My eldest has ambitions to work in a studio and ultimately become a recording engineer/editor etc. He plays guitar well and reads music so he’s progressing well there.

For christmas I’d like to get him a good programme for PC that will enable him to start fiddling with sounds, remixing, sampling and so on, I’m happy to spend 100-200 pounds and have a good home PC we can use so what would you guys recommend please.

Thanks

I learnt on what is now called FLStudio, it’s very approachable and intuitive. There may now be something more suitable, I’m not sure. I would avoid things like Cubase, Sonar etc for a beginner myself.

You would be best looking or asking here http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=74

If he wants to record his own guitar then you may be better off buying him a usb audio interface. Some of them come with cut down audio packages such as a lite version of Cubase. Otherwise if you want a full package then Ableton Live is great but slightly out of your price range. Keep an eye out for it though as it is sometimes on special offer

I don’t suppose you could go MAC based instead? Garageband and Logic Pro X are awesome.

Dont have a mac I’m afraid just an ipad! I think what I’m looking for is something that will help him get to grips with recording garageband does look ideal but not for PC eh! I expect he will record himself playing but it’s not the primary need.

Its not an industry standard but Reaper is a fully featured DAW for much less than the likes of Pro Tools or Logic.

I’d agree with the poster above who recommended getting an audio interface to get signal into the PC. I use Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 which is excellent. Also a decent condenser mic would be good for recording vocals or acoustic instruments.

I’m so green to this!! Just to be clear reaper looks like what I need, then I need a mic and some kind of interface between mic and pc like the focusrite (we have Adam active PC speakers) with this set up he will be able to record and then play around with his music is that right? If he wanted synth sounds/drums and so on I assume that’s something else on top?

Sorry for knowing nothing!

Back in the day I used FLStudio for electronic music (house/hard house/d&b). I’ve also noticed it has not changed since time began so maybe not a great program anymore. As I haven’t dabbled in sound production for a long time I couldn’t tell you what is the thing to use these days, KVRaudio is a good suggestion.

I would suggest a subscription to Computer Music, it comes with a CD that has sound effects, loops, drums, plugins and even has its own sequencer. Great if you are starting out as it also has a lot of tutorials to follow and free plugins and sounds.

As above, I would probably buy a half decent sound card (MIDI, Guitar, Mic inputs) and either a good pair of studio headphones (more for you than him!) or studio speakers (near field monitors) and later down the line a MIDI controller.

As for a computer you shouldn’t need a super dooper super computer to start with, but a half decent soundcard with the inputs required is needed.

Most packages such as FLStudio or Ableton will come with some free synths that will be of plenty interest for a beginner. However a stripped down version of something that comes with sound card/interface may not, but there are loads of good free synths and samples out there.

If your PC speakers are very small then they may not be ideal for creating music, a pair of headphones or some speakers that reproduce lower frequencies better will be useful.

Don’t worry your son will pick it up way faster than you ever will! You have many hours of the same bar of ‘music’ being repeated for hours to look forward to…

Ableton Live or Bitwig for a DAW. I’ve got a Focusrite Scarlett in my second studio and while the quality is decent latency is pretty bad, my RME Multiface is better in every respect, but a lot more money and you’d probably need a pre-amp as well.

+1 for Reaper. I know of a few major-label engineers who are using this on their portable set-ups. You can get it for free and will really, really help him to learn his way around pro DAWs.

Also agree with getting a nice, clean amp and some monitors. Or maybe even a small pair of Genelecs which will plug straight into his computer or laptop.

you can buy drum packages that work with most of the major DAWs – e.g. Toontrax. Not sure how it works exactly as it’s The Devil’s Work(TM) as far as I’m concerned 😉

Think you may need a MIDI keyboard to assign one key to each drum hit and cymbal sound, but don’t quote me on that one, perhaps other triggers are available and would work e.g an electronic kit. more of the devil’s work AFAIC

Of course if you did get a MIDI keyboard then you could also use it to make keyboardy sounds

This is really interesting, I think I’ll get him reaper and a USB input device and Mic for now, will that mean he’ll be able to record his acoustic guitar into the PC and then manipulate it using reaper? I’m sure he’ll find the other stuff he needs as he goes along but is that a good start?

I have some Adam F5’s he can use so not your typical little PC speakers!

Apologies for the pessimism:

Like everything in arts/media it’s a massively over-subscribed industry unfortunately, and very much to do with contacts. How old is he? Done any courses?

It’s very easy to spend a lot of money ‘learning the ropes’ to find that there’s nothing at the end of it. I did Music Tech many years ago and zero people on my course work in studios now (don’t regret it at all though – formed a band that I gigged and recorded with for 8 odd years with guys on the course). My brother did the same a few years after me at LIPA (one Paul McCartney as patron) and one guy is a touring engineer but that’s after 5/6 years of working long shifts in horrible venues doing sound for ungrateful bands.

IMO the best thing to do would be to see if there’s anything local(ish) to you where he can do work experience. Studio work is **** boring, so would be a good chance to see if it’s for him. Tap up as many places as you can. If there’s a live music scene then get involved in that too, usually easier to get into then a studio and can form relationships with bands a lot easier.

I still enjoy recording people but if you’re doing it for a job then you rarely get to choose the people you record, and there’s not much out there as soul destroying as sitting in the control room for 3 hours while a band try and work out a bridge (true story) or diva musicians who won’t listen (your guitar is still out of tune) and then bitch about the results.

On the flip side it is incredibly satisfying and rewarding when you record and mix a good band and have something that sounds great at the end.

Oh those kind of Adams! Nice.

I need to check out Reaper too. Sounds like Sonar is still buggy as hell, though I would like to reopen my old project files.

For USB input and mic I always fancied one of these http://www.thomann.de/gb/focusrite_scarlett_studio.htm. Might push the upper end of your price range with Reaper though although it does come with Cubase lite (I suspect that reaper would be better but I don’t know).

To be more helpful starting out you really don’t need to spend much more than:

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/computer-music/audio-interfaces/35161-presonus-audiobox-usb-audio-interface

And get a Sure SM58 for a mic (and XLR lead), no need for a condenser until he’s got the feel for things IMO.

Software wise I’m a Logic nut (so Mac only) but you can get free versions of most of the popular sequencers if you look about, and there are plenty of tutorials on Youtube on how to get started.

MIDI keyboard is superfluous unless he plays keys? You can do everything in the software, the keyboard will make things easier though.

i’m using a pc running ableton live and i’m releasing material both freely and commercially.

i used a mac/cubase set up for about 10 years and find the pc/ableton configuration much better to work with if slightly less efficient (a little latency when recording live on the pc).

ableton basic comes free with the focusrite soundcards which i’m guessing you’ll need anyway and you can then upgrade to the standard version reasonably cheaply.

i’ll link to both an example of my work so that you can see the standard of results and also to the focusrite soundcard so that you can get an idea of those too.

Tune here

Soundcard here

Lots of food for thought here thanks so much, he’s only 13 so he has time I think!

Software is often down to personal preference, similar to the way some like Chrome while other prefer Firefox.

Ableton has a 30 day trial, as does bitwig, reaper, etc. so I would see what he likes before splashing out.

I have not got the experience of most of the above, but I love messing around with my Line 6 UX 2 it is very good for guitar. Mine was bundled with Ableton software. Might be a good place to start.

Line 6 UX 2

Reaper is great (and free to try). Check out http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=52382 for loads of free add ins (synths, drums machines etc) as well.

To get audio in I got my daughter an Alesis IO box – Alesis IO2 express and a half decent mic.

If you get the XBox/PS4/PC game Rocksmith it comes with a jack to usb cable as well which is great for getting live guitar (or whatever) into the PC as well.

I started with a TC Electronics Desktop Konnekt 6 interface which has some really nice features at the price. However, it is a Firewire interface, and is fussy about Firewire computer ports. It came with a cut-down version of Cubase. I played around with some demos of various applications, and Cubase suited me in that it looks relatively simple. I’ll probably only ever use a tiny fraction of its features.

Some of the Steinberg interfaces seem good value for money, and will come with Cubase. I’m not sure about current versions, but any version of Cubase should have some effects and virtual instruments.

Additionally, it would be worth getting a MIDI controller keyboard to be able to learn MIDI recording/editing, and to record the virtual instruments.

I think some keyboards will be bundled with recording software if they have a USB audio interface built into them. It would be worth looking at some Yamaha (Steinberg/Cubase) or Roland (they used to be bundled with Cakewalk, but I think they parted company recently) keyboards.

You can go insane reading up about audio engineering and the pros/cons of different audio interfaces and software! There’s always something bigger, better and more expensive! The good thing is that you can start with a small outlay.

If your son simply wants to record guitar and vocals and put ‘demos’ together then one of the standalone recording units such as the Boss BR800CD might be a good option. You don’t have the hassle of coaxing a PC to work, but on the downside editing etc can be more fiddly. However, it’s guaranteed to work, and will include loads of guitar effects etc.

Whatever software you buy note that it can take a bit of work to get it to work smoothly on a PC. It doesn’t mean the PC is rubbish, you might just need to do a bit of googling to find good options without upgrading like mad. At a minimum I always switch off all network connections (wireless/fixed/bluetooth) and antivirus software and that is usually good enough. After that it depends a bit on what you are doing

I hope you find something for him