The Making of Electronic Musics

[Unosuke]

So I've been listening to a lot of Atari Teenage Riot and other music in that vein, and I'd like to attempt to try my hand at it. Electronic music has always confounded me because I never knew where to start, so many gadgets and gizmos and multi-hundred dollar computer programs, I'd like to know where square one is.

[sean]

I don't know where square one is, but I do know that Ellen Alien and Apparat's album Orchestra of Bubbles is quite good. That should serve as a good starting point.

I am terribly sorry, I thought you wanted music recommended to you. I did not read your post fully, and now I look like an idiot. I am terribly sorry.

[the Goat]

Well, first, do some research. There's a bunch of books (many probably available at your local library) and a billion websites out there that will give you some idea of what those gizmos and gadgets are.

I've only tried Reason 4, Ableton Live and another program I can't remember the name of, but of those Reason 4 won for most versatile/easiest to use and still being very high quality. My friend "acquired" a copy for me and I got an Oxygen 8 midi keyboard, which works fine for me. I believe there are also some other free/shareware music making programs floating around, but alas, I do not know what they are.

A lot of people assume electronic music is super easy and anyone can do it, pure ignorance. Any ease gained by being able to dial in a quick drum beat is overshadowed by the fact that you suddenly have to become a composer, not just a musician. It's doubly difficult if you don't know what things do.

[himynameisjulien]

Try www.tweakheadz.com They can get you started.
They even have a section for people new to electronic music, explanations of what programs to use and which keyboards to buy, what MIDI is, stuff like that. It's a VERY useful site.

[Jackie Blue]

It's actually quite a bit cheaper and easier (in some ways) to make decent electronic music than organic music.  I know, I do both.  For organic music, you need at least one good guitar, and probably two, three or even four plus (if you like to play in alternate tunings but don't want to stop the show so you can change strings and completely redo your guitar), you need amps, you need drums, you need other people who are reliable and talented, you need microphones, pedals... we're talking minimum of thousands of dollars total, and probably around a thousand per person.

By contrast, you can get one good keyboard/sampler and plug it into your computer and do it for less than five hundred bucks.

Also, electronic music can be very easily synchronized; it's much harder to record several instruments at once or separately and be totally in sync.  Recording with a band can require dozens of takes; recording electronic music doesn't require "takes", it just requires the time to assemble it correctly.

By nature, some people are better at one than the other but I do feel that entirely electronic music is at least marginally easier to manage than band-based music.

[godinpants]

I've been making music lately using nitrotracker on my DS, then recording that garageband or audacity depending on my mood.

This is pretty cheap if you have a DS, flash card and a line in on your computer.

[David_Dovey]

There's a pretty good thread on the MSTRKRFT forums but, because it's a forum topic there's a lot of shit-talking and it's probably worth taking everything with a grain of salt. I manage to glean some useful stuff from there, though.

[himynameisjulien]

Oh, and one more thing. I recommend Logic Studio, if you have a Mac and can afford it. If not, Logic Pro (the latest version, 8 or 9 I think) will be pretty awesome. It's incredibly easy to use and has enough power for whatever you need. I know some professionals who use it. Of course, many pros also use ProTools, but you probably don't have thousands of dollars to shell out on a custom PT rig; the software, proprietary hardware, etc.

[KharBevNor]

First you get a machine that goes NTZ NTZ NTZ NTZ and then you get a machine that goes BOOP BOOP BEEP BOOP and then you get a machine that goes THWUMUMUMUMUMUM and then you get a machine that goes BRARP BRARP BRARP BRAAAAARP and you are pretty much set.



(I use FL Studio 6 and audacity. That and a microphone is all you will ever need.)

[evernew]

I started with Cool Edit Pro 2 when I was just recording 1 or 2 tracks.
I tried Sony Acid 5 but couldn't at the time figure out how to do good stuff with it.

Recently I bumped into Ableton at a career fair and got a demo. That's what I'm getting into now.

[bbqrocks]

I just use fruityloops 6, but all I ever do is loop breakcore beats.

[MarkTBSc]

You need either an iPod touch or an iPhone and copies of iAno, iTar and iDrum. I thing there's even a music sequencer package out there for it. I've seen a couple of bands trying to start up by playing covers using nothing more than iPhones and a Nintendo DS.

The other option is you just buy a Stylophone and some flares.

[jeph]

I don't think I will ever be any good with modern electronic music software because it's simply too versatile.

Last time I tried writing something in Ableton I started messing around with bass sounds and when I looked up it was six hours later and I still hadn't accomplished anything. On a good day with guitars I can get a whole song written in a couple hours and multitracked and rough-mixed in a day.

[ViolentDove]

I know what you mean.

A friend of mine is a drum n' bass/dubstep producer. He spends three days on one snare sound.

[est]

That is also my problem but also that I don't have any patience at all past a certain point.  I'll put a whole bunch of stuff together, get lost in trying to make one part of it sound "right" then get overwhelmed when I realise I now need to go through the rest of it to do the same thing to it all, then relaise that I've really only done about a quarter of the song anyway.

Why can't I just imagine shit into being with the power of my mind?  Fuck.

[The Flux Liner]

I use Psycle (which is free), Audacity (for recording and editing purposes; free), Plogue Bidule and hundreds of free VST-instruments & effects.

I recently wrote a tutorial on this topic, too. It is appropriately called "Making music with your PC (using only free tools)" and has lot's of download links to free software and stuff. You can read it here:
http://www.esnips.com/web/Flux-Liner-Music-Against-Airports
(of course, you will find some of my shitty music in this folder, too...)

[Scandanavian War Machine]

you are my hero.

i've been looking for a free program like that for a while now but apparently i am inept at internetting.


EDIT: i haven't figured out how to use all the buttons and dials yet, but here's my first attempt:

Code:

http://www.mediaf!re.com/?xrimtnjo2op

[The Flux Liner]

Well thanx, War Machine! That program is indeed very cool (I assume you mean Psycle) and I use it 95 % of the time. Your song 'NES Beat' is not bad for a start. To make it sound a bit more radio compatible, just load that .wav file into Audacity and use the Fade-In command at the beginning and the fade-out at the end of the track.

I decided to post the link to the huuuge free-VST-plugin-collection (Instruments and effects) in this thread, too. Here it is:

Code:

http://www.mediaf!re.com/?nyll9xtluow

(The Plugins will only be recognized by Psycle when they are located in the "VST Plugins"-folder the program uses - but you can specify a different folder if you like. And of course you have to "Check for new Plugins" first (that is, each time after you put a new plugin in the VST folder). This is the button in the menu you see after you double-clicked on the blue background. Note that 'Umbra', a free VST Synth by HG Fortune will not work with Psycle, which is sad, but it might work with another VST-host just fine. Also included in the zip-file is Crystal which is one of the Top 5 free VST-Synths out there at the moment. And then you have Raspier, which is an electric bass guitar emulation and lot's of delay and reverb plugins...)

[Scandanavian War Machine]

sweet, i'm definitely gonna download that when i get home tonight.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

any tips for making a good snare drum?!

i've been trying and trying and it is just not working. it probably doesn't help that i don't know what most of the dials actually do, but not having a snare drum is really putting a damper on most of my ideas.

so any tips would be welcome. or even a link to download a premade one; i don't really care.

[The Flux Liner]

First, check out DR-Fusion. It's free and one of the best drum samplers/synths I know of. Included are 35 Drum kits presets and it uses over 560 built-in samples. More than enough, I think (it is the 4th in the list):

http://www.odosynths.com/vst.htm

Another good, free drum sampler/rompler is DSK Mini-Drumz:

http://rekkerd.org/dsk-releases-mini-drumz/

Don't forget that you can totally alter the sound of any instrument with additional effects, if you want. Imagine how strange the string synth plugin would sound with all those effects attached in this example HERE. As you can see, I have 5 effects in the chain. And you can do this with every instrument...endless possibilities.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

yeah, the most effects i've attached to an instrument so far is two and i'm still trying to remember which effect does what.

anyway, thanks for the drums! they will undoubtedly be extremely useful.

[Hat]

As an extreme beginner, I have found this thread to be incredibly useful, from everything from what software is best for your needs to the more technical side of what making electronic music actually is, to deciding what controllers/synths you need, if any at all. Honestly you probably don't need to read a single book considering electronic music is largely made by nerdy white dudes who spend all their time on the internet, so look around

[godinpants]

any tips for making a good snare drum?!

i've been trying and trying and it is just not working. it probably doesn't help that i don't know what most of the dials actually do, but not having a snare drum is really putting a damper on most of my ideas.

so any tips would be welcome. or even a link to download a premade one; i don't really care.

if you want a 606 type snare (and come on now, who doesn't) i make them with white noise and a sine wave at 200 hz.
i just vary the decay of the white noise to either tighten it up or make it a bit longer.

Similarly you can make a pretty nice kick using just a sinewave at 80hz, here though, i paired up an 80hz wave and a 90hz, which creates some problems with phase occasionally, but if you are just looking to create a sample to reuse you keep going until it hits nicely.

http://www.godinpants.com/sondes/samples606.zip heres some samples i made messing around with a 606 model i wrote.
you might want to use them, you might think they are crap, but either way they serve as an example of how simple it is to create these kind of noises.
chuck on a some distortion and a compressor and you might get some angry noises because they are pretty rough waves.

[2HourHiatus]

Wow, this thread has really re-ignited my desire to make some electronic music. Thanks!

[bitriot]

My advice is go grab a copy of ableton live, the most intuitive quick to work with audio software there is. Learning this is much easier than some of the other stuff out there, and will serve you better than reason int he long term. Acquire a few soft synths and find some sounsd you like. if you want to get into digital hardcore, find or buy a good breakbeat sample cd, speed up the breakbeats and add some distortion. After that its a matter of adding lofi guitar / vocals...

Electronic music is very daunting due to all the choices out there in gear, process and sounds.... Just remember there is no right way to do things. 

[WriterofAllWrongs]

(I use FL Studio 6 and audacity. That and a microphone is all you will ever need.)

This.