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tacoboy
There seems to be a lot of o topics about the technical side of music production. I'd like to know more about the methods.

What effects has it had on your life and way of thinking?

How did you start out?

How have you progressed and where you would like to see yourself in the future?
Loreman
QUOTE (tacoboy @ Apr 18 2003, 16:34)
There seems to be a lot of o topics about the technical side of music production. I'd like to know more about the methods.

What effects has it had on your life and way of thinking?

How did you start out?

How have you progressed and where you would like to see yourself in the future?

Hello Tacoboy smile.gif

Well in terms of an effect on my life it has been minimal really. I'm no pro' just doing this for fun after work and at weekends. I started my project /album in august and I have two more tracks to complete and then I'll be done. Hopefully by June.

I started with a single macG3, Logic and a Roland JV 30. I was at the stage of saving up to buy new synths for various sounds etc, but became aware of soft synths and plug-ins and I have found them to be just perfect to the way I like to work. Then I focused in on a notion, in this case circus music and have been developing the idea since.

In terms of proggression, I've focussed on sound quality. I was using mostly midi for my first couple of tracks, which are fine to a point but ultimately less expreesive so I now just look out for useful softsynths and the latest plug-ins, but not too much as they can just impede your progress, I realise that much can be achieved with little, however my arsenal of equipment has increased since I began I now have a mixer a soundcard a microphone Logic 5, and I started a website to host all the tunes. My understanding of eq-ing and mono/ stereo has grown and is growing.

Where would I like to see myself in the future.... Well I'd like this current project to be considered for library music, and if that happens perhaps develop that further so that I compose primarily for library music concern. I don't really have any notion of releaseing anythig as such, it's not really my style.

Thats about it. Hope its what you wanted.

Cheers

Loreman
add9
My story smile.gif

I started singing as a young girl and got more and more work as a vocalist. I spent years on the road with different bands singing coversongs.
A friend gave me a piano 10 years ago and I felt this urge for writing songs. I didn't know anything about charts or how to write music but I wanted to learn more....and more... I had so much music in my head.
I had a few producers that helped me to get a few of my songs in shape but I was never really satisfied. Then I got together with a musician(guitarist) who also was a producer. I guess he got tired of me asking him to help me with my songs, so he gave me a Tascam 8 track Portastudio and showed me how to get started in Logic. That is when I really started to find out what I really wanted in life. I sat day in and day out learning about this great tool called Logic. I had EMU proteus 1000 with just "straight" sounds in it and I soon got tired of them and started making "ugly" sounds using filters etc. That is 6 years ago. My boyfriend and I left eachother two years ago and I guess it was not healthy for the realationship that I was stepping over towards his area. We also fought about who was to use the studio biggrin.gif
I had to start all over again. I was used to ProTools and all the best equipment you can think of...
Music means everything to me. Every dime I get now goes to music-equipment.

I am out walking and get an idea in my head, I rush home and work with it on the piano. When I have the arrangment ready....in my head, when I am playing and singing, I go over to my G4 and start making it in Logic.

Unfortunatly....my intense interest in music is not just positive. I hardly ever go out anymore....I can't listen to music like I used to either. I kind of analyze it. Picking it apart....listening to the chords, the mix, the producing....I can't just put on a CD any more just enjoying it, well, ....there are a few that are perfect in my ears...I am very critical to all kinds of music ....and mostly my own rolleyes.gif

I have gone from being just another singing-girl to a songwriter and a producer.
I hope that one day I will be one of the few good female producers.

"Working haaaaard for the money...."
StrangeCat
biggrin.gif hahaha you sound like me music is everything to me, I can't stop writing music and there just so many songs and styles to write. I don't go out to clubs anymore and I can't even have a relationship really write now because of music. I am working on getting a job writing music for Japan because my dream is to write anime scores. I compose jpop as one of my styles for songs, but I compose in all styles. all I need a is pen, paper, and piano and I am good ;)From there it is all arrangement no matter what gear is used or Orchestration or added effects.
and yes i tear all music apart now, I really analyze it I see what's missing for all of it, but it sells so I can't say to much.
But when you feel and know music so deeply, you want do so much more. I wish the classical music world would wake up someday too but that is also all about money.
a lot of it has to do with Record companies, and what is hot , for selling...Underground hip hop is still underground because a lot of there techniques and sounds are not popular. I Love Japan so that is where i want to write music. Hey you keep at it. Always broaden your musical ideas. Taxi.com might be a big help someday for you too smile.gif I am sure you will be big!
As a freelance composer I have to be everything LOL! But that is the freelance composer. Still though I like to go to my friends studio and master....Just a guy looking to write music for another culture called japan...
Monsquaz
My father is a music teacher, so you can tell he's a big aficionado. Thing is, he never really pushed me to get into music. So I never learned theory or how to play instruments.

4-5 years ago I started listening to music... mostly pop on the radio. But that all changed two years ago when I heard Motörhead- their killer, classic-style hard rock sound blew me away. I threw away my interests in the ever-parasitic and vile pop music that infects radio stations worldwide. I started listening to the kind of music my parents liked, as well: classical, jazz, classic rock, and bluegrass & traditional country (not contemporary, most of that is just real country that has been diseased with horrible pop influences). I kept getting deeper, and I found that the underground music scene goes farther than aspiring pop musicians.

I really liked the concepts that people like John Cage, Masami Akita, and Edgard Varése had (or in Akita's case, have, as he is not deceased). To actually appreciate the output, you'd have to listen long and hard through headphones or put it on during a road trip. But I'd always like the concepts. They'd sound silly, yet so intriguing.

Almost an entire year ago, I decided I wanted in on it, too. Thing is, I don't have expensive equipment and software like everyone else. My only available "equipment" besides my computer consists of a Casio SK-1 keyboard (with no cables to hook it up with anything else) and the recording function of my Nomad IIc MP3 player. I just can't afford anything else. I tried ProTools Free, but apparently you still need equipment for that- which, like I said, I am at a loss for. Fortunately, MacMusic's software section had lots of neat little programs (like MIDI Builder and Mac Audio Toolbox) that were easy enough for me to figure out, but no one else ever bothered with them, because they're too busy with their expensive and complicated high-end software like Cubase, Logic, and what have you (nothing against the people or their software, but I know stuff like Mac Audio Toolbox get neglected because they don't hold a candle to the professional stuff). Their trash was my treasure.

So I took my new toys, put them to work, and came out with two full-length albums. But I liked them. Earlier this year, I went to DMusic and put some songs up. To my delight, they were well-recieved.

Recently I've been working with an old copy of Cakewalk Overture that I found. Being absolutely clueless, I mashed notes on the sheets randomly. I was surprised how good it actually sounded ! I kept working, and finished up Opus #1, my first major classical composition.

I want to keep working with composition and music theory in general. Overture has helped me understand a bit more about it, so I think I'm on the right track.
3Head
QUOTE (tacoboy @ Apr 18 2003, 16:34)
What effects has it had on your life and way of thinking?

How did you start out?

How have you progressed and where you would like to see yourself in the future?

Hi there !

For me personally , one of the most important things that happened in my life , was seeing Mark Knopfler on a concert . That was an impulse , that made me wanna be a musiacian . Beginning with guitar , goin' through bass , drums , piano and stuff like that . I wanted to be really good , and still want to - I spend about 10 hours on playing every day . Some say it's sick , but it's the only way.. Some time ago I started to be interested in another "instrument" - mixing consoles smile.gif

The effects..? I'm the effect of that smile.gif
My life never would be like this , if it weren't for music.

I progressed in playing instruments , composing , singing , etc , but also I think thanks to music , I'm a different person .
I'd like to see myself on a big stage.. and I'm heading for it smile.gif

See ya smile.gif
mortalengines
Sony Acid has a free version and so does Pro Tools....both are download-able from their respective web sites. Almost any sound interface you buy comes bundled with some software for making music as well....you probably want to do just a little better than whatever sound card came with the computer you own.
ironhead
QUOTE (add9 @ Fri 13 Jun 2003, 18:01) *
My story smile.gif

I started singing as a young girl and got more and more work as a vocalist. I spent years on the road with different bands singing coversongs.
A friend gave me a piano 10 years ago and I felt this urge for writing songs. I didn't know anything about charts or how to write music but I wanted to learn more....and more... I had so much music in my head.
I had a few producers that helped me to get a few of my songs in shape but I was never really satisfied. Then I got together with a musician(guitarist) who also was a producer. I guess he got tired of me asking him to help me with my songs, so he gave me a Tascam 8 track Portastudio and showed me how to get started in Logic. That is when I really started to find out what I really wanted in life. I sat day in and day out learning about this great tool called Logic. I had EMU proteus 1000 with just "straight" sounds in it and I soon got tired of them and started making "ugly" sounds using filters etc. That is 6 years ago. My boyfriend and I left eachother two years ago and I guess it was not healthy for the realationship that I was stepping over towards his area. We also fought about who was to use the studio biggrin.gif
I had to start all over again. I was used to ProTools and all the best equipment you can think of...
Music means everything to me. Every dime I get now goes to music-equipment.

I am out walking and get an idea in my head, I rush home and work with it on the piano. When I have the arrangment ready....in my head, when I am playing and singing, I go over to my G4 and start making it in Logic.

Unfortunatly....my intense interest in music is not just positive. I hardly ever go out anymore....I can't listen to music like I used to either. I kind of analyze it. Picking it apart....listening to the chords, the mix, the producing....I can't just put on a CD any more just enjoying it, well, ....there are a few that are perfect in my ears...I am very critical to all kinds of music ....and mostly my own rolleyes.gif

I have gone from being just another singing-girl to a songwriter and a producer.
I hope that one day I will be one of the few good female producers.

"Working haaaaard for the money...."

Great i love your vibes and positiveness as a woman running your own show wow i am a full time musician drummer, singer, producer , writer play genre form reggae to pop some latin was living working in mexico, florida now i am back home in jamaica and i am about to launch my album always into logic it's my program for inspiration but now i am using mixbus along with logic to that fat warm sound in the box .
it took me awhile to learn the ins and the out of mixing but watch lot of tutorial video and read and practice night and day my life is nothing without music making and creating music is inspiring it's a wonderful feeling.
we should link up and do a collaboration video by skype or ichat with logic i did it with a friend and it came out excellent i also record the video session
we could get great result
ironhead
QUOTE (alimaamoser @ Sun 7 Feb 2010, 07:01) *
Anyone know of any software for making music thats free?? I need to make some background music for a video game im making.As long as it can be saved in .wav format im good.
Advanced Acai
Super White Teeth

ardour is one audicity or check this link http://www.pcmus.com/Free-Software.htm there are many out there just google
i hope this helps
fishboisfo
As with any guitarist, or even some vocalist(s), you bribe them with cookies. That should be on the first page of "How to be a successful music producer".

Can't believe you missed that . . . smile.gif
azkid
Making music with an instrument is such a personal thing, and once past childhood (if we do mature), we tend to take advise or feedback personally. The ego rules.

That being said, your friend may need to hear that he's not keeping tempo from more than one person, and you being his friend may not count at all. Can he jam with others? Does he ever play along with a rhythm guitarist? Does he record his playing so that he can hear it second hand? What kind of difficulty does his playing cause?

Before he will make any changes, he's got to see the benefit. That's human nature. I dunno that cookies will work, but my piano teacher used to tell me a story about a pony she had as a kid, and how it would never come to her unless she had hay or grain in her hand. And then she'd ask me, "what is your bale of hay"? LOL tongue.gif

So as his friend, find out what he really wants out of his music and help him get there gently.

I used to play with a great lead guitarist, G'bless her soul. While we'd be jamming, she'd put me in awe so badly that I'd lose my place! She'd never had a minute of lesson and couldn't read a note. There was no "theory" what so ever in her musical experience. But she made that 1968 Gibson cry the blues like somethin' I'd never heard. She just passed away last week.

I've noticed over the years that folks who sing or play blues have a tendency to lag the beat. It's in their soul and can't be unlearned. If that's where your friend is at, then maybe you'd be better off to chalk up his untempo'd playing to artistic license.

Good luck with this, and make sure this friendship is at least as valuable as your need to fix his playing. wink.gif
Berhu N°2
QUOTE (alimaamoser @ Wed 10 Mar 2010, 08:05) *
This friend of mine, who's a guitarist, has a bit of problem with his sense of time. As a drummer, I told him to practice with a metronome, as I know it'll help him greatly. He doesn't like the idea and refuses.

He also reluctant to learn basic musical theory, as he thinks it's complicated and unnecessary.

How do I convince him to practice with a metronome and study musical theory? IMO, these are elementary things that ALL musicians should understand. He also 'worships' John Mayer and plays the blues.

Hello

Rule of thumb: we never learn anything untill we are aware we need to, so people can't convice us if we are deaf or blind to reality.

Here, i suggest you record you and your friend playing, or your friend and a metronome, make him hear, and try to know what he thinks of what he heard. Maybe he won't notice anything, so he's not ready to learn smile.gif, so wait till he asks.
More sophisticated: compose a tune, record drum & bass & keyboards with your sequencer on you computer, quantize all or most of it, and have him play one or two parts (and sweat to record a clean track). Afterwards you can move his tracks to make him hear how it would sound if it were played more "in place" with the beat.
Most of us are reluctant to play on a metronome or electronic drum because machines' lack in feeling. Actually whatever a machine plays, we bring the feeling. The most commun trick is "play on a cowbell, and make that cowbell sound groovy". It is really joyfull when we succeed in doing that. You can share that key info. In fact, all musicians around the world need to respect a regular beat, because it is the immemorial link with the dance. Subtelties that happens inside the beat is specific to local or historical culture, it has to be dealt with later, don't worry yet.
Another very efficient method is to practice the same line or pattern or groove at 4, 5... 10 different tempi, faster, then back slower. (For instance add 5 to 10 - or 15 if you are impatient - points to the tempo until it's really unplayable, then decrease down to 60 or even 50)
That's for rhythm.

About theory, which is not needed to produce the magic of music, it is needed when it's time to organize the knowledge we accumulated through the years. So same thing, if curiosity is aroused, you friend will be asking by himself on time. Just talk about it slighty.

But, alas, the best way to understand that we don't play properly - and so that we have to practice with one method or other - is unfortunately when people stop playing with us 'cause we don't make any progress unsure.gif . Music is a collective art. Easy to get kicked & banned when we are not up to it. laugh.gif

Hope this helps.
d3i
laugh.gif
Berhu N°2
QUOTE (garghbush @ Mon 16 Aug 2010, 10:29) *
I have a YouTube account, and i wanna put videos with lyrics+music+pictures. How do u do that. Can you do it on Microsoft Powerpoint? Please help. How do i do that?
Sorry, i cant help you about that unsure.gif. Maybe you'd better look around on graphic or video forums... Please let us know if you find how to do that.
kevinr
You can do this in iMovie. The 'titles' options will handle lyrics, the most fiddly aspect of the job. You can easily 'share' the finished work to YouTube, of course.
ansleycargill
QUOTE (tacoboy @ Fri 18 Apr 2003, 17:34) *
There seems to be a lot of o topics about the technical side of music production. I'd like to know more about the methods.

What effects has it had on your life and way of thinking?

How did you start out?

How have you progressed and where you would like to see yourself in the future?


A laptop and MIDI Keyboard are definitely required equipment if you want to make more than just one song and really get into making music.

But you could just make do with a laptop.

An almost necessary requirement is music production software/programs.

Some free and simple ones are Audacity and Virtual DJ.

The free DEMO of FL Studio can be downloaded, but you CANNOT save or undo any of your work.

BUT, the loophole is, you can export.

Basically, if you downloaded FL Studio 11 Demo, made a song in 6 hours of being on your computer, and exported; it would be MP3 and would be yours.

However, practice is needed first before you can get good.

Anyway, yeah. A laptop is needed, with internet of course, so you can access DAWs and possibly download VST's for them (Virtual Studio Software).

It is good you can play guitar and keyboard already, knowing how to play both may help/expand upon music making.

Here is my advice:

1. Laptops are OPTIONAL. If you already have a computer, even one your whole family uses, just ask if you can use it for your music as well.

You do not need to waste money on a laptop if there is already a working computer with internet at home.

2. Look up some free producer/dj programs. Like I said my suggestions above, there are also other free programs that can be used. Here are some ideas:

- Reason DEMO
- FL Studio DEMO
- Reaper DEMO
- Wavepad
- Mixx
- Mixpad
- Virtual DJ
- Audacity
- Garageband (if using mac products)
- Wavepad
- etc.

Some of these programs are not for production but simply live DJ performances.

However, this is not necessarily bad, and some of the more basic programs may give you a basic idea of music editing and special effects.

I did some very basic remix/mashup projects using only Virtual DJ and Audacity, it actually turned out pretty well.

Once you can save up enough to buy a full version of a producer program, I suggest choosing very carefully between programs.

The one thing you need more than anything else is purely, simply, practice and patience.

It takes time to learn how to produce music, especially electronic music on the computer.

Please take your time to learn, make your own choices with what you want to do with equipment and programs, and make some of the best edm someone could hear.

Note: I would explain HOW to make electronic music instead of just telling you what you need, but unfortunately every program is different and every laptop/computer you use is different, airport car pick up, so I cannot help you further there. I am just giving you your options and what choices you can make.

After that producing becomes a very individual thing; your own style, what programs you use, and how you learn to use them become up to you and you only. Good luck from a fellow beginning music producer!! smile.gif
Source(s): I'm a producer. Here is my channel
:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX02hcrULgQ
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