Skilled DJ looking for guidance in house music production
I am new to this forum and it seems there are a lot of knowledgeable people here.
I have been playing electronic music for a few years and I have not been able to get much past my local city. I have played all the best clubs on the peak nights in the peak seasons and I am looking to progress further All those who made it out of my home town point me toward ableton production. I know very little about ableton and I am very interested in Maschine. I see many tutorials online but not sure where to start. I know it is a long and tough road to break through the scene but I am wondering if any of you have any advice. Dubspot? Just go buy something and start playing around with it? I want to make techno, tech house, proper house, maybe a little electro. What should I do? Any bit of direction would help.
I really appreciate the response. This is my first time using a forum and I am very happy to start to be part of the community. Due to the cost I will choose Maschine and go from there. Thanks Again!
Maschine is an excellent tool to start with. I will say that doing a mix down with only maschine would probably make me want to pull my hair out. I’m sure it’s possible especially with komplete but you’ll be much better served using software with a proper mixer. If Live is outside your budget you could try Logic for $199 if you’re a mac user or the free version of protools.
Maschine is great for getting ideas down fast and programming beats, but I’m not so sure about using just Maschine for all your tunes start to finish.
If you’re worried about cost, try some demos before you commit. Ableton offer the full version of Live 9 fully unrestricted for a month on demo. Try it and see if it suits you.
FabFilter eq / compressor etc plugins are also available free for a month on demo.
If you have a Mac computer, you will have GarageBand. This is very similar to Logic, so again try it and if you like it, maybe get Logic.
To be honest since Logic cut the price from version 9 to version X it is by far the most cost effective way to make pro level music and is astonishing value for money.
buy any decent audio interface and use the copy of ableton that comes with it… give it 2 months and then consider upgrading if you feel its something you want… lol keep the audio interface as a souvenir
I use Live, and bought a Maschine, before realising I didn’t like the DAW that you’re forced to use. Made the process far too jarring and took me out of my flow.
Push is a much better all round controller for Ableton users, in my opinion.
In my opinion, you can make a perfectly solid track in Maschine without anything else. Other software might have more traditional methods and better mixing, but you can make it happen in Maschine. Plus you can get Maschine plus Komplete for alot less than Ableton/Push. By the time you get good enough to want extra features, Maschine will prob have updates by then. After you have mastered everything in Maschine, then you will know if you need to track out in another DAW or not. I use Maschine with Logic and some hardware synths, but sometimes just rock Maschine/Komplete stand alone, and it has everything I need. Ableton tends to get real finnicky after adding tons of tracks plus VSTs. Even Ableton has its downfalls. Everything does. The Maschine workflow is hands down the best I’ve experienced from anything. Like an MPC with the advantage of the computer.
Ableton is great. I feel that other traditional DAWs like Logic, Cubase, Reaper, etc are better for post-production. Ableton’s arrangement view just isn’t my cup of tea. When I was using it, I couldn’t get curves on automation but believe that has been updated. Love the session view, hate the arrangement view. Also the look in that view always seems jumbled to me, like bad Feng Shui or something.
Ableton will be quicker to master than Maschine
Maschine does have a bit of a higher learning curve than Ableton
There’s also more tutorials out there on how to make techno tech house deep house on Ableton
You can also use ableton to make quality studio DJ mixes with
So you can mix your tunes in Ableton too
But doing this on your own and trying to self teach yourself is possible but very time consuming
You should choose a DAW and maybe find a local production school to help push you along quicker
And also continue to ask questions here coz you will eventually need more gear and VSTs wen u begin producing
That whole DAW battle is bullshit if you know what sound you want to achieve you can do it any of the programs. It all comes down to your sound selection, the mixdown and the master. You aren’t going to hear a song in the club and go “Ahh, this sounds like it was done in Logic!”
I prefer mixing w/ S1. It just feels more natural, quick and intuitive for me. It’s also got a Mastering page/project separate from the song which is kinda nice.
And I agree w/ Kwal, to some extent. Other DAWs don’t process 1’s and 0’s any better than Live and vice versa. However, you could potentially hear minor differences based on pan laws, etc. However, as Kwal said…if you know what you’re looking for sound-wise, you’ll be able to accomplish it in any DAW.
My first steps into production were made buying a maschine. while everyone hails it as the best thing since sliced bread, I find it got me stuck in this kind of loop based mentality. I never seemed to be able to work out more than a few bars. buying ableton and consequently a push (couldn’t pass up on that big discount a few months back) have helped me step out of that mentality. I kept my maschine with the idea of integrating it into my setup as I learned the ropes in ableton, but that just didn’t seem to happen and I honestly couldn’t be bothered going back into it. Ableton does everything maschine does, and it does it better and more clearly imo. In the end I swapped a maschine with 10 sound packs for a TR8 with the 707 kit and haven’t looked back since. In the end all those gigabytes of samples didn’t made me any more creative.
My advice to you if your looking to find out more about ableton live is to sign up for the coursera intro to ableton live. It’s a free course and it will teach you the basics about ableton, it’s a very good course and teaches you a lot of things to get you going. After you’ve signed up ableton offers a free 30 day trial with no limitations. After the course and the 30 days I’m sure you will be purchasing ableton live lol lol. Ableton is the DAW for me and does everything plus more. Hope this helps.
I’ve been using ableton for a few years now (since 2011). It’s a phenomenal program and I make all my DJ mixes for various mixshows that I do as well as remix edits for a remix company I work for. The arrangement view actually is quite simple to use once you have it nailed down. (I don’t use session view) I can tell you that starting out in ableton was VERY time consuming and took me several months to really understand it and use it after watching a ton of tutorials on the program.
Within the last year i bought Maschine studio which is another beast and yes I agree, it has a higher learning curve. Sometimes it can be overwhelming but each time you play around with it (or ableton) you learn a little more and before you know it, you’re creating, editing, and mixing tracks.
