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Get Started Making Music

learningmusic.ableton.com

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Re: Get Started Making Music

#131

Post by flavor8 »

I got into programming as a kid through a desire to make music (my first program was a "song" written in pascal, playing a series beep tones at different frequencies and durations.) I got into trackers (fast, impulse, buzz) in my teens, and then synths.

These days I have a strong preference towards "hardware"* only music making -- I spend most of my waking life staring at a screen, so I find it satisfying to step away and be hands on when creating music. The brains of my studio is a Synthstrom Deluge, which is an amazingly intuitive little gizmo - it has a built in synth and drum machine, a looper, a sampler, and a MIDI sequencer allowing you to drive all other synths in the studio. I also have an Arturia Keystep, which has a great live MIDI sequencer. Another fun gadget is the Roland RC 505, which gives you 5 independent and dubbable loops - I drive one of the two fx sends from my mixer through it, letting me build loops live from any of the other synths. Aside from those I've collected a handful of synths, both FM and analog.

(* quotes because pretty much all available synths, analog included, run on software. Most come with USB ports allowing you to connect and change settings, update firmware, etc.)

Re: Get Started Making Music

#132

Post by fit2rule »

You can get a lot of the functionality of Ableton under Linux, albeit using other, modular tools.

seq24 for sequencing/block-style arranging. Reaper for recording tracks. VCVRack for synthesis, Hydrogen for drums.

In fact, its kind of amazing what tools a budding musician has available to them - for free - in the Linux ecosphere. I hope to see more articles describing these tools soon .. or maybe I should do one of my own ..

Re: Get Started Making Music

#133

Post by jlarcombe »

kabacha wrote: post #122
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!

379€ - wow, that's an absurd amount of money for personal software. Include that with every tutorial being priced too and having to buy synths and samples etc this turns into one expensive hobbie.

Well, it's professional software. If you could still buy a permanent licence for Photoshop, say, it would probably be similar.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#134

Post by jlarcombe »

Tepix wrote: post #88
Heliosmaster wrote: post #69

Talking about synths, I can definitely recommend VCV Rack [0], an open-source virtual modular synth! What I mostly love is that through plugins you can find virtual versions of existing hardware modules! [0]: https://vcvrack.com/

Looks like many of the modules need a purchase.

A lot of amazing ones don't, though. It's really worth digging in.

Re: Get Started Making Music

#135

Post by [deleted] »

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/

[deleted]

Re: Get Started Making Music

#136

Post by [deleted] »

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!

[deleted]

Re: Get Started Making Music

#137

Post by stealthascope »

krn wrote: post #100
haywirez wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just wanted to throw in a comment here: Reaper actually does have native Linux builds [1],even if they are marked as experimental.

[1] https://www.reaper.fm/download.php#linux_download

Re: Get Started Making Music

#138

Post by justforyou »

alkonaut wrote: post #98
uxcolumbo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Able…

The unfortunate counterpoint is there are an equal number of things that are clunky and unintuitive in Bitwig. It's also not nearly as friendly and intuitive when being used as a live looper.

How many bitwig users here use it in a live performance context?

Re: Get Started Making Music

#140

Post by IGotThroughIt »

kabacha wrote: post #122
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!

379€ - wow, that's an absurd amount of money for personal software. Include that with every tutorial being priced too and having to buy synths and samples etc this turns into one expensive hobbie.

VST Library:

NI Komplete 12 Full - $1600

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