I want to get into making electronic music. I figured I would start out mixing songs together and go from there. I need some help however. I have no clue where to start as far as what I need to get. Someone please walk me through the steps.

A VST is what you use to create custom sounds, or pull sounds out of a library. Usually you use a VST program with a sound authoring environment. I recommend using Fruity Loops Studio, and then finding a sound library or VST to use for your sounds. FL Studio comes with a pretty decent stock sound library to start with though.

You can easily torrent the newest version of FL Studio.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 16 2010, 3:43 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Typo

To create music, you'll need to learn an instrument. To make little boops and beeps, do what cecil says.

Lol. To play music with an instrument you need to learn an instrument. If music composition isn't your career choice, then a program like I mentioned will suffice perfectly.

This song was made with FL Studio: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/105753

Music composition != playing an instrument.
To compose music you need nothing more than a pen and something to write on.

Get FL studio if you wanna keep on sitting in front of your computer.

Didn't say it was.

I was responding to this, and assuming he was implying that "real music creators" can play instruments. I was pointing out that a program like FL Studio is great for people who don't want to spend time learning a formal composition process.

Leave the guy alone you all. There isn't anything wrong with using FL Studio, just like there isn't anything wrong with actually playing an instrument. Go impose your personal preferences upon people somewhere else.

Haha, I don't think a condescending reply about time spent in front of the computer is appropriate coming from a Starcraft Map-Making forum administrator.


Obviously I do want to make "boops and beeps", as stated in the OP-- so, yes, I will do what cecil says. Thank you for the 'helpful' reply; at least it wasn't just a way of expressing a dislike for electronica.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on May 16 2010, 5:25 am by Leeroy_Jenkins.

I'm not an admin

And it wasn't about time in front of a computer, it was more about "if you want to create it with your computer get FL studio" Geez, these kids today.

...
Electronica != made with a computer. You're misinterpreting the very own genre you're defending. Pretty much everyone else does anyway, so I can't blame you.

And I don't even think anyone here was attacking electronica, at least not me, I couldn't as I respect every genre except rap.

Give it up Corbo, he just owned you.


He's not really defending the genre, he even said he doesn't know much about it, but wants to learn.

Edit: To address your edit, negrodamus was clearly attacking electronic music.

Thanks for the help.

I never really read his post, honestly, I thought he never even mentioned electronica in his OP, I just replied to cecil and figured I'd support cecil with FL since it's pretty much industry standard. Now that I've read the OP I can also say this:
FL studio = create loops, beats, songs whatever. Can add effects blah blah, really flexible program but we'll need a bit of time to learn. You create things from scratch.
Audacity = clean up your loops, put things together, can add effects with it too, though I recommend doing that part with FL Studio and also good for converting to different formats. You're specially going to need it if you plan on mixing tracks and will help you to cut the tracks, clean up background unwanted sounds and so on. Basically you'll use this to get just the "drum beat" from a song, though, I'll say it requires a lot of time to clean up a song enough just to get the drum pattern and it'd be easier to just make it from scratch.
AtomixMP3 = use it to mix tracks, songs, beats, whatever, it's a virtual mixing machine. It's old and probably outdated and probably not even supported by anyone anymore but it's good, stable and you probably won't need anything else.

I think I can shed some light on this topic as I was very serious about being a music producer about a year ago in my life, heck I even used some of my music samples in my own maps (ex: Lost City - Winter Map Making Contest 1 place entry.) To get started the most basic program is FL Studios. I know it's been said already that thats the program you should get and all but it defintley is and you will find the trial version here online. Hopefully you find the full version because it comes with alot more sounds, loops, patterns, options, ect. Once you familiarize your self with FLoops you should start taking it to the next level, try Reasons next but im only suggesting this after you become very familiar with FLoops because Reasons is a complicated program, Kanye West is known to make beats with that program. Finally you should always D/L Acid Pro to remix / more features to your beats. Acid Pro allows you to edit any where on your beat while slowing down some parts or "chop and screwing" certain things. Hope I helped, if you have any more questions I'll answer them when I can, later.

But to use reason you need to have an interface intrument, it being a keyboard or master keys to actually create anything. Which requires actual knowledge on something but computers.
I've used reason before, though, for my recordings I prefer record + refill since I don't have a keyboard.
Here's what I mean:


He only uses the keyboard + masterpad to make reason produce sounds. The keyboard itself isn't producing any sound, reason adds all the effects, he can customize it in any way he wishes. Reason's a VST program, like FL studio.

You can also use Linux Multimedia Studio, which is available for both linux and windows. It's free so you don't have to torrent it if you don't want to pay for your software.
However, it isn't as advanced as Fruity Loops, although for a beginner like yourself, it should be fine and is a good introduction to the type of software.