How To Make And Record Music: My Road To Satisfaction!

D

Dutch

Guest
As I like making and recording music I thought it would be nice to have a dedicated thread on the subject wherein I detail the proces I go through and hopefully others will join in with their experiences, questions and advice as we slowly build a song step by step.

The first part will be detailing which software, hardware and instruments I use in my mini-studio and how I go about the creative and technical aspects.

I consider myself a capable musician, playing various instruments very well: guitar, keyboards and flutes and percussion as well as vocals.

What I am not is a capable recording engineer and so I am slowly getting to grips with this science of producing both a creative and technical piece of music. I feel I am myself at the beginning of understanding how to go about recording and mixing and mastering.

There are loads of tutorials out there and i will be using a few of them in my process. Lets see where this ends.

Feel free to comment, offer constructive criticism and generally join in especially if you yourself make music and are recording things.
 

El Loco

PCPF Mod Chief Superintendent
Moderator
ENG....
Joined
Sep 3, 2011
I have dabbled in music production a little in the past with Fruity Loops and Reason, nowhere near the same level as you are though I could never write my own music lol. I didn't have a MIDI keyboard so I just used to use the keys on my laptop :p
Which DAW are you working with?
 
D

Dutch

Guest
I have dabbled in music production a little in the past with Fruity Loops and Reason, nowhere near the same level as you are though I could never write my own music lol. I didn't have a MIDI keyboard so I just used to use the keys on my laptop :p
Which DAW are you working with?
I use Sonar Platinum from Cakewalk, a superb DAW and one in which I find I can work both efficiently and creatively. I also use a lot of plugins and samples as well as actually making music with real instruments! I shall start giving an overview of my "stuff" soon. What type of music did you make and why? Just a hobby?
 
S

Satan666

Guest
Think am too old now to harbour such dreams. Great thread though, sure it will benefit and hopefully inspire some.
 
D

Dutch

Guest
Think am too old now to harbour such dreams. Great thread though, sure it will benefit and hopefully inspire some.
Anybody can make music whatever their age and whatever their talents; there is nothing more satisfying than making something of your own. It is an art form and one that is readily available for most people.
 
D

Dutch

Guest
Something I am still working on at the mo:
 

Attachments

  • Heartbeat.wav
    58.2 MB · Views: 11

El Loco

PCPF Mod Chief Superintendent
Moderator
ENG....
Joined
Sep 3, 2011
I use Sonar Platinum from Cakewalk, a superb DAW and one in which I find I can work both efficiently and creatively. I also use a lot of plugins and samples as well as actually making music with real instruments! I shall start giving an overview of my "stuff" soon. What type of music did you make and why? Just a hobby?
Yes! Please do detail your set-up.

Interest started when I was at school because the computers in the music department all had fully licensed copies of FL Studio on them. At any moment a riff would fly into my head and I'd rush in at lunch time to see if I could try to recreate it. But mostly I would just sample little bits that I liked and interpolate it into a remix I was trying to make and I'd just download acapellas off of Youtube and compile my own mixes.

I had no idea about the fundamentals of making music mind, for me it was just bunching a set of different noises together and hoping they sound nice.
I did set about downloading as many plugins as I could just for the sake of it but I honestly had no idea what do with most of them. I liked adding things like reverb and resonance though, just on the basis that I thought they sounded cool.
 
D

Dutch

Guest
Very nice piece.
Guitar played by yourself I presume?

Yes keyboards and guitars played by yours truly. Thanks for the feedback! I like to experiment with different styles, from classical to pop, from house to blues...well anything really!
 
D

Dutch

Guest
The DAW I use (Digital Audi Station) is Sonar Platinum from Cakewalk. Most professionals will probably use Pro Tools but I find that a bit clunky and have gotten used to the Sonar layout. Each DAW has it's pros and cons and much comes down to personal preference. I bought a full version of Sonar Platinum with lifetime upgrades and patches and with patches coming generally once a month it's a great deal and pretty much future proof. Of course doing any kind of serious music-making on a PC means you need a pretty good machine: fast processor, plenty of disk-space and lots of memory. (A minimum of 16 GB). The GPU is of lesser importance.
 

El Loco

PCPF Mod Chief Superintendent
Moderator
ENG....
Joined
Sep 3, 2011
Do you use MIDI converters for all the instruments that you play or do you pre-record some of them?
 

ShamiLoverGlipGlops

The Man With The Glip Glops
India
NZ....
AFG...
KKR
Avengers
Joined
Aug 14, 2008
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
  2. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
  3. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Xbox One
Something I am still working on at the mo:
Wow just heard that and it sounds so awesome. I agree on what you said that nothing gives more satisfaction then creating your own thing and I agree completely. Although I cannot create music, I can create a lot of other things. KUDOS :cheers. I know whom to contact for my upcoming game music :)
 
D

Dutch

Guest
Do you use MIDI converters for all the instruments that you play or do you pre-record some of them?


I use a mixture of live instruments: guitars and keyboards and then also samples that you can play via a midi keyboard: here is a very quick thing I shoved together in about 30 minutes: rough around the edges and the middle section is very rough where it goes to the bridge as it were....but hey it was 30 minutes!




I will start a new project and go through that step by step explaining and showing what I am doing or attempting to do![DOUBLEPOST=1506977276][/DOUBLEPOST]
Wow just heard that and it sounds so awesome. I agree on what you said that nothing gives more satisfaction then creating your own thing and I agree completely. Although I cannot create music, I can create a lot of other things. KUDOS :cheers. I know whom to contact for my upcoming game music :)

Cool! Thanks! Yeah I love making things for a specific goal so I would be keen! Wouldn't cost you anything: it's my hobby!
 

Attachments

  • QuickDutchII.wav
    47.5 MB · Views: 4

El Loco

PCPF Mod Chief Superintendent
Moderator
ENG....
Joined
Sep 3, 2011
Ok, now I am very intrigued :p
So when you play your instruments live, do you have any sort of sink or trap that you use to absorb frequencies that you don't want entering your final recording?
I have a rudimentary understanding of different sound waveforms so I'm guessing you'd be wanting destructive interference of any standing waves that reflect back from the walls of your room.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, approximately how much did creating your own home studio set you back?
 
D

Dutch

Guest
Ok, now I am very intrigued :p
So when you play your instruments live, do you have any sort of sink or trap that you use to absorb frequencies that you don't want entering your final recording?
I have a rudimentary understanding of different sound waveforms so I'm guessing you'd be wanting destructive interference of any standing waves that reflect back from the walls of your room.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, approximately how much did creating your own home studio set you back?
I use as little microphone recording as possible and let everything go via audio interface, thereby unwanted noise is not a problem. however recording percussion and vocals and acoustic guitars directly through microphones can be a problem and i am learning how to set that up to have the optimal space. Luckily I have a number of plugins that help needle out and identify and repair a lot of these kind of problems. Also as what i am doing is very hobby orientated I don't go full out to get it perfect. I guess i have spent somewhere in the region of 5 grand to have decent PC and interface, microphones speakers, software etcetera. the instruments will be another 4 grand or so! Yamaha have just released a new digital workstation called Genos which I am looking at: will set me back 4500 euros!
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Users who are viewing this thread

Top