Guidance for beginner? Also, Arturia MiniLab help?

[treedoor]

I'm trying to get myself into the "learning phase" of how to make music. I checked out the guide on this forum, read reviews of different types of hardware, and I thought I was ready to get started, but I'm not.

Ultimately I landed on getting an Arturia MiniLab as a sort of entry point for music composition though I wasn't fully aware of what I'd be limited to doing. It comes with the Analog Lab software which has 5000 really high quality sounds on it which was its big selling point to me as well as some recordings I had heard.

But the problem is that I can't, or at least I don't think, I can record a song with just this. It seems the purpose of the keyboard and analog lab is just to give you a huge sound bank, and an input method with a way of modifying those sounds with ease.

So what I'm asking is what do I need to go with this? How do I get started?

Do I need an additional recording program? Also, do I need additional hardware to record background beats and rhythm? In youtube videos I keep seeing boxes next to people's keyboards that they can hit buttons on to play pre-recorded beats.

[Rozovian]

You're talking about zircon's New to ReMixing thread? It's a super-basic overview, which makes it a great starting point, but you seem to have gone a bit wrong in your research. As you seem to have found out, hardware and synth software isn't enough; you also need to save what you play. Get a DAW, digital audio workstation software. zircon points to FL Studio, Reason, REAPER, Sonar and Cubase. There are others, but any one of those should do.

You have a midi keyboard. Plug it in. You have a software synth. Make sure it's installed. Do you have a DAW? I suggest you start with REAPER, since its demo is still fully functional even after the trial period is over. Once you get an idea of how it works, you should try some other ones, see how they differ, and decide on one.

If you're on Mac, it's much easier. Just open up GarageBand and do everything there. If you need more control over stuff, you can get Logic, or Cubase, or another DAW available on Mac. On Linux the options aren't as good, but LMMS, Ardous and Rosegarden are IIRC available, but I don't know how they compare to estblished stuff like the ones listed earlier.

If you need more to read, I have a guide in my sig you can check out.

[Eino Keskitalo]

I endorse Rozo's guide, helped me out a ton.

[Jorito]

Heh, I never knew about Rozo's guide and stumbled through it on my own. Glimpsing through it I think there's good pointers for more experienced people in there too, so I guess some reading is in order for me

The stuff Rozo said in his posts makes total sense. I'd get a DAW (any will do) to save your stuff with, and something that makes sounds. Can be software synths, samples, a MIDI keyboard, or a microhone and an acoustic instrument. What you choose prolly doesn't matter a lot at this point prolly, but just playing, experimenting and finding out how stuff works and what you want to do prolly is.

Have fun on this amazing journey!