Best way to learn Electronic Music production ?
So most of the top notch artists did it all by themselves . So is “Do It Yourself” the best way to learn EMP ?.
Experienced guys i need your help on this. What are the Pros and Cons of “Doing it yourself” compared to going to an institute where they charge nearly 1500$ for the course.
Well you save yourself $1500…
There are so many tutorials online… YouTube or Linda.com or Pointblank but if you fancy going college and meeting other people that’s cool too.
You can teach yourself loads though… there’s so much free online tuts that I just think it’s possible to teach yourself.
thanks
I def wouldn’t spend one and a half grand off the bat! As Max One says, look online for the freebies first.
Once you know what you’re looking at, if you must spend cash on tutorials, get very targeted (cheaper) ones that go into more depth than the freebies online.
PROs - learn to create your own sound and workflow and have fun experimenting
CONs - To learn professional techniques you are going to have to seek out the pro’s (to an extent) and will take you longer to get where you want to be
I self taught myself a lot of stuff but got to a point where there were certain things I couldn’t find or were techniques that I wouldn’t really put into practice so after some shopping around I filled the gaps with some producer tech courses, the Paul Maddox ones were particualy useful and are great if you are into tech house and techno, they taught me a lot of techniques I use all the time now, certain things like parallel distortion on the low end of your mix and how to correctly put sounds in the right space was a revelation to me
even in school, you need to self motivate.
Youtube tutorials are great place to start, but you need to understand that they won’t make you amazing. [if you’re watching a tutorial, you’re not actually making music.]
At first, give yourself some time to just screw around, play with stuff. Remember that this should be fun (or at least extremely gratifying).
once you start understanding the basic functions of your DAW, it’s actually time to start reading the manual. (more often than not, in life outside of the computer, i find that reading the instructions to something puts me miles ahead of everybody who’s too cool to do such a thing)
once you can operate the daw, it’s time to learn mixing techniques, and (basic) MUSIC THEORY… i know, learning… but still.
as far as videos go, tutorials are awesome and functional, but song structure and workflow tend to be the hardest thing for many people. i’d also watch some talks/seminars. public talks/seminars/presentations by producers have been extremely helpful and inspiring to me.
common mistakes:
-“if i get ****vst then i can produce hella hard.” ← this is a rabbit hole. Ill Gates said something like “all you need is a pencil, paper and an eraser”.
-“being pedantic” ← this is something i struggle with most. i will get so zoned in on something being perfect, that i lose scope, and it fucks with my workflow.
-“realistic expectations/goals” ← nobody will ever make “the best electronic song of all time”. but there will always be something fantastic coming out of a bedroom somewhere.
sorry, long post, but of the people i know that went to audio engineering college, i’d say about 15% of them actually landed a career. Most of them just fucked off and dropped out.
Thanks for the reply. Will be of great help.
I found this website online and it seems to be getting lot of credit for their content. Especially this article in general. See below.
Can you or anyone else reflect on this.
seems like pretty decent enough advise in that article, but the site seems to be a bit click-bait. Multiplier
It’s important to just try using some of the software/hardware and really getting your hands dirty before you’re really able to make any decisions, or take out student loans (terrible idea for many).
from what i gather, i’d really recommend Multiplier’s tutorials on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCofivGuDRe-0NVO9fbfT0-Q
he provides a lot of interesting information about many different parts of music production and being a music producer. also, he keeps it pretty funny and engaging
peace.
youtube lessons, tutorials; read articles, ask questions on forums.
More than anything else, learn to listen critically and be able to identify and separate elements, arrangement methods, tones, grooves etc.
Its not rocket science, but the really talented producers bring a unique identity to their sounds.
I would pick your software (“X”), then buy a book called something like:
Producing Music with X
Then sit in front of your computer with “X” open, and with that book, and read it through until you know it from cover to cover, and can relate every point in that book with the associate control on the screen.