Have always fancied having a play around with making my own electronic music, just for a laugh really. What are folk using on their PC to create this stuff? I’m assuming there’s expensive software one can buy, but what about cheap/freewar stuff to play around with? What do ya’ll use? My taste tends towards hard nrg/hard house type stuff if that makes any difference?

cheers 😀

I dabble a bit in making DnB and am now onto using Ableton Live and Propellerheads Reason (both not free or cheap) as i can’t decide which I prefer, both are good! On the free side of things I can’t help I’m afraid.

[edit] I think that fruity loops do a free trial that’s pretty good for beginning with

I have limited untested knowledge – Q base ( old skool )AND Google ‘Fruity Loops’ as mentioned by Judge Jules. I think it can be downloaded legally for free. Let me know what you find if you can at some stage as I have an interest in this.

Btw if you like to experience a bit of music from aound the world live from clubs – electronica mainly check out awdio.com. Can be a bit varied some nights better than others depending on what live events are going on.Free of charge too.

Download fruity loops, its free and legal. Its save disabled (demo version) but it gives a good insight and understanding of it all. And is hours of fun.

Yup, make all sorts of stuff – using mostly Ableton Live but at work I also use Logic and Garageband.

Lots of people like it but I’ve never got on with Reason.

There is some very cheap music production software with a good rep called Reaper. There are also loads of free VST effects and synths etc that you could use with it at http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php

There is also free bit of software that Computer Magazine give away which is meant to be alright I think.

If you get into it it’s really worth getting a midi keyboard, they can be got pretty cheap and makes it much more fun imo, even if you don’t really play.

Reason and Ableton mainly with a lot of VST plugins

Ah, if you had a Mac, you’d have Garagebaynd in with the built-in software suite, which you could use to create choons, and burn to CD/DVD etc….

because PC users can’t burn stuff to CD or DVD???

Garageband’s like a fisher price toy compared to Ableton

Sigh…. 🙁

Ableton is a full-on pro sound creation app. It costs hundreds of pounds. Garagebaynd is part of OSX, when you buy a new Mac or iLife, which also contains Video and DVD creation programs. It is £69, if bought separately.

Garagebaynd would suit the OP a lot better than Ableton, as it’s a lot simpler to use. And cheaper. Unless they’d have to buy a whole new Mac, in which case my suggestion is pretty pointless.

Garageband’s like a fisher price toy compared to Ableton

Garageband is actually a superb and surprisingly powerful piece of software. It’s also a great educational tool.

It’s based on Logic, and uses the same audio engine – Garageband projects can be opened in Logic if you progress to more advanced stuff.

Check out the free, fully functional 14day download for Ableton suite 8 , i started to use this program last year as i thought after years of DJ’ing it was about time i learned how to compose my own tunes.

Beware though…it is a very steep learning curve that will have you banging your head against the wall with frustration coupled with the ability to empty your wallet and take over your life faster than anything related to bikes.

As soon as my free Ableton 14 day trial ended i bought the full version and now when DJ’ing i exclusively use a combination of Ableton and Native Instruments Traktor Pro for all my sets, For help with Ableton check out , a DJ/Producer from down under who has excellent instructional videos and Ableton templates to download, his music isn’t to my taste (i’m mostly techno/tech house/house) but he explains Ableton very well.

From my first foray into producing last year with the free demo of Ableton i’ve went all in and now use Ableton 7, Native Instruments Komplete 4, Native Instruments Kore Hardware controller/Kore soundpacks, Native instruments Traktor pro/macbook and i’m dithering whether to buy the new Akai mpc40 ableton controller or Native instruments maschine…..or both.

It is very addictive and time consuming but it’s worth it when you drop one of your own tunes into a set and the crowd erupts.

this is an interesting read… im just downloading fruity loops ( good name) now. Looking forward to trying it.

cheers chaps, knew I’d find some useful advice on this MTB forum 😆

I shall download FL 8.0.2 and give it a whirl… no doubt I’ll be back with more questions shortly 😀

Somafunk, I’m guessing you’re a Soma records fan???

Im liking fruity loops… Plus its not too expensive to buy the basic version. Is this a good bet?

Fruity Loops is good imo – nice and easy to get stuff going and surprisingly powerful once you get into it. I think they call it FL Studio now to make it sound less toy-like. 😉

Ha!…. you guessed right BoardinBob, but my forum name in the first instance came from Huxley’s “Brave New World”, one of my favourite quotes….

“you do look glum! What you need is a gramme of soma.”

I found the book in my Grans bookcase as a kid, primary 6, i remember coz the teacher caught me reading it in class rather than the dull crap i was meant to be reading, as my punishment i got my knuckles cracked with the blackboard duster and the janitor (johnny) was told to “take it away” or something like that.

He gave me it back after school though as he did my Grans garden at weekends and i used to take him cups of tea out to the greenhouse so it worked out fine after all, i had an ally inside the system, ha-ha!.

It’s been my fav “stand by” book ever since.

Although…. “Soma” is pretty much my fav label anyway – being the no1 label (imho) in the country for innovative house/techno tunes. Silicone soul have a new album out at the end of the month – **** amazin album and the production quality is outstanding compared to the vast majority of overcompressed house/techno albums.

Heading out to “La Terrrezza, Barcelona” in July to see Silicon Soul/Jet Project thanks to a cheap flight wonderdeal, flight only, flying back the following day so i don’t need to worry about accomodation or luggage – worked out cheaper than a lost weekend at the SubClub – result!.

Nice.

I try and get to Pressure and Return to Mono every month 8)