Electronic music software?????

waximus

Alright lads,

I have been looking into buying some software to have some fun making dance songs. I have a trial version of Ableton 7. Is that the best software there is or is their better, I have to admit its very complicated and its probably going to take a while before I fully understand. Id hate to have learned all about it and find out there was a better way to produce dance music at home. Any advice would be great. Oh yea I have some other questions like whats the best spekers to buy to make a laptop sound like a stereo and what microphones are good to get. Like I said any help would be great.

Cheers

Anima

Better usually means more complex and more expensive. I'd stick with Live for now or maybe something easier. You'll be able to transfer what you're learned to more complex programs then, no program is a million miles away from another. Live is quite good though, not ideally suited to production but its good. Logic would be something better but its OSX only.

keithkk16

Same as am looking to play about with some software aswell i was gonna make another thread but i may aswell keep it here. Was just wondering like what would be a decent enough program to start me off with for a windows laptop ? I was thinking of maybe gettin a midi keyborad aswell any recommendations on what kind to get nothing to pricey. Thanks

drunkmonkey

what's fruity loops like, I heard a few dj's mention it..

Anima

Its designed with electronic music in mind. It has a bit of a name as a newbie sort of program but its come on a lot. It was called Fruity Loops but its FLStudio now and its fairly comprehensive. Has everything you need and is very intuitive, very modular which I think gives it an advantage over traditional DAWs. Gets my vote anyways

franklyshocked

Best of luck man.
I'm slightly biased on this but Ableton is the king. Unless you have some experience of music software its a very steep learning curve starting off.
That said you can pick up the basics relatively quickly.
For a quick start head for abletons home site, they have loads of information on getting started. You could also try youtube. Loads of people have put up their own tutorials. But I have seen some on youtube that are wrong or inaccurate. Don’t expect to produce a hit record over night. There’s a tread on here somewhere about electronic music production worth reading. Think it was binary finery that posted it.

studiorat

If I was starting out making music I'd go for Logic. Ableton 7 is a very good sequencer though. The warp engine was a big selling point at first but Pro Tools has something similar now and you will see it appearing in the others soon no doubt, PT 8 has synths and samplers bundled with it now too.
In terms of the quality of music you can make with each they are pretty much the same. Ableton does have the advandage of being a useful DJ performance tool though.

Check the music production forum if you want to hear more.

Chris89

Alright lads, same as above, might aswell keep in the same thread.

Looking for a basic dj software, and a usb synth/keyboard that i can play any sound through. I'll take the above advice for the software but any reccomendations for the keyboard?
Im picking up a kaos pad too.

seannash

Chris89 wrote: »

Alright lads, same as above, might aswell keep in the same thread.

Looking for a basic dj software, and a usb synth/keyboard that i can play any sound through. I'll take the above advice for the software but any reccomendations for the keyboard?
Im picking up a kaos pad too.

absolutely no need for the chaos pad,

Thomas_S_Hunterson

seannash wrote: »

absolutely no need for the chaos pad,

Don't underestimate the kaoss pad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fC65sy9tzY (well...2)

seannash

Sean_K wrote: »

Don't underestimate the kaoss pad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fC65sy9tzY (well...2)

im not underestimating it but its totally unnecessary for production.most sequencers will have all the effects that the kaos pad has,even better.you can automate it alot better inside the programme.thats why its unnessary.great djing tool but not necessary for production

Chris89

seannash wrote: »

absolutely no need for the chaos pad,

Well eh, any chance you could provide some guidance for the rest of the stuff?

main reason i want the kaoss is that theyre cool to play with.

seannash

Chris89 wrote: »

Well eh, any chance you could provide some guidance for the rest of the stuff?

main reason i want the kaoss is that theyre cool to play with.

cool to play with but not really all that useful for production.the rest of your question.if your making dance music you will need monitors.the better ones are expensive but spend as much money as you can on them,there essential.next is a soundcard.this gets the sound out of your laptop and out the monitors.again price varies but good brands are motu,apogee,rme
mics i dont know about.
software is kinda personal.if you ask alot of people on here theyd say ableton.ive tried it and find logic is far superior to it and i can get a better sound out of it than i ever could with ableton.
logic is complicated though(most sequencers are) but once you figure it out youll be finding it very user friendly.if logics not an option or your pc id say get cubase.but any sequencer you choose will allow you to make music,the quality is totally down to you,not the software(to an extent)
you can check out some of my tunes made in logic in my sig or here http://soundcloud.com/seannash