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Where to begin with producing electronic music?


MikeViper
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Hi, MikeViper here and I wanted to know, how I do get started in making electronic music? I'd like to know. The particular style of electronic music that I want to produce, is the kind of music you would here in 90's racing games or fighting games.

Currently, I've only been producing music in midi format. But these songs have a lot of effects that are difficult to do with midi.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about...

Ridge Racer 64 - Revolver:

SSX Tricky - Slayboarder:

JSRF:

Tekken 3 - Jin's Theme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf5HclWKYrc&feature=relmfu

So yeah, I'm talking about being able to produce songs like those. You know, songs that generally have a lot of flanger effects, as well as arpeggiators and such.

I guess what I'm asking basically is, what would be the best program for producing these kinds of songs, where I can do all those crazy flanger effects, panning effects and perhaps use a sampled beat?

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Careful, the "What program is the best?" question tends to open a can of worms. There are a LOT out there, but you can download demos of Reason, FL Studio, Sony ACID, Reaper, or a bunch of others that should get you started. The effects you named are usually included in spades with any given suite, and there are tons of freeware plugins out there as well! As far as drum samples go, there are loads of freebies out on the internet. Just make sure whatever you grab is legal to use. :)

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Pardon my amusement, but your question sounds like "what instrument do I need to play an A minor chord?" to me. :D

The answer is most decent enough instruments. Piano, guitar, accordion; not drums, flute, or singing.

So to apply the answer to your actual question: most DAWs (digital audio workstation, or music-making software). FL Studio, Cubase, Ableton Live, Logic, Mixcraft, GarageBand, REAPER... and others.

For that specific A minor chord, you need the note A, C, and E... which in your case are old drum machine samples, breakbeat loops and other sounds utilized during the era, or samples, synths, and loops with similar qualities.

For some more details, I have a remixing guide in my sig that might help. Not so much in hunting that 90's sound, but the general music-making with a DAW.

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Be open to starting from the basics, choosing a DAW that you like, and learning some sound design if you have to so you can get the type of sound you want. Maybe a really good way to make music is to know how it's made, fundamentally. It sounds like what you said, but it really isn't.

What I just said is actually defined as "learning how to create a timbre of sound using various methods of sound synthesis", or figuring out "What makes that sound sound like that?" or "Why is that instrument so cool-sounding?".

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, thanks for the advice guys. But are there any free all-in-one DAW's or do you have to pay for all the good one's?

Up until now, I've been using an Anvil Studio + Synthfont combo. Anything with a good piano roll sequencer + soundfont support + VST's would work. But if there's not anything free, I guess I'll just save up for Reaper or FL Studio.

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I found that the most useful resource was looking at the demo projects that came with FL Studio and REALLY digging deep into them, learning how the producer did every single thing in the project, and then applying it to your own music. I went from having no idea how to write electronic music (although granted, I have sort of a background in music via piano lessons) to having written a reasonably respectable first track, all in 2 days, thanks to just looking at the techniques of others. It's really that high-yield of a learning method. Maybe start there.

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Well, thanks for the advice guys. But are there any free all-in-one DAW's or do you have to pay for all the good one's?

Up until now, I've been using an Anvil Studio + Synthfont combo. Anything with a good piano roll sequencer + soundfont support + VST's would work. But if there's not anything free, I guess I'll just save up for Reaper or FL Studio.

Careful with Reaper, it's a great DAW but it doesn't come with any instruments. Well there's a crappy synth and barebones sampler. So Reaper won't set you back much, but you'll need some kind of instrument package to get ya going.

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You can do fine with free stuff. ppl have been making posted mixes in GarageBand. My first mixes were made using Logic's built-in stuff back when those weren't particularly good. There's also the FL-and-only-FL compo. Buying is just faster access to stuff that's probably better, but you'd have to learn to use those things well anyway. Electronic music doesn't need large, realistic sample packs anyway, so you should be fine with grabbing freeware and free samples.

There's plenty of free instruments and effects, search kvraudio's database or just go with ppl's recommendations. I'd start with FreeAlpha and TAL-Elek7ro II on the synth side. For samples, google, maybe? I found a few cool sample packs out there, and it shouldn't be that hard for you either. Raw samples, soundfonts, demo samplers, drum synths, whatever.

Don't believe the crap about _needing_ big expensive instruments, especially with this kind of music. Last mix I did, I used a freebie for one of my leads. Even tho I've got a fair amount of "better" synths, that's what I went with. Drum-wise, I've used the same electronic kits I put together last year whenever I made mostly electronic stuff. Spend a few hours looking for stuff, checking threads for recommendations and stuff, put together your arsenal. Then just make music, using whatever you've got. REAPER's endless demo is one place to start.

TL;DR: There's good free stuff out there, find it. Don't believe you must have big expensive stuff.

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You can do fine with free stuff.

Don't believe the crap about _needing_ big expensive instruments

TL;DR: There's good free stuff out there, find it. Don't believe you must have big expensive stuff.

I hope you where not thinking I was talking about buying expensive things and getting broke. A few free things are cool, LePou's plug-ins are doing it better for my taste than AmpliTube or Guitar Rig for instance. But generally, you pay and get good tools.

You can buy a saw in a dollar store and try to make a desk but it's gonna cut better with a better made tool you'd pay 10$.

Saving 100$ for Fruity Loop is as much money it costs to buy peanuts. What do you get similar for free ? Some Linux music box ? A good ratio of the free stuff sucks because most of the time when it's good enough, people want to make a few bucks out of it.

Or show me a free DAW that's better than one you pay 100$ for like Fruity Loops (basic edition)

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A few free things are cool, LePou's plug-ins are doing it better for my taste than AmpliTube or Guitar Rig for instance. But generally, you pay and get good tools.

...

Or show me a free DAW that's better than one you pay 100$ for like Fruity Loops (basic edition)

I got GarageBand for free, with my computer. I got a version of Live for free with my keyboard. Technically not the same as available for free, but they've served me well and didn't cost extra. I'm still screwing around with REAPER, not having paid for it either.

Since this thread focuses on electronic music as per OP's question, we don't have to worry about recording capabilities. All you need then is midi, instrument, and mixer. Sure, advanced techniques like sidechaining and reverse effects might not be doable in REAPER - I don't know, haven't tried - but you can achieve many of the same effects by other means (eg faking sidechaining with tremolo, as I've done before).

REAPER's free demo, then. Plus a few free synths, say the ones I suggested before. And a few drum samples from wherever. Should work well enough.

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REAPER's free demo, then. Plus a few free synths, say the ones I suggested before. And a few drum samples from wherever. Should work well enough.

I decided to test my own thing here. The result. Sounds a lot like my late GarageBand-early Logic stuff, so it should work just fine for anyone getting started with this stuff. This is after about 40 minutes of screwing around in REAPER, and probably the first time I've actually mixed something in it, hence the quality.

REAPER and its own effects, FreeAlpha, TAL-Elek7ro II, and a touch of Aradaz Maximizer, output monitored with RND Inspector.

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I decided to test my own thing here. The result. Sounds a lot like my late GarageBand-early Logic stuff, so it should work just fine for anyone getting started with this stuff. This is after about 40 minutes of screwing around in REAPER, and probably the first time I've actually mixed something in it, hence the quality.

REAPER and its own effects, FreeAlpha, TAL-Elek7ro II, and a touch of Aradaz Maximizer, output monitored with RND Inspector.

Well after looking through the comments, I think I might try to learn Reaper, since, even though it's not free, you can still use the program. If I like it, I might eventually pay the $60 and register it.

And as for making specific effects that are common in electronic music, I can just find tutorials on how to make those on youtube, right?

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You can usually find tutorials on YouTube for techniques to create effects with certain DAWs. One quick search gave me lots of results for Reaper. If what you need is not there, it's probably at Sound on Sound's Tutorials Page. There's even some stuff on specifically Reaper. I found the Synthesis articles particularly useful.

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If you want to learn reaper, the best tutorial is, bar none, Kenny Gioia's Reaper 4 Explained at Groove3. They're having a half off sale for the month of Dec so I strongly recommend it if you want to quickly become a competent Reaper user. You'll get more out of it than any YouTube video or the manual. Reaper is capable of A LOT, but it's not always obvious.

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