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Get started making music

learningmusic.ableton.com

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Re: Get started making music

#101

Post by maldusiecle »

whiddershins wrote: post #66
rmxt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate to be a pedant... but I'm not sure any one person gets to define what "music in the art sense" even is. Yes, Ableton is rigid. Yes, Ableton favors certain musical styles over others. Yes, Ableton, here and in their design of Live, may just be giving lip service to anything beyond rigid song structure, tempo and dynamic changes, etc. Yes, Ableton loves their little boxes. But, I find it hard to believe that Ablet…

I think either my phrasing was terrible (likely) or people aren't seriously considering what I am saying. Try just looping a sample that is of arbitrary length, not some multiple of beats. This is something that we could do fairly easily since the 1980s, and with moderate effort before that. Ableton made this in to an unusual technique. The entire arrangement view only superficially resembles protools, the automation…

This takes like a second. Drag a sample into an audio track (in arrangement view), copy it, paste it again where the last sample ended, repeat until it goes on as long as you need. Do you not know how to use Ableton at all?

Re: Get started making music

#102

Post by smlacy »

dri_ft wrote: post #67
adamnemecek wrote: post #54

I'm actually working full time on a new DAW that should make writing music a lot faster and easier. Current DAWs don't really understand music. Also the note input process and experimentation is extremely time consuming and the DAW never helps. Current DAW : my thing = Windows Notepad : IDE. The HN audience is definitely one of my core groups. If you are interested, sign up here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-aQzV…

I think my idea of a perfect music program is closer to vim than an IDE, but you're on the right track.

Have you looked at Lilypond? http://lilypond.org/

Re: Get started making music

#103

Post by adamnemecek »

golergka wrote: post #93
adamnemecek wrote: post #54

I'm actually working full time on a new DAW that should make writing music a lot faster and easier. Current DAWs don't really understand music. Also the note input process and experimentation is extremely time consuming and the DAW never helps. Current DAW : my thing = Windows Notepad : IDE. The HN audience is definitely one of my core groups. If you are interested, sign up here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-aQzV…

Any further details may be?

Are you interested in anything particular? I can provide a lot more detail but I think that none of that will do it any justice. Sign up and check it out when it's out.

Re: Get started making music

#104

Post by whiddershins »

drivers99 wrote: post #17
whiddershins wrote: post #13

Ableton Live is my main daw. I use it every day, generally for hours, and for a wide variety of purposes. The most depressing thing about ableton is made obvious in two seconds of messing with that tutorial. A complete disregard for music in the sense of pushing boundaries of time, or doing things that are not tied to any sort of grid, and the sense of music as an emotive form. So many aspects of music are very annoy…

For those of us who haven't used Ableton yet, what is it missing? Edit: fixed autocorrect typo

It just encourages so much grid based work that you tend to lose perspective on the fact that most of the music made throughout all of the history of ever wasn't actually on a grid.

I love ableton a ton. It just encourages a limited mind set.

Re: Get started making music

#105

Post by adamnemecek »

smlacy wrote: post #102
dri_ft wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my idea of a perfect music program is closer to vim than an IDE, but you're on the right track.

Have you looked at Lilypond? http://lilypond.org/

I have. "LilyPond is a music engraving program, devoted to producing the highest-quality sheet music possible. "

I don't need or want any of that. In fact when I write music, music engraving is the least of my concerns. Actually music engraving is generally the least of my concerns period.

Also I find the current music notation to be kinda idk outdated. I can read it, but I feel like it's a system designed by someone who had the mathematical knowledge of a 15th century farmer (which is probably how it came to be).

Re: Get started making music

#106

Post by agumonkey »

adamnemecek wrote: post #83
agumonkey wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you toyed with live music programming ? just curious Also nice endeavour

So I'm working on this mostly to scratch my personal itch. I'm aware of those but to be honest I never found them to be more than toys. When I listen to music made in these, I feel like they generally lack some structure. My thing is all about helping you structure things.

Aight. I wasn't comparing btw, just wanted to have your point of view.

Re: Get started making music

#107

Post by maldusiecle »

whiddershins wrote: post #98
maldusiecle wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't buy this. Ableton was created by an excellent musician (Robert Henke), and its design reflects a musician's perspective. It's intuitive and flexible. It doesn't work for every possible workflow, but no individual piece of software could.

That's arguing from authority and ignoring the meat of my point. I know Robert Henke created Ableton Live and it was a tremendous innovation when it came out. Over time it gradually expanded features but never dealt with a variety of things that might be development intensive but would in no way break the workflow. For example: Support advanced midi stuff. Like, any of it. Why is it so mind bogglingly inconvenient fo…

It's not arguing by authority, it's arguing by counterexample. Robert Henke doesn't represent all musicians, but he is a musician, so it's not possible that Ableton doesn't reflect the perspective of any musician.

All the things you mention relate to a certain workflow. It's not my workflow, it's not every musician's workflow. It'd be great if Ableton had good SysEx support, but it's not accurate to say it has a "complete disregard for music" because it doesn't fit your workflow exactly. Ableton is designed to simplify working with repetitive beats. If you don't want any of those, of course it's going to be difficult to use.

Re: Get started making music

#108

Post by _pergosausage »

hxta98596 wrote: post #89

Anecdotal: there's a few different approaches to learning songwriting that seem to click for beginners. The "build up" approach is the most common and is what this link offers: It first teaches beats, then chords, then melodies and then, in theory, vocals etc. These lessons in this order make sense to many people, but not everyone. If you're interested in learning to make music and the lessons in the link are confusi…

What you said about learning melodies and beats and chords kind of confused me. Do people actually learn how to make up music? I always thought it was just some natural ability that people have. For as long I can remember if somebody told me to write a song I would just spit it out after a while. Am I unuiqe in this respect?

Re: Get started making music

#109

Post by meri_dian »

MichaelGG wrote: post #86
meri_dian wrote: post #6

I can't speak for other DAW's, but Ableton was really easy for me to pick up as a complete novice to digital music production

I agree. A lot of the other UIs are insane. One of them boasts about its full physics package to accurately render the cables connecting one "device" to another. I thought it was so gimmicky but a lot of them do the same stuff and people buy it so what do I know. Ableton just makes sense. But maybe because I'm not an artist. I just like learning these tools. I will say that with a few hundred bucks of equipment (a La…

The Ableton hate is pretty unfounded. Most people use third party synths and effects anyway so who cares about what the DAW comes prepackaged with.

Re: Get started making music

#110

Post by whiddershins »

weavie wrote: post #79
whiddershins wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think either my phrasing was terrible (likely) or people aren't seriously considering what I am saying. Try just looping a sample that is of arbitrary length, not some multiple of beats. This is something that we could do fairly easily since the 1980s, and with moderate effort before that. Ableton made this in to an unusual technique. The entire arrangement view only superficially resembles protools, the automation…

If it's not a multiple of beats, would it generally sound good in any musical kind of way?

Yes! So many examples of why.

What if I want the sound of rustling leaves to come and go across the course of a song?

What if I wanted my piece to happen over a drone tone similar in function to a tamboura or a constantly feeding back electric guitar?

What if I wanted to have another sort of loop and while playing it back, experiment with different tempos against it to see what sounds right?

And a zillion other things.

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