Feb 3, 2016 Where to begin.. Basically the thing is that a long time ago I thought to myself that I could become a producer due to the fact that I really can feel the music and I analyse the structure of the beats to the songs that I love. It's been some time since I thought about it and its haunting me more and more. I've been passionately watching videos of producers playing with their MPCs and I wanted to do some cool stuff like that. I have NO experience at all and I have NO knowledge on producing other than the fact that its f---ing awesome and producers use such things as MPCs, samples, keyboards, and producing software. I feel like I need to mention in what direction I'd like to go as the actual producer. I like mood stuff. I'd like to make At Long Last ASAP inspired beats, Oxymoron inspired beats, Forest Hills Drive inspired stuff.. That is what I am into instrumentally at the moment. Maybe I'll drop some random trac titles that comes to my mind, which I admire as far as production is concerned: "Studio", "h--- of a Night", "Man of the year" by Schoolboy, "Holy Ghost" "Excuse Me" by ASAP, "5AM in toronto" by Drake, "Murder to excellence" by Jay/Kanye "Bad Guy" by Eminem. Hope ya get me.. Where to start? What to do first? What type of a homework do I need to get done? What type of a drum machine/controller/hardware would be the best to buy...? Please drop some knowledge good people! Thanks! @SXN80
Feb 3, 2016 Youtube is the biggest helper. Look up Busy Works Beats, he has some great videos. I wouldn't start off purchasing any hardware, because it's not totally necessary. You first need a DAW; I would recommend FL studio because it's quite easy to learn compared to other DAWs (so I've heard). Do some research on which one you think would be best for you, but you can basically always end up with the same finished product no matter what DAW you use. If you have any questions feel free to PM me!
Feb 3, 2016 well, i can't give u pro advice, but I can tell you some s--- that's helped me in the past: it's good to want to emulate your favs, they are after all what probably is pushing you towards producing in the first place... but don't get caught in the 'type beat' phase of producing. take influence from them, sure, but put your own spin on it. find your own sound, and experiment with different genres till you find what suites you best you mention feeling the music and analyzing it, that's good. always be listening to more popular s--- to see what works well with structure and sounds best (and to compare your mixes/masters), it's very helpful in determining how to produce your own music that feels right and that will be more approachable in the long run. just remember to do you with it, as always cop FL studios or something like that, it's very intuitive, and it's what I (and a lot of other producers here) use, so there'll be more help available on that side of things here always try and look up tutorials for the basics on different things you want to do, you never know what you might find useful, and it's always good to learn. on the note of tutorials too, try looking up some outside of your genre as well, because it'll help you branch out and bring different qualities into your music than more average of your producers (who sort of get stuck rigidly in one genre lane) have in theirs, and it'll help set you apart from them can't offer much advice on MPC's and the like, but i'm sure there's plenty of tutorials on the subject available. i would however recommend actually picking up some software like FL to work with first tho, before dropping cash on hardware, to make sure it's something you can actually do and want to do pick up lots of packs for drums and search around for popular VSTs, don't be the guy using all default s--- in your DAW
Feb 3, 2016 cyreides made some great points! totally forgot about drum kits lol. lmk if you need some
Feb 3, 2016 The most important thing to do in your first steps is a lot of work. Since you have some tracks in mind you can as well use the same samples at first try to chop, try to flip, add basslines and drums till you get your own unique way. Then you'll find your way with diggin s--- to sample. You can use youtube videos in how to chop and make it sound on tempo. It may look tricky at first but you'll get used to it, its all about experience Then you have to look about mixing but thats a whole different chapter
Feb 3, 2016 forgot this in my post, but it rly is practice practice practice you'll gradually improve over time. it may take awhile, it may be a really quick process, but you won't get anywhere unless you're constantly putting in work on it
Feb 3, 2016 @Cyreides @Axiom @g r x x v y g thank you fellas I really pay attention to what you say and take notes! That's some good sh!t. Alirght, so the 1st thing im getting is that FL studio. Can you reccommend what add-ons/packs/drums or whatever should I download to be ready to go(links please?)? Are there any FL studio beginner tutorials YOU would recommend to me?
Feb 3, 2016 for vsts, i use a lot of nexus. it's 99% of my instrumentation in FL drums i have a lot of vengeance essentials packs and some random big name producer packs I picked up off a friend for tutorials, Axiom mentioned a good one already with BusyWorksBeats another one that's more helpful for EDM, but can still teach you some s--- with structure and melodies/music theory is beats4beats. can also teach you s--- on basic fl stuff as well
Feb 3, 2016 On point. Even though I release my beats titled "drake or Eminem or whoever type beat" you don't want to think about that when you're producing it. You have to do your own thing. If you publish your beats though I've realized that labeling them as such will help draw attention to them, but don't have that be part of your creative process. If you're getting started I'd research a lot about what DAW you want to use. Make the decision on what you think will fit you the best. I use FL Studio and have no complaints about it! I love all the beats you've listed as influences, so I hope you get off to a great start! Excited to hear some music from you!
Feb 3, 2016 As a Christmas present I got Komolete Kontrol (think that's what it's called) I think it is pretty expensive, but if you're willing there's not a single sound you can't produce using it.
Feb 3, 2016 i can google drive you some kits. s--- that ive paid for and acquired, high quality stuff
Feb 5, 2016 @Axiom h--- yeah man, thanks and Im already PMing you! btw that tutorial is the s---. Couldnt make it clearer. To all the people helping me out: thank you! I feel hyped for what Im getting into. Lets see what comes out of it. As for now Im setting up my workplace..
Feb 5, 2016 Been f---ing around with Logic Pro since that's what I do my mixes/masters on and am starting to get the hang out things. But everyone in here is saying FL is easier so it looks like I have some googling to do
Mar 4, 2016 All these tips so far are great, FL studio is definitely the most intuitive DAW out there and the best for people with little to no experience, with a couple weeks of research and practice you'll get the hang of the basics. A big tip is to continue learning and watching tutorials regarding your DAW layout and functions even after you have the basics down, you want to become very familiar with the interface of your DAW so you can create what you want how you want with efficiency and ease. This will help your workflow and more specifically your creative process, the worst thing is when your trying to get you ideas down but get stuck due to lack of knowledge in the technical side of things and lose track of your idea, your DAW should be a tool of creative freedom and not something that holds you back. The next step should be getting proper drum kits/samples and VST's to further enhance the sonic quality of your beats, once again the idea here is to avoid limiting your creativity due to confinements and quality of your plugins and samples so you can get a final product youre happy with. As far as drum kits, most beginners start off with the classic free s--- you find on google like those free lex luger or 808 mafia kits. Some of these contain decent sounds, but for the most part there pretty trash compared to the drum samples the pros are using. Theres a growing market and community on instagram and other forums full of people selling and trading exclusive sounds and kits used by dudes like Metro and Southside. One of the most used kits by Metro, 808 mafia, sonny digital, and basically any big producer name you can think of is the B Wheezy Kit, some other great kits are the LuGer KiT (lex's personal drum kit) and all the B-Rackz kits. Msg me if your interested in these and i might hook u up or point you in the right direction. Ever since i started using these sounds, my beats sound way cleaner and I don't have to worry about spending 2 hours mixing my drums until i'm happy. As far as VST's go nexus is okay for beginners and people who aren't that picky about there sounds, but if your more serious about producing I recommend looking into synths that offer more freedom and customization like Omnisphere or Elextrax 2 (my personal go-tos). If your really curious in the technical/creative aspect of producing (which it sounds like you might be) i highly recommend you get a synth in which you can learn to tweak presets and create your own sounds with, learning sound design might not be something you should learn right away but if you do get into it eventually it will really change how you make beats and look at sound and electronically-music in general. As far as presets go, the quality of the presets in Electra and Omni specifically is much greater than what you will find in Nexus, and quantity wise, Omnisphere has upwards of 20,000 high quality presets you can work with and given the examples you named i think you would love Omni, it has tons of atmospheric/ambient sample based patches as well as almost anything else you could think of. These can seem tricky to install (if your torrenting) especially Omnisphere, but it's really not as hard as people make it out to be. The next big pillar of making beats is mixing and mastering, but that's a huge topic in itself so i won't go into that. I know this was an old post but I'm happy to help out anyone interested in production, I'm new to sxn80 but It'd be cool if there was more of a producer community here cause it seems like a decent amount of people are making beats here. Now that I've finished geeking out about this s---, hope these tips help you out. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions.
