Complete Beginner to producing music. Need help starting out

Lukearm123 · Joined: Aug 03, 2011 Posts: 1 Location: California

Hello there everyone! New member here at electro-music and recently have been increasingly interested in producing electro music. I have never had any experience with any programs or any hardware of the sort. I was looking at the Korg Kaoss Pad and the Kaossilator Pro but i have heard that they are pretty limited by themselves. I researched more and I say the Akai APC40 Ableton Controller. It looks pretty neat but the software looks god awful expensive. I also noticed people on Youtube had a Novation Launchpad coupled with a Korg Nano Kontrol. I'm so confused, I don't know where to begin! Also not sure if this would help, but my favorite electro artists would be Boys Noize, Daft Punk, Digitilism, and most of Skrillex. That is more of the sound I am looking for if this would help in any way. Thanks in advanced for all your help!

Lukearm123

onewayness · Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 7:02 pm Post subject:

Luke:

Well, it's a bit of a complicated question, and depends on a lot of different things. Are you looking to record music, do live sets, both? What's your background? Do you play an instrument? How tech savvy are you? Are you looking to do something more hardware-based or more software-based...? Etc.

As a totally random suggestion, not knowing the answers to any of the above, I'll mention that a lot of entry-level audio interfaces/midi controllers/etc come bundled with Ableton Live 'Lite'. Obviously it's not as full featured as the full version, but it's something you can get your hands on for cheap and dabble with and see if it appeals to you. It's something that gets used a lot in the kinds of styles that you're into.

Of the hardware stuff that you mention, I happen to own the Kaossilator (not the Pro, just the regular one), and the nanoKontrol. The Kaossilator is tons of fun and a tool that I find a ton of uses for, but it's got big limitations. It's not really an all-in-one solution by any means. The nanoKontrol I love for things like tweaking synth parameters on the fly, triggering samples, whatever. But it's not gonna do anything on its own, it needs something to be controlling.

Hopefully all of this is at least a little help...

Cheers,
Adam / onewayness
www.onewayness.com

bubzy · Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 6:36 am Post subject:

you got a budget or are you rolling in cash?
kinda important for people to give you advice. theres lots of free software too if you are looking at that.
i think Reaper has a free trial period to try.
i use propellerheads reason and have done for the past 7 years. its just awesome, i also have a yamaha cs1-x and the kaossilator and mini KP. with just these few tools im comletely equipped to make any sort of noise. but again it really is dependant on your budget Very Happy