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Getting started producing trance

Started by Guest · 15 posts · 5 views · this thread in the Internet Archive

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Sonik27 Sept 2003, 16:00
For the past 3 years I have listened to trance, techno, and other electronic genres. But, in the past 1 year...that's basically all I listen to now on my free time. I have a passion for it and all I want to do is make my own so that I can experience the excitement of creating something great. I want to learn more about music production and also buy some gear that will get me started and on my way. My life has been hecktic for the past 2 years as i've been moving a lot and haven't been able to save money. Not to mention all the drama of life. But, now things are calming down for me and now I want to put much of my time and money into creating my own trance. But, I need your help! So here is my question...

What is the best beginner's trance production setup? Such as a synth, music creation software, and anything else that I should know about. I suppose that I could worry about DJing equipment after I learn the ropes of creating music.

Any help is appreciated. I only ask all of you because I know that you have a passion for great music too.
David McGowan27 Sept 2003, 16:39
Greetings sonic, Well you realize this is a loaded question. If you go over to introduce yourself thread, you can see that many people use diffrent setups diffrent softwares to create there music. So the best is only what works for YOU best. Also what kind of money do you want to spend. Im assuming you already have a decent computer, and a nice reciever.

My suggestion is getting Reason, its self contained, has all its own instruments, yet is flexible and expandable. no matter which way you go there is going to be a steep learning curve untill you have everything figured out.

Second i would get a decent set of monitor speakers. Behringer Truth, are on my wish list.

Either buy a midi controler such as M-audio oxygen 8, or any keyboard synth with audio out. and also a MIDI interface for the computer, this allows you not only play your computer instruments as you play them on the keyboard, but you can record the keystrokes.

Finnaly SAMPLES SAMPLES SAMPLES. buy as many refil cd's, and sample DC's as you can and build a library.

Thats a good start, from my perspective, im sure youll get other ideas from some of these other guys, but really the biggest diffrence will probably be , what sequencing software you use, and to me its all personal prefrence really.
Only draw back to Reason is the fact you cant use VSTi's but there are ways around it.

feel free to email or PM me if you have any questions, ill be glad to help.

David
Sonik27 Sept 2003, 17:13
Thank you, David. I really do appreciate your help. I did check out that "Introduce Yourself" thread and saw what everybody else uses. The only thing that I have is a P4 1.4 GH, 240 MB RAM Laptop. I don't have any monitor speakers but I do have a Philips FW-C577 5 CD changer Gameport mini system which allows me to connect my laptop to it via USB. I have seen Cubase in action, I've messed around with FL Studio a bit. I bought Techno E-Jay about 4 years ago but got bored with that because the loops get boring after using it so much. I'll definately look into Reason and I do plan on buying a new desktop computer system that can handle more. As far as money goes...I'm willing to take out a bank loan to get what I need. Again, thanks for your input.
Trancefuzion27 Sept 2003, 17:45
David McGowan wrote: Greetings sonic, Well you realize this is a loaded question. If you go over to introduce yourself thread, you can see that many people use diffrent setups diffrent softwares to create there music. So the best is only what works for YOU best. Also what kind of money do you want to spend. Im assuming you already have a decent computer, and a nice reciever.

My suggestion is getting Reason, its self contained, has all its own instruments, yet is flexible and expandable. no matter which way you go there is going to be a steep learning curve untill you have everything figured out.

Second i would get a decent set of monitor speakers. Behringer Truth, are on my wish list.

Either buy a midi controler such as M-audio oxygen 8, or any keyboard synth with audio out. and also a MIDI interface for the computer, this allows you not only play your computer instruments as you play them on the keyboard, but you can record the keystrokes.

Finnaly SAMPLES SAMPLES SAMPLES. buy as many refil cd's, and sample DC's as you can and build a library.

Thats a good start, from my perspective, im sure youll get other ideas from some of these other guys, but really the biggest diffrence will probably be , what sequencing software you use, and to me its all personal prefrence really.
Only draw back to Reason is the fact you cant use VSTi's but there are ways around it.

feel free to email or PM me if you have any questions, ill be glad to help.

David

What he said. :P
Trancefuzion27 Sept 2003, 17:47
Sonik wrote: Thank you, David. I really do appreciate your help. I did check out that "Introduce Yourself" thread and saw what everybody else uses. The only thing that I have is a P4 1.4 GH, 240 MB RAM Laptop. I don't have any monitor speakers but I do have a Philips FW-C577 5 CD changer Gameport mini system which allows me to connect my laptop to it via USB. I have seen Cubase in action, I've messed around with FL Studio a bit. I bought Techno E-Jay about 4 years ago but got bored with that because the loops get boring after using it so much. I'll definately look into Reason and I do plan on buying a new desktop computer system that can handle more. As far as money goes...I'm willing to take out a bank loan to get what I need. Again, thanks for your input.

1.4Ghz should do just fine. I know people who run it on 900Mhz Pentium 3s. :rollwink: Although you might just get a little bit more RAM.
Sonik27 Sept 2003, 17:53
Sounds good. I also do web design and graphic arts so I figured that I would use my laptop for that and get a new system specifically for music.
Trancefuzion27 Sept 2003, 17:55
Yeah that might work since web design is not really CPU demanding.
David McGowan27 Sept 2003, 20:17
Man i wrote this huge reply a few minutes ago, and the forum took a dump, and it was lost.. :angry:

Anyways let me see if i can redo it.

I was going to mention if you are thing of buying a DAW (digital audio workstation), one thing you need to keep in mind is how much noise the machine will produce. With 3 fans and a hard drive or two, it can get noisy, which means you will have to listen to your monitors, at a higher volume in order to hear everything, which means the faster your ears will fatigue. So be concious on how much noise the computer will produce. if you are buying an off the shelf model, try and get the quietest possible, now adays dell's and gateways are fairly quiet. if you are going to have one built for you or, you are building it yourself, try and get the quietest components as possible. Power supplys that have varibale speed fans etc..

Hard drives , Seagate barracuda 4's are teh quietest drives on the market, also on the topic of hard drives you will probably want two drives, 1 for your operating system, and 1 for your music production, where you will store all of your samples, refills, songs works in progress, etc.. This way if your computer takes a dump, or you need to format and reinstall, all your hard work will be right there on the other drive.

Take the extra money you would normal spend on your video card, and put it twoards your sound card, It doesnt take much graphics power to run a sequencer.

As far as operating systems go ive really had a lot of luck with windows XP. there is a handy site about how to streamline windowsXP to work best for music applications. heres a link

http://www.musicxp.net

David
TranceSynthVania27 Sept 2003, 20:37
Yeah, follow the tips you got from these guys... Have in mind tho, that when you are entering the music world, you are entering a huge world, and you will have damn much to learn, you will sometimes be frustrated (everything from computer-trouble to no creativety), but you will mostly have fun (I hope)

The best way is probably to start at the bottom of the ladder and climb up. As said before, I suggest you buy Reason 2.5 and a new computer. That way, you don't *need* anything else, tho a midi keyboard would come in handy. Also get a good soundcard.

After a lot of time when you know Reason in and out and you've seen (and experienced) the limitations it has, you should start thinking to move a few steps up again, to something like Cubase or Logic. Have in mind tho, that this is actually a huge leap. And one other thing is that if you fall for Logic, you should fall for the Mac too, 'cause that's what you need then. Logic will only be released on Mac now. Cubase is a great way to upgrade tho. You can get "lite" versions of Cubase too. Like Cubasis (to learn the basics really) or Cubase SL (a lite version of SX).
When you've come that far, you probably will move away from Reason, and start using VST instruments (software synthesizers) and using plugin effects instead. And later on, you're buying your first hardware synth, and from there it evolves..

I think most of us who already have a couple of synths and a really nice setup have started from the bottom of the ladder too... So if there's anything you should wonder about, I don't think you need to know anyone else ;)
TranceSynthVania27 Sept 2003, 20:39
David McGowan wrote:As far as operating systems go ive really had a lot of luck with windows XP. there is a handy site about how to streamline windowsXP to work best for music applications. heres a link

http://www.musicxp.net

David

Yeah, you're practically an idiot if you install Windows 98 or ME for no reason instead of XP/2000. :blink:
(Alle, please don't kick my ass) :huh:
David McGowan27 Sept 2003, 20:43
LMAO, yeah they use 98 still dont they :lol: ? oh well, its obviously working for them , and there still cranking out banging tracks so , im not complaining.

David
TranceSynthVania27 Sept 2003, 20:48
hehe yeah.. At least they used 98 with their old computer that got stolen... I dunno what they use for the new one tho.
DjDaed28 Sept 2003, 00:57
I agree with the others on this. But if you are not looking to spend a bunch of money, I recomend FL Studio. It is 99$ for the Fruity Loops version and 149$ for the producer version. They both support VST instruments which are also cheap. It should run fine on your setup. It comes with several diferent generators and sample packs, plus you can import any wav file into your song. It has a built in step sequencer a drum machine, editable pads and strings, you can import midi files, export as midi, wav, mp3 and zipped packages which copies all of the samples and mixer presets into a zip file. There are so many things that you can do with it. But if you can spend the cash, try to get Reason.

http://www.cafepress.com/djdaed
http://www.mp3.com/dj_daed
http://djdaed.iuma.com

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Hope this helps. Also, feel free to contact me about getting samps.
Sonik30 Sept 2003, 00:03
Thanks for all of your suggestions, guys. I really appreciate it. :)
Trancefuzion30 Sept 2003, 03:10
Sonik wrote: Thanks for all of your suggestions, guys. I really appreciate it. :)

No problem :D