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Get started making music

learningmusic.ableton.com

21–30 of 152 posts

Re: Get started making music

#21

I always liked listening to edm and when I first got to know that you just need a laptop and DAW to make tracks the idea of becoming an edm artist sounded exciting and glamorous to me. (like alan walker, martin grx) I installed FL Studio and tried my hand on making some beats ( https://youtube.com/channel/UClKt2vzomuegCDA45SU6FbA/videos ). Before I spent too much time on it I released it's actually less about making…

Not sure how to interpret your comment. What made you come to that conclusion?

Re: Get started making music

#23

I always liked listening to edm and when I first got to know that you just need a laptop and DAW to make tracks the idea of becoming an edm artist sounded exciting and glamorous to me. (like alan walker, martin grx) I installed FL Studio and tried my hand on making some beats ( https://youtube.com/channel/UClKt2vzomuegCDA45SU6FbA/videos ). Before I spent too much time on it I released it's actually less about making…

That's a pretty common beginner's trap, to have your motivation be to release music rather than in creating music itself. For basically any beginner you need many years to get to the point where that should be a consideration. Your main motivation should be fun and enjoyment of making the music. Ironically this is what actually differentiates the greats from those that struggle: the former make music primarily for th…

"Your main motivation should be fun and enjoyment of making the music."

On principle I agree with this. Tracks made following a tick list of successful tropes with an eye on getting released are liable to be highly forgettable.

Having said that, as someone who tinkered a bit with production some twenty many years ago before lapsing, and tinkering and lapsing once again a couple of years ago, I would argue that some form of shared community outlet is essential in persisting and making something of greater merit.

I tend to think that the best music is emergent from real-life communities: people, time, place, culture, politics. That is, communities that have an aesthetic and reason for being that goes far beyond, say, craving new synths after watching youtube reviews.

Music that is not performed and shared, ever, is somehow stillborn. Fun and enjoyment come from the attribution of meaning, and to me, meaning ultimately comes from real human context. I feel that the lack of this killed my desire to keep making it and improving. It was just an expensive way of shouting into the void.

Re: Get started making music

#24
I started with Ableton about 12 years ago with zero musical training and consistently am having fun with it mostly learning by doing. I think just playing around, seeing what sounds good can get you incredibly far. Sometimes tutorials how to do something specific help; but I have found that there is always a million ways to achieve what sounds good to you. Very similar to code.

Tl;dr: Experiment with Ableton, you can have a lot of fun just f**ing around.

Re: Get started making music

#25

All you need to make music is an iPhone and some ideas. I make music like this on my phone after the kids has gone to bed. I simply use Garageband and a couple of plugins. Sometimes I connect to a physical keyboard. https://youtu.be/iS-gRUzPrKI

Agreed! Sometimes being restrained in what is possible opens up a myriad of ways to get creative.

Start with very very basic equipment/samples etc. and very rarely add to your setup.

It's crazy how much you can achieve with just a drum tracker, EQ, compressor and a dozen samples.

Re: Get started making music

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty common beginner's trap, to have your motivation be to release music rather than in creating music itself. For basically any beginner you need many years to get to the point where that should be a consideration. Your main motivation should be fun and enjoyment of making the music. Ironically this is what actually differentiates the greats from those that struggle: the former make music primarily for th…

"Your main motivation should be fun and enjoyment of making the music." On principle I agree with this. Tracks made following a tick list of successful tropes with an eye on getting released are liable to be highly forgettable. Having said that, as someone who tinkered a bit with production some twenty many years ago before lapsing, and tinkering and lapsing once again a couple of years ago, I would argue that some f…

If you are playing for an audience (can be tiny too!) you will always be much more motivated to produce quality and improve your skills.

That being said it can also put pressure on you to the point where you also lose your joy due to stress.

I guess some middle ground can be found but as with everything that is easier said than done.

Re: Get started making music

#29

I’v commented on this before, I wish Ableton would phrase this differently. This is the basics of a certain very narrow subset of music making.

I'm sure the target audience knows it's not the only kind of music.

Re: Get started making music

#30
Question: with pre-made loops it seems fairly easy to make something that sounds decent. Is it okay if it’s really that easy? Could you put a few of these together and release a track? Should it be “hard”? I’m sure most producers have fiendishly complex arrangements. But do some producers basically paint by numbers?
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