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Get Started Making Music

learningmusic.ableton.com

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Re: Get Started Making Music

#91

Post by fhennig »

kristiandupont wrote: post #65
fractalf wrote: post #64

Ableton is great and paved the way for a more creative and intuitive workflow! I switched from Cubase very early on and never looked back. That is, until I found Bitwig ( https://www.bitwig.com ) which supports Linux! They also deserve a shout out taking it even further!

Bitwig looks really promising. But how is the VST landscape? Is it even supported? EDIT: sorry, my question was about whether Linux supports VST. I would assume that Bitwig did at v0.1 :-)

I got bitwig because I am a heavy linux user and wanted to start making music.

The software itself works well, it's really great, but with VSTs it's quite tricky. I got a couple to work that explicitly support linux, but for example Serum I couldn't get to work properly.

Recently I decided that it's not work all the hassle, and setup a windows computer again. I want as little friction as possible, because the process of making electronic music is already hard enough by itself.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#93

Post by jpdarago »

whiddershins wrote: post #10
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 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.

I don't think the grid is the problem, it just happens that it's very easy in DAWs to make patterns that are very short (e.g. a 1-2 bar loop) and then arrange them in these 1-2 bar units. Very likely that will sound a bit stiff, repetitive and predictable, which works in some genres but not others.

Personally, trying to think in patterns that only repeat at 4-8 bars helped me out avoid that, while still using the grid.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#94

Post by kofejnik »

fractalf wrote: post #64

Ableton is great and paved the way for a more creative and intuitive workflow! I switched from Cubase very early on and never looked back. That is, until I found Bitwig ( https://www.bitwig.com ) which supports Linux! They also deserve a shout out taking it even further!

I was totally floored seeing deadmau5' masterclass, he composes in Ableton on Windows, using mouse and keyboard shortcuts, no controllers!

Re: Get Started Making Music

#95

Post by jonathanstrange »

fractalf wrote: post #64

Ableton is great and paved the way for a more creative and intuitive workflow! I switched from Cubase very early on and never looked back. That is, until I found Bitwig ( https://www.bitwig.com ) which supports Linux! They also deserve a shout out taking it even further!

I use Reaper for everything.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#96

Post by afroisalreadyin »

josmall wrote: post #83
afroisalreadyin wrote: post #80

It's really awesome Ableton is going in this direction. Live is a beast, but it's a quite intimidating beast if you don't have experience working with DAWs and music software in general. I worked there for three years, and couldn't bring myself to learn the basics. Tutorials like these will definitely make it easier to pick the basics and start off with Live with more confidence.

how was working there? I did a code challenge there last year but I didn't make it to the next round. Still kind of bummed about it.

When I was there it was a great place to work: Nice people, a lot of perks, beautiful office etc. Especially if you are into music, you can learn and collaborate with pretty much everyone, as making and listening to music was and is pervasive within the company. The problem was that I was in the web team, and that was not their actual focus. They have grown considerably, though, so I'm sure it has changed at least in some respects.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#97

Post by 0x70dd »

fractalf wrote: post #64

Ableton is great and paved the way for a more creative and intuitive workflow! I switched from Cubase very early on and never looked back. That is, until I found Bitwig ( https://www.bitwig.com ) which supports Linux! They also deserve a shout out taking it even further!

Recently I switched to Ardour for recording guitars on Linux - it has great VST support, allows syncing music with videos, and has automation built-in. Even Amplitube works through LinVst.

I was also blown away by their pricing - you can pay as little as $1 for the full version, which is what I did, but after seeing how well it works, I did a donation to match the recommended price of $45.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#98

Post by alkonaut »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #72
fractalf wrote: post #64

Ableton is great and paved the way for a more creative and intuitive workflow! I switched from Cubase very early on and never looked back. That is, until I found Bitwig ( https://www.bitwig.com ) which supports Linux! They also deserve a shout out taking it even further!

Can you give more details about why you switched to Bitwig? I'm a beginner, so don't know much about Ableton or Bitwig.

I just purchased Bitwig after evaluating all the big ones, and the decision fell on Bitwig because it just felt like a "better" Ableton. I think the Bitwig team is actually former Ableton developers that just felt they could make a better DAW if they started from scratch. They could. It's just hundreds of little paper cuts in the other big ones, that are fixed in Bitwig. If something is clunky and unintuitive in Ableton, it's most likely better in Bitwig. And there aren't just a few things that are clunky and unintuitive in Ableton.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#99

Post by jwyatt1995 »

bartproost wrote: post #78

I love seeing how the big brands are picking up web audio. I refuse to work on anything else these days, and it's easier than I thought when I started. Built 5 web games using tone.js for Red Bull Mind Gamers last year and just launched a site that auto generates unlimited royalty free mp3s using web audio for a dollar[1]. [1] https://strikefreemusic.com

Do you have any open source work? I've been playing around with web audio applications myself and would love to poke around.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#100

Post by krn »

haywirez wrote: post #67
fractalf wrote: post #64

Ableton is great and paved the way for a more creative and intuitive workflow! I switched from Cubase very early on and never looked back. That is, until I found Bitwig ( https://www.bitwig.com ) which supports Linux! They also deserve a shout out taking it even further!

Ableton is a different ballgame if you have the Push interface. Other than that Reaper needs a mention, it is the best DAW[1] in terms of functionality and power. Truly for power-users and not necessarily as a musical idea starter. [1] http://reaper.fm/

> Ableton is a different ballgame if you have the Push interface.

Bitwig, started by former developers of Ableton, supports Ableton Push and many other MIDI controllers[1], and is probably the most advanced DAW for electronic music production currently available.

It's not as popular as Ableton, because it's much newer and most people rarely switch DAWs they are used to.

> Other than that Reaper needs a mention, it is the best DAW[1] in terms of functionality and power.

That's true, Reaper might be the best DAW for any non-electronic music oriented workflows. But this separation is essential: they were designed with different primary use cases in mind.

I wish Reaper supported Linux natively (without Wine).

[1] http://www.mossgrabers.de/Software/Bitwig/Bitwig.html

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