with some technique it
| can even sound half-decent, but it is very difficult for me to
| express anything intentionally with music. And the
| oversimplification that major=happy, minor=sad is not really
| helpful at all here, especially with modern music which is more
| than ready to break any such conventions many times over.
| owobeid wrote:
| I started learning Live after applying for a job interview at
| Ableton. At that point I had only known what Live was but I never
| touched it and never had an interest in music making. I
| downloaded the trial version and after just a couple of hours
| familiarizing myself with it, I was addicted. I never got the
| job, but I still open up Live when I'm bored to tinker around.
|
| Here's what stands out to me: - Session view is
| great for experimenting with different arrangements and samples
| using the same processing chain without having to scroll through
| a huge timeline of different ideas. You can then go to
| arrangement view to work on your final arrangement. -
| Almost everything that you create is reusable. You can string
| together an instrument and/or a bunch of effects, group them
| together, map each their controls to a unified (and smaller) set
| of controls, and now you have a new instrument that you can drag
| and drop later on. You can then chain and group those together as
| well. - Max4Live is to plugins as Flash was to games.
| There are a ton of weird and experimental M4L devices out there
| available for free or for a very small price.
|
| There are some negatives though: - As others have
| mentioned, it is pricey, $750 as of today if you want the
| complete version with all their instruments and effects.
| - Bouncing (re-recording) to a new track or to a file is a bit
| convoluted. Furthermore, bounced samples are encrypted in
| Ableton's proprietary format which means you can't use samples
| that YOU created in other plugins easily. There are a few
| workarounds that I found but it's just a frustrating experience.
| This also applies to any sample packs that come with Live or from
| Ableton's shop, you can't use them outside of Live's inbuilt
| devices or M4L devices. Again, there are workarounds but it's
| frustrating and there's probably something in the fine print
| against it. - No facilities for batch exporting sample
| slices. Say you want to use Live to process some sound effects
| and export them to individual files, well you can't do that
| easily in Live. There's a paid M4L device out there that helps
| with this but I just use Reaper to do this now.
| Mizoguchi wrote:
| Don't forget The Manual
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manual
|
| If you can't get a number one at least you'll be left LYFAO with
| an invaluable lesson on business and an intimate tour of late 80s
| UK techno scene.
|
| Wonderful read.
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