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Get Started Making Music

learningmusic.ableton.com

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Re: Get Started Making Music

#51

Post by amatecha »

S_A_P wrote: post #23

I really tried to get into Ableton. I found a Push 2 at a pawn shop and while I can say that the push 2 controller is pretty damn amazing and turns Ableton into a pretty cool device, I can't get the arrangement to feel natural to me. I am a long term linear sequencer user, and Logic is pretty much muscle memory to me now. However, Ive used FL studio since version 1.x and that also feels much easier to use than Ableto…

In the same boat.. I used trackers, then FL Studio, Cubase for a while, then Logic for years and I've always found Ableton Live really hard to get into.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#52

Post by backpropaganda »

yellow_postit wrote: post #47
chevas wrote: post #34

There's a delay when trying to hit stop on any of the boxes. It's really quite frustrating. I really like this idea. This is something I want to explore as a non-music person.

Checkout Pocket Operators from Teenage Engineering if you haven't seen them already. Its a lovely (to me) line of physical synths that are quite inexpensive < $30 USD and also as a non-music person really got me started down a path of wanting to learn more.

POs were a bit too limited for me. The sequencer isn't powerful enough to make anything more complex than basic chiptunes.

Not to diss on PO. I was super hyped about it as well, and would have liked to know about its limitations before buying it. Anyone of the numerous phone apps would be a cheaper and better replacement for a PO.

What got me started in music was Garageband. It's free (for macos users) and quite simple and intuitive. It's not as fully-featured as something like Ableton, but quite capable for making professional-level songs.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#53

Post by vonseel »

S_A_P wrote: post #23

I really tried to get into Ableton. I found a Push 2 at a pawn shop and while I can say that the push 2 controller is pretty damn amazing and turns Ableton into a pretty cool device, I can't get the arrangement to feel natural to me. I am a long term linear sequencer user, and Logic is pretty much muscle memory to me now. However, Ive used FL studio since version 1.x and that also feels much easier to use than Ableto…

I use both Logic and Ableton. What about the arrangement is so difficult for you!? my complaints about Ableton are much more editing-centric. I also greatly miss take folders when I work in Ableton, and I prefer mixing with busses to grouping tracks in Ableton.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#55

Post by CJStryker »

amatecha wrote: post #51
S_A_P wrote: post #23

I really tried to get into Ableton. I found a Push 2 at a pawn shop and while I can say that the push 2 controller is pretty damn amazing and turns Ableton into a pretty cool device, I can't get the arrangement to feel natural to me. I am a long term linear sequencer user, and Logic is pretty much muscle memory to me now. However, Ive used FL studio since version 1.x and that also feels much easier to use than Ableto…

In the same boat.. I used trackers, then FL Studio, Cubase for a while, then Logic for years and I've always found Ableton Live really hard to get into.

I only ever use audacity, but I have a friend that is a studio producer and he uses FL Studio! Is there any more info you could share to a noob? :^)

Re: Get Started Making Music

#56

Post by vonseel »

haunter wrote: post #9
cubano wrote: post #3

Oh my...this is hardly "making music". Is paint-by-numbers making art? I sure don't think so, so neither is this. What would have been way way better is a brief introduction to music keys, major and minor, then basic chords, then progressions, then melody, with each section having a few examples of each so that the person going through the article could have some understanding of how music is really made, and how mus…

I think you are looking from the wrong way. Imagine there is a language you don't speak but you get a phrasebook with 100 useful sentences. Like general experssions what to say, how to ask etc. Now if you visit a country where they speak this language it will be very useful. You don't know the grammar, you don't even know the proper pronunciation. Yet you already have a base to build upon and express yourself. This s…

I have been playing and writing music for 20 years and learned by ear. I have minimal theory training and really have to look things up to tell you theory behind anything I’m writing unless you just want to know chord names.

Your description is one of the best analogies I’ve heard. I can jump into a foreign country and learn the language through immersion, and I’ll pick things up and learn by trial and error, slowly improving as people point out my flaws. Eventually, I’ll speak the language fluently.

Music is a rewarding hobby. I wish more people played and wrote music instead of things way more popular like video games. I bought a guitar for a nephew once, since I started playing when I was his age (10). Ultimately, I think playing on his iPad or Nintendo DS was just easier than learning something like electric guitar which requires patience and some pain for a beginner.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#57

Post by vonseel »

tomcam wrote: post #16
whiddershins wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you but I would put it differently. The notion that music is at all a grid is just ... not true. It’s true of a tiny subset of music. I use ableton (and grids) all the time but this way of thinking about “music” is just reinforcing a weird picture of what it is. Even scales and theory and even music notation enforce a confusing deconstruction of what music is. But it’s really hard to articulate this.

A ridiculously high percentage of music producers these days are making serious bank by taking precisely this approach.

I love the grid, but if you follow the grid too strictly, all your music will sound sterile and lifeless. Especially if all the instrumentation is programmed. Maybe a real drummer playing to a click track can help avoid that.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#59

Post by vonseel »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #48

This is incredible, I love it. I've recently switched to using Ableton exclusively for making music, it feels like more of an instrument than a computer program to me. It's so expressive and lets me make the sounds I want to hear as well as things I can't even conceive of. I can't really articulate what it is about Ableton, but I really love it and I'm so thankful that it's around. If anyone wants more, Ableton also…

I love the learning synths site. I envy the guys who get to make these websites for a living.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#60

Post by te_chris »

S_A_P wrote: post #33
rock_hard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came from CUBASE and it took me a couple attempts to get used to ableton Frankly thinking of it as a sequencer is a limiting mental model. Think of it as a instrument to jam with. When I used cubase I spend about 20% of the time with jamming together a basic idea and then 80% with arranging. Ableton flipped that for me...now I spend 80% of the time jamming (and loving it) and only all the way at the end I quickly c…

Ive heard this from quite a few folks. I dont do a lot of ITB recording though, so that may be my problem. I mainly use my 2 SPs (SP-1200/Sp-16) for the jamming part along with keys/guitar/bass. By the time I fire up software the idea is already there, and I want to arrange it.

If you already have a solid OTB workflow, Ableton won’t really give you much tbh
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