I think the important thing here is to make sure you use something besides your stock speakers or your iPod headphones if you can.
Studio monitors and/or a pair of decent headphones are definitely a worthwhile investment if you’re serious.
dont go by 1 genre or a bit of all, create your own. ha!
I guess I kinda have a different take on things.
For me, or may way of thinking, the essential thing is “the art side” of things.. and for that the essential thing is.. listening to and developing your own inner voice. So.. as a result.. doing what other folks say you should.. is not the thing you want to do… not if this is the thing you’re giving the most emphasis to anyway.
so
On what tools to use.. I think it’s a real mistake to do something like.. go from Cubase to Digital Performer to Logic to Pro Tools cause you’re insecure and some famous producer fellow said, each time, that you had to go use this other tool.
But… how wide versus narrow and deep you should go? I think it ought to be up to you.
I’ll give you a for instance…
I’ve been making music on computers since dinosaurs walked the earth.. and.. most of what I’ve been interested in has been like.. using computers to explore certain kinds of compositional ideas.. and then into stuff like sound design a little bit… a whole lot of mix engineering stuff.. and rethinking how to think about work flows and all this crazy stuff..
But in all of this.. I barely ever seem to work with audio channels.
Now in a way, you look at that and you go.. well if that’s the case there’s lots of tools I haven’t learned from top to bottom.. because I’ve skipped bothering to learn about how to deal with recording and audio editing..
I mean I’ve done it, I know about it.. just.. for a long time didn’t do it.
Or in mixing.. for a long time I didn’t use EQs or compressors…
Well, you could say I didn’t learn which ever software deeply enough.. but on the other hand.. one can control performance dynamics in midi and in your virtual instrument patches..
So in a way it’s like I went deeper in other areas.. and entirely skipped some.. but where I went deep, where I went wide, where I went shallow.. it all was just my own inclinations.. it was what I was passionate about, it was my sense of purpose..
Now listen…
When you’re starting out.. seriously.. how much crap can you afford anyway? You know you need a computer, good audio monitors, might want to think of acoustic treatment.. audio interface.. if you wanna record there’s all those microphones and pre amps.. and then like.. a DAW.. and what about plug ins and…
And its like just to get the ball rolling.. there’s a lot to go and spend money on.. so it’s hard for me to imagine.. if I were starting out today to be jumping between a lot of production environments.. cause how the hell could I afford them?
I mean.. you know.. I’d recommend.. Pick one DAW, and by DAW I don’t mean fuit loops or Ableton or Reason + Record.. I mean Logic, Cubase, Sonar.. whatever.. but a full featured traditional DAW.. cause at least in my view.. there kinda all the same.. and then.. knock your self out with if you wanna add Ableton, Reason, and whatever else to your tool kit..
Still.. it isn’t really about the technology, is it? So I kinda thing this is the wrong place to come at it from…
I think there’s subjects.. like.. there is “sound synthesis.” Sound synthesis is something it can take a long time to become a real master of.. and i suppose the turbo-masters of the subjects are kids designing there own instruments in Reaktor and MSP… and whatever.
And you know.. you can run down the list of all the crap there is to learn… and for each one of them.. you can go so freaking deep.. just from a technical perspective.. and then on top of that there’s the artistic depth.. which is like your ability to make the technical stuff a part of your creative vocabulary…
And so what I think it’s like is.. for me.. the first thing is.. “how can I do something.” Like.. I probably don’t need to learn sound synthesis cause there’s probably a lot of patches I can pick.. but somehow I need to create MIDI data to drive that synth.. and I probably have to be able to mix that with that drum machine and…
So its like you start and you only need to learn anything as deeply as you need in order to realize whatever your objectives are. I mean I think there’s room to critique people’s objectives.. but..
So I think maybe we should start talking about what the objectives for a beginning producer might be?
On the subject of genera.. Its funny that I never learned that stuff and now feel like “I should probably learn about that stuff.” I don’t really see why it’s at all important.. accept.. if you want it to be important.. or if there are reasons you have that make it important.
Another thing we might say is.. that fundamentally when you start out.. what you ought to be doing is building a strong foundation for what you might be doing in the future.
Err, well that’s some of my thoughts anyway
^^^ under this novel here… but hopefully this helps (probably not) a big tip is just have fun and dont be afraid to get your hands dirty and explore new things, go on youtube and find tutorials on your DAW, and just practice makes perfect!
the 10,000 rule really puts things in perspective. that’s spending 4 hours a day for 10 years! @__@
and the thing about having fun… sometimes you can have too much fun and end up with nothing. which is what happens with me sometimes. i get sidetracked so easily (especially with ableton) following the cool looking/sounding butterfly/idea and then i realize im completely lost in the meadows. for me itd be very useful to have a plan of action, just like what mattsearles says about having objectives.
I don’t think you can have TOO much fun, just have to be disciplined is all. Maybe separate your studio time into two different sessions i.e. a creative sound design one, and then another would be taking those ideas and then making a track out of them.
You obviously don’t have to go back and forth everytime you’re in the studio. If you’re not feeling in the “creative” mood, you can still work on producing a track with idea’s you already made in your other sessions.
I’m a big believer in time spent in the studio is time well spent, regardless of what you accomplished or not as it’s building up your studio chops.
Totaly agree with all of this
If I had a tip for beginner producers it would be to learn how to eq properly. Many starting producers don’t realize the importance of it, or ignore it completely in their first couple productions and get discouraged because of it. In my opinion eqing is what seperates a good track from a mind blowing one.
I’d recommend picking up a copy of Mixing audio… concepts, practice, and tools… and for mixing.. id say.. start by focusing on EQ, Compression, and Reverb