Comment by brcmthrowaway
5 days ago
Any way to compose compelling electronic music without having to spend time learning a commercial app like Ableton?
5 days ago
Any way to compose compelling electronic music without having to spend time learning a commercial app like Ableton?
So many to choose from (in alphabetical order)...
- Bytebeat: https://dollchan.net/bytebeat/ (https://greggman.com/downloads/examples/html5bytebeat/html5b... !Warning loud!)
- Cardinal: https://cardinal.kx.studio/live
- Glicol: https://glicol.org
- Kabelsalat: https://kabel.salat.dev
- NoiseCraft: https://noisecraft.app
- Strudel: https://strudel.cc (https://github.com/terryds/awesome-strudel)
- Tidal Cycles: https://tidalcycles.org
You're really going to dump a total newbie into simulated rack synths, computer music languages, and whatnot? In order to "save time" over learning a DAW?
I'm sympathetic to some of what you're plugging. Really. I love VCVRack. But have mercy!
I am one of those newbies and I spent way too much of my morning going through all of these. :D
I love Ableton though. You can google any random thing about it and get an answer somewhere because it's so widely used. Dunno what OP has against it. It's not hard to come by Ableton Live Lite license for free. I think just buying their iphone app gives you access to Lite license.
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If you want to make "normal" electronic music (and never tried before), use GarageBand on an iPad. It's easier to learn than Ableton et al. because GarageBand has reasonable settings built in. I.e. it will make sounds right away, without endless screwing around. (You might even try GarageBand on a phone, if the screen is large enough.)
If you want to make "experimental" music then ... you'll have to experiment. Most of the recommendations in these comments are aimed at experimental music.
Most things labeled "computer music" belong to a very specific retro experimental music aesthetic, literally dating back to the era when you could barely make music on a computer at all. Much of this music was heavily influenced by academic workers. That may be exactly what you're looking for! On the other hand if you're not quite sure what I'm talking about, then be aware that "computer music" is not the only, or even the sanest, way to make music on your computer.
Agreed! If you have an Apple device GarageBand is the best way to get started.
Once you start getting into many tracks and advanced routing it seems like the choice (for me at least) is Logic Pro or Ableton Live. And I find Ableton much more fun to use when I want to jam, whereas Logic feels more like programming which is also great. FL Studio is also lots of fun. Try various options and see what fits best with what you are trying to do.
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It's like asking whether you can do serious photography without Photoshop/Lightroom or create games without Unreal/Unity. The answer is you can, but do you really want to? Your most important goal is to use a tool to get the job done. The tool is a method to get there, not something you want to fight with.
It's more like when kids start taking music lessons. Most parents aren't going to spend more than $100-200 on an instrument, in case the kid decides they want to quit. But the entrypoint for virtually any instrument that you could call "playable" is usually north of $500 (which also competes against a massive supply of used instruments from people that spent $500+ and then quit).
There's nothing wrong with playing around with Reaper, Garageband, BandLab, or any of the more entry level "instruments" in this analogy. Preferable even, if you don't want to blow hundreds of bucks on a program.
Reaper is not an "entry level instrument". It is a low cost, but full featured DAW. Garageband and BandLab are beginner DAWs, though for many they might work just fine for a long time or even for ever, depending on someone's goals and aspirations.
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You can get perfectly playable electric guitars in the $100 to $200 price range. It might need some setup first but you can learn to do that yourself from online videos. Modern mass production means popular instruments can be excellent value for money.
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I have been seeing a few DJ with livestreams composing with Strudel. It's a live web repl programming based approach. I don't think it necessarily scales to professional use, but it's a reasonable intro to the core concepts.
I've gone through the tutorial and it was honestly the most fun I've had on the web in a while.
https://strudel.cc/workshop/getting-started/
Hey thanks I hadn't heard of this.
You're welcome. I should expand on my "professional use" comment as i think it may be overly critical. Strudel is being used professionally by some artists. What I meant by the comment is the expertise you get in Strudel as a tool is not directly transferrable to the tools that most of the other electronic music artists use professionally. All of the fundamental concepts and skills map over but how things are directly done is very different in Strudel (and its cousins - the history of Strudel is fascinating too) from other electronic music tools used by professional artists.
Learning the app is not the difficult part. It is honing your style within the toolset you're comfortable with. Every DAW has its pain points and learning curve. Spend a few hours a week with each and see which one works for you, is my advice. Same as any other tool, you can't create effectively until you've become comfortable with it.
Literally hundreds or even thousands of ways, physical instrument such as sequencer/sampler, other DAWs. It’s not about learning a commercial app it’s about understanding principles of music production irrelevant of your platform. Just pick one and go: your ears won’t know any difference
Honorable mention: FruityLoops. I remember it from high school, 2006, we've had a hand-me-down 486 with maybe 32mb RAM? The boys made some great loops, I brought a guitar, we ran a freakin live hip hop show, standing ovations, FL delivered.
If you bought FL back then, you should still have a license for the latest FL Studio! They offer lifetime updates, which is a pretty good offer if you like the software. (I use Bitwig which doesn't, but I find it worth the tradeoff.)
Learning a bit of ableton is the least hard part of making compelling electronic music. Bitwig is fine as well. There is such a deluge of people eager to teach you via youtube or udemy etc.
You'll have to spend time learning whatever tool you are going to employ. If commercial is the issue... Have a look at SuperCollider. It has a learning curve, new programming language and all that. But the flexibility and actual software architecture is pretty unmatched in its own nieche IMO.
I haven't heard anything nice from SuperCollider
Me either. Links or no downvotes, bruhs.
Ableton Live is very intuitive and there is a lite version that is bundled with some interfaces (https://www.ableton.com/en/products/live-lite/features/?pk_v...). It has been years so I don't remember which interface / version I started with but I quickly fell in love and upgraded to the full version. The time I have spent learning it has been fun and worthwhile, so maybe give it a try.
Try LMMS, Pure Data, VCV Rack, or SunVox - all powerful free/open-source alternatives that can produce professional-quality electronic music without the Ableton learning curve or cost.
Look up DJ Dave and using Strudel to make music, its fun!
As opposed to what? Spending time learning any of the alternative tools out there? Everything you do is going to have a learning curve, so you might as well start learning the tool that does what you want.
If you don't want to use a computer, you could write and perform exclusively using hardware. Like a modular synthesizer, or a standalone synth, or an Elektron box (Digitakt, Digitone, etc).
Sure, but what will work for you will depend on what you consider "compelling electronic music," it is a big and diverse field and each have different tools which suit them. Without having some idea about your interests and direction in electronic music, you will just get a massive list of random applications which may or may not work for your goals.
puredata or supercollider - although I would honestly recommend Max/MSP over either (but it is commercial). Ableton is great and most DAWs in general are useful and quite similar so the skills are transferable, but they do lend themselves to specific orthodox kinds of composition, dance music and sound collage basically.
https://vcvrack.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/c/omricohen-music
There are open source trackers like Famitracker, and there are kinda-sorta-half-decent open source DAWs now like Ardour and LMMS.
Eurorack?
But it won’t save you time.
Or money.
except if it's VCVRack (for money)
Might as well use Ableton.