A Musical Start

[grimtraveller]

also ive noticed that a large amount of people have skills in becoming DJ's and techno artists all i want to do is just have some knowledge in basically producing music.

Chams, if you're still with us, I think you'll find that it's nowhere near as clearcut as this. You've gotten sarcasm and static because you've seemed to put the cart before the horse and sometimes this is a tough school and few jokers survive. Even those DJs have a modicum of musical ability and awareness, even if they don't play an instrument.
In a way, it's great to have dreams but there comes a point where you recognize that there's a whole dose of reality and hard work and learning involved in reaching those dreams.......

Dreams can be more demanding than real life.

It will do you no harm to learn at least the basics of an instrument like the guitar {it's easier than the kazoo ~ just ask Dogbreath}. Because once you have some basics under your belt, you're on your way and hopefully songs will flow and then you'll be in some sort of frame to record and start asking about what you need.

 

[Lokin4chams]

OK, I know this is the newbie section and everything, but come on!!!! Are you serious??? You want to make an ALBUM??? But you know absolutely nothing about music, can't play, don't know an instrument???? But you want to make an album??? You think life is that easy????

I'm sorry, Newbie section or not, this is just plain stupid. And, I might add, it's an insult to those of us who have learned, practiced, learned more, practiced more, and busted our asses in this "business" getting to where we are...which is still nowhere for most of us.

I want to be a pro football player, but I don't know the rules, never played the game, don't own a football, and never stepped on a football field...Oh, and I weigh 98 pounds and I run slow as hell. So, how do I get into the NFL. I'm not asking for much, I just need to know how I can get an agent over to my house so I can sign a pro contract.

If you're younger than 11, then you get a break. If not, I call troll or bullshit on this one.

Ok, I, think you have misinterpreted what I was trying to say. So, let me break it down for you; DUMBASS TRANSLATION: ME WANA RECORD MUSIC ME HAVE A COUPLE OF PEOPLE THAT PLAY MUSIC ME WANA KNOW HOW TO RECORD MUSIC MIX IT DOWN AND TURN IT INTO MP3 FILE SO THAT ME CAN ENJOY ME OWN SONG

I, sincerely hope this helps you personally understand what im trying to do (i meant no offense towards you i just said what i had to say kind-of like what you did).

 

[RAMI]

Ok, I, think you have misinterpreted what I was trying to say. So, let me break it down for you; DUMBASS TRANSLATION: ME WANA RECORD MUSIC ME HAVE A COUPLE OF PEOPLE THAT PLAY MUSIC ME WANA KNOW HOW TO RECORD MUSIC MIX IT DOWN AND TURN IT INTO MP3 FILE SO THAT ME CAN ENJOY ME OWN SONG

I, sincerely hope this helps you personally understand what im trying to do (i meant no offense towards you i just said what i had to say kind-of like what you did).

No offense taken. I answered the way I did based on the information you gave up that point. It's much clearer now.

 

[Lokin4chams]

You're worried about record label interest when you have absolutely no aptitude for creating music in any respect? Am I seriously reading this correctly?

First of all, you lied about your inspiration to create music...it wasn't "Oh I love music so much, I should be creating it, not just listening to it", your "inspiration" is trying to make money and that will be your downfall.

Pick up a guitar, sit down at a piano, or blow into a fucking kazoo. There...music made

look, I want to make music but not like that, let me put it this way, I want to learn how to produce music so that it can be heard in an mp3 format. Im not really looking forward to making any money at all. If I ever produce music id only do so so that the world can hear my own unique sound, not to profit from it. But hey money helps too .

 

[moresound]

Ok, I, think you have misinterpreted what I was trying to say. So, let me break it down for you; DUMBASS TRANSLATION: ME WANA RECORD MUSIC ME HAVE A COUPLE OF PEOPLE THAT PLAY MUSIC ME WANA KNOW HOW TO RECORD MUSIC MIX IT DOWN AND TURN IT INTO MP3 FILE SO THAT ME CAN ENJOY ME OWN SONG

I, sincerely hope this helps you personally understand what im trying to do (i meant no offense towards you i just said what i had to say kind-of like what you did).

ME WANA ICE CREAM ! ME OUT OF HERE.

You know in the old days ~ I got a lot of *Don't call us, we'll call you*.
And that was 40+ years ago! Do you think they lost my number?

 

[Lokin4chams]

ok people look i know its a hard long way but i want to start please enough of the criticism tell me where i need to start in producing music i already have a couple of people who know how to play music i just want to know how im going to record the music and try and mix it into an mp3 file

 

[Lokin4chams]

and then when im feelin pumpy i might wana know how to make some techno beatz

 

[AbuseTheMuses]

ok people look i know its a hard long way but i want to start please enough of the criticism tell me where i need to start in producing music i already have a couple of people who know how to play music i just want to know how im going to record the music and try and mix it into an mp3 file

Sorry about the hannah montana guitar suggestion man, I hope the rest of my post was more insightful, just joking around. So you have a song and you have players for keyboard. Maybe if you sing with your key guy he can come up with a backdrop basic chord sequence and try out different sounds to hear what it sounds like. I have worked with drummers before where my instructions were about as fluid as saying "can you make it more 'dadda daddada da da dadda?' as far as describing what I wanted it to sound like. or singing the tune you envision 'play it like dee-dee-daa-daa-do-do-doo-doo' and letting the bass figure out which note is "dee" which is "daa" and so on. You would, as I said earlier, do well to learn a bit about using a sequencer, even some cheap software looping tool or a simple keyboard that lets you layer a few sounds on top of each other to get your basic structures down. Most music has several layers to it... a beat, a bassline, and a chord parts, plus a (often vocal) melody line... (whether its a conga player + a tuba + a church organ or a drummer plus a bass plus a guitar... whatever) that all intertwine together. Once you have a skeleton of a theme for a song, then you can start learning how to lay it to mp3. Baby steps man.

 

[jlewis]

Sounds like you need Tim OBrien's standard noob reply.

First off, immediately get a good beginner recording book (spend $20 before spending hundred$/thousand$) that shows you what you need to get started and how to hook everything up in your studio:
Home Recording for Musicians by Jeff Strong - $16
http://www.amazon.com/Home-Recording...3169612&sr=1-1

PC Recording Studios for Dummies - $16
http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Stud...3169612&sr=1-2
(Wish I'd had those when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)
You can also pick up this book in most any Borders or Barnes&Noble in the Music Books section!

Recording Guitar and Bass by Huw Price
http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Guit...5734124&sr=1-1
(I got my copy at a place called Half-Price Books for $6!!)

Home Recording for Beginners by Geoffrey Francis
http://www.amazon.com/Home-Recording.../dp/1598638815

When you get a bit into it, I highly recomend The Art of Mixing by David Gibson
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Mixing-Rec.../dp/1931140456

A MUST READ: Kim Lajoie's "Lifesigns from studio" - FREE - http://www.errepici.it/web/download/KLBD.asp

And you can get a FREE subscription to TapeOp magazine at www.tapeop.com

Barnes&Noble or Borders are great places to start --- they have recording books and you can go get a snack or coffee and read them for FREE! Don't pass by a good recording book --- this is a VERY technical hobby and you REALLY want to start a reference library!!!

Good Newbie guides that also explains all the basics and have good tips:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm
http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/..._beginner_pdfs
http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/tips-...echniques.html

Guitar Amp Recording: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug0...precording.htm

21 Ways To Assemble a Recording Rig: http://www.tweakheadz.com/rigs.htm

Other recording books: http://musicbooksplus.com/home-recording-c-31.html

Still using a built-in soundcard?? Unfortunately, those are made with less than $1 worth of chips for beeps, boops and light gaming (not to mention cheapness for the manufacturer) and NOT quality music production.
#1 Rule of Recording: You MUST replace the built-in soundcard.
Here's a good guide and user-tested suggestions that work: http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards...ome_studio.htm
(you'll want to bookmark and read through all of Tweak's Guide while you're there...)

Plenty of software around to record for FREE to start out on:
Sony ACID Xpress 10-track sequencer: http://www.acidplanet.com/downloads/xpress/
Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net (multi-track with VST support)
Wavosaur: http://www.wavosaur.com/ (a stereo audio file editor with VST support)\
Kristal: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/
Other freebies and shareware: www.hitsquad.com/smm

Another great option is REAPER at http://www.cockos.com/reaper/
(It's $60 but runs for free until you get guilty enough to pay for it...)
I use Reaper and highly reccomend it...

Music Notation and MIDI recording: Melody Assistant ($25) and Harmony Assistant ($80) have the power of $600 notation packages...
http://myriad-online.com
Demo you can try on the website.

And you can go out to any Barnes&Noble or Borders and pick up "Computer Music" magazine - they have a full FREE studio suite in every issue's DVD, including sequencers, plugins and tons of audio samples. (November 2006 they gave away a full copy of SamplitudeV8SE worth $150, November 2007-on the racks Dec in the US- they gave away SamplitudeV9SE and July 2009 issue they put out Samplitude10SE. FREE. It pays to watch 'em for giveaways...)

 

[moresound]

^^^^^ I had forgotten about this ^^^^^
Be sure to read everything!

You also need to understand how to arrange musical pieces. I guess you can do this without knowing an instrument, kinda do it by feel.

 

[austinm08]

Man, we need more entertaining threads of this caliber. Me likey.

 

[moresound]

Man, we need more entertaining threads of this caliber. Me likey.

You sure me likey? or me likey for sure? ~ ME BRAIN HURTS. Me stop now.

 

[Lokin4chams]

Sounds like you need Tim OBrien's standard noob reply.

First off, immediately get a good beginner recording book (spend $20 before spending hundred$/thousand$) that shows you what you need to get started and how to hook everything up in your studio:
Home Recording for Musicians by Jeff Strong - $16
http://www.amazon.com/Home-Recording...3169612&sr=1-1

PC Recording Studios for Dummies - $16
http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Stud...3169612&sr=1-2
(Wish I'd had those when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)
You can also pick up this book in most any Borders or Barnes&Noble in the Music Books section!

Recording Guitar and Bass by Huw Price
http://www.amazon.com/Recording-Guit...5734124&sr=1-1
(I got my copy at a place called Half-Price Books for $6!!)

Home Recording for Beginners by Geoffrey Francis
http://www.amazon.com/Home-Recording.../dp/1598638815

When you get a bit into it, I highly recomend The Art of Mixing by David Gibson
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Mixing-Rec.../dp/1931140456

A MUST READ: Kim Lajoie's "Lifesigns from studio" - FREE - http://www.errepici.it/web/download/KLBD.asp

And you can get a FREE subscription to TapeOp magazine at www.tapeop.com

Barnes&Noble or Borders are great places to start --- they have recording books and you can go get a snack or coffee and read them for FREE! Don't pass by a good recording book --- this is a VERY technical hobby and you REALLY want to start a reference library!!!

Good Newbie guides that also explains all the basics and have good tips:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm
http://www.computermusic.co.uk/page/..._beginner_pdfs
http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/tips-...echniques.html

Guitar Amp Recording: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug0...precording.htm

21 Ways To Assemble a Recording Rig: http://www.tweakheadz.com/rigs.htm

Other recording books: http://musicbooksplus.com/home-recording-c-31.html

Still using a built-in soundcard?? Unfortunately, those are made with less than $1 worth of chips for beeps, boops and light gaming (not to mention cheapness for the manufacturer) and NOT quality music production.
#1 Rule of Recording: You MUST replace the built-in soundcard.
Here's a good guide and user-tested suggestions that work: http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards...ome_studio.htm
(you'll want to bookmark and read through all of Tweak's Guide while you're there...)

Plenty of software around to record for FREE to start out on:
Sony ACID Xpress 10-track sequencer: http://www.acidplanet.com/downloads/xpress/
Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net (multi-track with VST support)
Wavosaur: http://www.wavosaur.com/ (a stereo audio file editor with VST support)\
Kristal: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/
Other freebies and shareware: www.hitsquad.com/smm

Another great option is REAPER at http://www.cockos.com/reaper/
(It's $60 but runs for free until you get guilty enough to pay for it...)
I use Reaper and highly reccomend it...

Music Notation and MIDI recording: Melody Assistant ($25) and Harmony Assistant ($80) have the power of $600 notation packages...
http://myriad-online.com
Demo you can try on the website.

And you can go out to any Barnes&Noble or Borders and pick up "Computer Music" magazine - they have a full FREE studio suite in every issue's DVD, including sequencers, plugins and tons of audio samples. (November 2006 they gave away a full copy of SamplitudeV8SE worth $150, November 2007-on the racks Dec in the US- they gave away SamplitudeV9SE and July 2009 issue they put out Samplitude10SE. FREE. It pays to watch 'em for giveaways...)

thank you this is what i was asking for

 

[Lokin4chams]

Sorry about the hannah montana guitar suggestion man, I hope the rest of my post was more insightful, just joking around. So you have a song and you have players for keyboard. Maybe if you sing with your key guy he can come up with a backdrop basic chord sequence and try out different sounds to hear what it sounds like. I have worked with drummers before where my instructions were about as fluid as saying "can you make it more 'dadda daddada da da dadda?' as far as describing what I wanted it to sound like. or singing the tune you envision 'play it like dee-dee-daa-daa-do-do-doo-doo' and letting the bass figure out which note is "dee" which is "daa" and so on. You would, as I said earlier, do well to learn a bit about using a sequencer, even some cheap software looping tool or a simple keyboard that lets you layer a few sounds on top of each other to get your basic structures down. Most music has several layers to it... a beat, a bassline, and a chord parts, plus a (often vocal) melody line... (whether its a conga player + a tuba + a church organ or a drummer plus a bass plus a guitar... whatever) that all intertwine together. Once you have a skeleton of a theme for a song, then you can start learning how to lay it to mp3. Baby steps man.

OMFG WHY CANT ANY OF YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I ALREADY HAVE THE DAMN MUSIC COVERED i just want to learn how to record it, mix it down so that it has good quality sound, and turn it into an mp3

 

[Armistice]

OMFG WHY CANT ANY OF YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I ALREADY HAVE THE DAMN MUSIC COVERED i just want to learn how to record it, mix it down so that it has good quality sound, and turn it into an mp3

Ah, is that all... that's the easy part.

 

[Chili]

But I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT MAKING MUSIC AT ALL,

This is what got us all going down the path we took. Honestly, you didn't elaborate any further in your intitial post other than expresssing your desire to make music, so those of us who want to help are trying to figure out where you're at musically. If you said the music part is covered in your initial post, it would have sent us in the correct direction.

DUMBASS TRANSLATION: ME WANA RECORD MUSIC ME HAVE A COUPLE OF PEOPLE THAT PLAY MUSIC ME WANA KNOW HOW TO RECORD MUSIC MIX IT DOWN AND TURN IT INTO MP3 FILE SO THAT ME CAN ENJOY ME OWN SONG

Dumbass translations work well. Kind of wish you said this up front.

ok people look i know its a hard long way but i want to start please enough of the criticism tell me where i need to start in producing music i already have a couple of people who know how to play music i just want to know how im going to record the music and try and mix it into an mp3 file

Now we're getting somewhere. First, you're going to have to read and read a lot. The Tim O'Brien links that Jlewis put up are a great start. Coming here is another great place to start. "Where do I start...?" gets asked everyday, so your answers are here. Search/Browse through the Newbs section and see what's been said. Read. Learn what you need to get started. Learn enough to understand how you're going to record. What will work best for you. Most everyone's situation is a little different, so what works for me isn't going to work for you. You need to read and learn so you can make informed decisions, especially before you buy anything. Don't want to waste money buying the wrong equipment because you thought that's what you needed. Trust me.

No one is going to spoonfeed you, so start by reading.

Ah, is that all... that's the easy part.

See, he knows!!!

 

[austinm08]

What he meant by "dumbass translation" was he realized how much of a dumbass he was the first time he posted, so he re-worded it to be more along the lines of what he actually intended on asking. Somehow he first asked something COMPLETELY different..

 

[RAMI]

What he meant by "dumbass translation" was he realized how much of a dumbass he was the first time he posted, so he re-worded it to be more along the lines of what he actually intended on asking. Somehow he first asked something COMPLETELY different..

That would be "dumbass's translation".

Or the Japanese-Enrigsh "dumbass's tlansration".

 

[austinm08]

We've had a few Japanese foreign exchange students in my town (my family had one), and it's always funny when they say "Liberal"...

or "Ribelar", rather.

 

[moresound]

Ah, is that all... that's the easy part.

See, he knows!!!

Wait! What's easy? Get back here and explain!
Damn it! I guess I should have read that recording for dummies book a little further than the table of contents.