Home recording (electronic music) - where to begin

545454

I really like ambient electronic music and would quite like to have a go at recording some at home. However I have zero experience of recording anything at home. 

Can anyone offer up some general advice on getting started? I think I'm reasonably tech-savvy, but I find the world of DAWs and plugins completely daunting. Is there anything that would make a nice user-friendly introduction? 

I think the PC has enough power (i7, 16gb ram), so if I add a USB midi keyboard, would that cover the hardware side of things, or am I missing something obvious?

I'd rather not chuck too much money towards this at this stage as it's just something to test the waters.

Any advice greatly appreciated - I'm not even sure if I'm asking the right questions here!

goldtop

If you already have speakers/monitors, then a USB MIDI keyboard is all you need. Until/unless you want to incorporate external instruments, when you'll need an audio interface.

That PC should be powerful enough for multiple instrument VSTs, too.

As for DAWs, lots of people here like Reaper (but I found it harder to get into than most).

545454

goldtop said:

If you already have speakers/monitors, then a USB MIDI keyboard is all you need. Until/unless you want to incorporate external instruments, when you'll need an audio interface.

That PC should be powerful enough for multiple instrument VSTs, too.

As for DAWs, lots of people here like Reaper (but I found it harder to get into than most).

Excellent, thanks - got the PodGo if I need to plug in guitar / bass. Might trial a couple of DAWs and see if I can find something that makes sense in my brain

stratman3142

I've always used an audio interface, so one thing I don't know the answer to, is how much latency you'll get when you play a note on your midi keyboard (i.e. the time between playing a note and hearing that note out of your speakers or headphones). You can experiment and see if it's a problem.

If you've got a USB interface on your keyboard then I would expect the input will be OK, because that's how I get midi into my DAW (Reaper in my case). But something has to convert the audio output of a virtual instrument (VSTi) into an audio signal that goes to your speakers (or headphones). My audio interface does that and the output conversion latency is low, so I don't have a latency problem.

I use ASIO for my audio System In Reaper, which then allows me to select my the ASIO Driver associated with my audio interface. If you don't have an ASIO audio interface then I'm not sure that will work. Other options I have for the audio system in Reaper include 'Direct Sound' and 'WASAPI'. Direct Sound has high latency. WASAPI appears better but still a bit on the high side. I've heard some people use ASIO4ALL but I've no experience of that.

Sorry, not much help, but I'm just raising a few questions that maybe someone with more knowledge will be able to give a better answer to.

stratman3142

I've just noticed you have a PodGo. I think you can use that as the ASIO audio interface, but you'll need to connect your speakers or headphones to that device.

Sporky

FL Studio is an excellent place to start for electronic. 

545454

stratman3142 said:

I've just noticed you have a PodGo. I think you can use that as the ASIO audio interface, but you'll need to connect your speakers or headphones to that device.

Latency is something I hadn't even thought of (so little knowledge here I don't even know what questions to ask!) Will see how it goes with the Pod, but can experiment with a dedicated interface down the line if it's an issue.

Sporky said:

FL Studio is an excellent place to start for electronic. 

That looks like it could be perfect, definitely on the list to try, cheers

andy_k

If I was starting from scratch right now, I'd be getting to know Reaper, and trying out the demo version of Pluginguru Unify.
That's all you need right there.

jmf1928

Reaper probably makes the most sense financially, though I also think Cakewalk went free once it moved to Bandlab? Worth investigating being on a PC. 

There are boatloads of free synths and effects plugins. Try searching ‘free’ on KVR Forum. 

Legionreturns

I'd look at getting an Atom or Atom SQ, which are both fantastic midi interfaces, but more importantly will come with Studio One Artist. This will give you a great DAW and thousands of loops, VSTs and virtual instruments included in the price. Studio One is also very intuitive compared to many DAWs. 

545454

Cheers guys - I picked up an Akai MPK keyboard the other day and have been testing it out with MPC Beats - no latency to speak of

It's a lot to get my head around, but have been able to programme basic drums, synth and bass, and load in some external plugins. Good start I think, but I'll try some of the DAWs you've suggested over the coming weeks and see which one works best for me

ColWilkie

I've also recently got into synths, and started testing the waters.  I did the same thing to start with, picked up a midi keyboard and took it from there.  If you have an iPhone/iPad I recommend trying out Audiokit synth 1.  It was a great introduction for me, and surprisingly it's free!

Regardless, good luck with the journey - it's a lot of fun!

Snap

As a long time (over 25 years) Cakewalk user I can't recommend it enough - you will not get more for free anywhere and it's very well supported and super easy to use.

Get yourself a copy of Computer Music magazine - that has more than enough free kit to go at, everything you'd need. Some very good free synths in there. You will get a link in the mag to all the free stuff, and loads of samples too.

At some stage, have a look at KVRAudio forum - superb electronic music resource.

Tbh, you just need to follow your nose really, especially with ambient music. Just get  few soundscapes, drones on the go and you are away.

545454

Thanks @Snap. That's a few suggestions for DAWs - assuming I'm using compatible plugins, will all DAWs potentially get to the same destination? i.e. is it mainly the workflow that will differentiate them, or are there any important features that some will be missing?

Snap

The main differences between DAW is essentially workflow. You will also get different bundled plugins - the ones that come with Cakewalk are very good (included EQs, compressors, etc).

Generally though, all DAWs follow the same workflow principles. It's really all about what you get used to. I know Cakewalk isn't the best, but it's what I get on with and it does the job. It also has a pro level spec - the free version is better than the old top spec paid for version that was about 300 quid.

monquixote

I've just been on this journey myself.

Previously I've used Reaper, Cakewalk and Studio One and while they worked well for me for guitar music I found I was more productive with one of the DAWs that are focussed on electronic music.

The two main players are:
FL Studio 
Ableton

FL Studio has an unlimited trial with no saving and is very reasonably priced with life time free upgrades
Ableton as a 3 month trial, but then gets very expensive

Both have the largest community and the most tutorials and YouTube content etc for this kind of music and also come with everything you need including decent synths and plugins etc. 

I ended up going with Bitwig which is similar to Ableton, but cheaper and more modern and streamlined. It's quite niche, but it's got a very active community.

All you need is an audio interface and a cheap MIDI controller. (I have a Novation LaunchKey and a Arturia MiniFuse both of which were fairly cheap)

Another approach is to get a little hardware box as it's much easier to get to grips with and more like an instrument. I really rate the Novation Circuit Tracks/Rhythm for a beginner, but the Roland MC-101 or Elektron Cycles are also supposed to be very good. Gabe Millers YouTube is great for this route.

545454

monquixote said:

Previously I've used Reaper, Cakewalk and Studio One and while they worked well for me for guitar music I found I was more productive with one of the DAWs that are focussed on electronic music.

The two main players are:
FL Studio 
Ableton

That's really useful info, thanks - picked up an Akai controller that came with an Ableton Live Lite licence so I'll definitely give that a shot and see how it compares. The Novation and Roland boxes look great, but a bit over budget for now, maybe something to investigate later if I'm enjoying it all.

monquixote

545454 said:

monquixote said:

Previously I've used Reaper, Cakewalk and Studio One and while they worked well for me for guitar music I found I was more productive with one of the DAWs that are focussed on electronic music.

The two main players are:
FL Studio 
Ableton

That's really useful info, thanks - picked up an Akai controller that came with an Ableton Live Lite licence so I'll definitely give that a shot and see how it compares. The Novation and Roland boxes look great, but a bit over budget for now, maybe something to investigate later if I'm enjoying it all.

I'd say it's still worth checking out the trial of the full Ableton (You can have both installed) as it's got a lot more capabilities.

If you do go with a cut down DAW then it might be handy to get something like Vital which is a really high quality free Synth VST: https://vital.audio/

octatonic

I have and use pretty much all the DAW's available (I write for portals that teach people how to use them).

If I was recommending the best option for starting out with electronic music it would be Ableton Live.
FL Studio is great but many more people use Live and it works both as a studio and as a performance tool.
Ableton also has the wonderful Max for Live add on, which allows you to things other DAW's cannot.
Logic is also very good (and my preference) but it is Mac only.

Other DAW's (Pro Tools, Reaper, Studio One, Cubase, Nuendo etc) all have their strengths and weaknesses but none are as suited to electronic music.
There is a reason many, many electronic artists have switched from Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase etc to use Live.

That doesn't mean you can't do electronic music in, say, Pro Tools.
You can, and people do, but the architecture of the DAW itself is not inherently suited to it.

The main issue with any DAW is how well you know it.
Changing DAW once you are familiar with one will be much more difficult than it takes to learn in the first place (I know this because I've done it several times now).
I still know Logic and Pro Tools better than anything- because I have used them the most.

Bod

Another vote for Ableton here, though Bitwig is certainly a contender as they're quite similar.  I use Studio One as my main DAW, but much prefer Ableton for writing and arranging.  The Session view partnered with Push 2 makes it incredibly quick to flesh out ideas, both for electronic and guitar music.

545454

Cheers @Bod, had a quick go with Ableton last night and was able to get something simple together pretty quickly - will see how it goes when I try to get fancy!!