Basic Music production for kids

Hi all,

Thinking of setting up my daughter with some basic music production capability for Christmas. She plays the piano and sings, and writes her own songs. There’s already a PC that can be used. I was looking for a basic mic and keyboard that we can plug in, and a simple DAW s/w. She’s only 10,so nothing too complicated (I can’t teach her, as I have no idea), but equally, not a toy (i.e. not after a Casio keyboard with a mic built in!).

I’m expecting her to be able to put down melodies,drum tracks and vocals, and do some basic mixing.

Is this mental? Anyone have any idea or experience of this.

Safest way is a ipad with garage band

it’ll work out cheaper in the long run and is fairly foolproof

I’ve seen relatively intelligent grown ups reduced to tears with the complexity of ALL DAWs, update, soundcards, monitoring, etc etc

A money pit that knows no ends if you don’t know what you’re doing and don’t have a very hard ceiling to your budget

No apple devices in my house. Budget is low (like about £75).

Was hoping to use something like garageband , along with a usb mic and USB midi keyboard. Which is all doable in budget,. It the big if, is whether the software is usable for a 10 year old (or 41 year old).

IPad and garageband is definitely over budget…

I’ve got an iRig for my phone and Garageband, it should work with something similar for android or PC?

It’s really good, I use it with my electric drum kit to mess about with.

Try Fruity Loops Studio for recording tracks. Interfaces with a midi controller keyboard and is very powerful. The free demo version has most stuff enabled and so your daughter could do all the basic stuff before shelling out.

Loads of plugins to add features but the basic stuff isn’t too hard to get working.

J

Are any of these any use?

The 6 Best GarageBand Alternatives for Music Production on Windows

I tried LMMS and didn’t really have the patience for it, but then I’m very much ‘get the wheels on’ when I bust the Lego out… 😆

If going down the PC route you’ll need a decent soundcard or USB interface to plug the midi keyboard into and act as a pre-amp for the microphone. It will also allow you to use software instruments (of which there are many free ones) without unusably long latency (ie. the time between you pressing the keyboard and a sound coming out).
Behringer kit is cheap and cheerful. £75 is gonna be tight though!
You’ll need interface, mic, cable, midi keyboard.
Edit: I see you stated USB mic and keyboard. While that would solve the connectivity, you will probably still have latency problems if you’re using a bog standard in-built PC soundcard. You might possibly get away by installing something called Asio4all which replaces the default sound driver with something more geared for real time recording.

Ah, i was being naive then. Can’t just plug the USB stuff in and expect it to work properly. Pc is my mother-in-law’s old Dell. It’s an i3, with a big HDD and 8gb ram, so I thought probably ok. Didnt think about the usb interface though.

She might have to make do with half a pair of headphones plugged into an analogue jack for a mic like I did as a kid!

Yeah, midi keyboard is fine, but you do really need a proper interface or soundcard.
The Behringer U-Phoria UM2 is only about £30. Add an XM8500 mic (surprisingly good) for £16 and a secondhand midi keyboard and you might just do it!
I don’t know about ‘simple’ software though. There must be something out there I guess!

That Behringer comes with some software but the problem is that beyond the most basic stuff they all get pretty complicated pretty quickly but that is what you want a lot of the time

Garageband is really what you want so you might want to hunt out a windows equivalent or see if you can find a sensibly priced second hand ipad

Hi Leon,

Check out these two:

https://soundation.com

and

isleoftune.com

I’ve used both for Year 7 and Year 8 students. Soundation is particularly good.

Have fun.

Interested in this as well.

My son has been playing with the free version of music maker on the pc. He’s got his head around using the built in samples and mixing between tracks. But the next thing is to record our own samples from the guitar or electric piano. Just wondering how we do that without spending a fortune.

Yup….. “Soundation” is what you want.

If you move away from the PC requirement, could you not just go analogue with an 8-track recorder off ebay?

I’ve got a MIDI-compatible keyboard here spare if you want it, just pay for postage and it’s yours. It’s not super-duper, no instructions or owt and probably more along the lines of ‘Casio with a built in mic’ than you’d prefer, but it’s got a MIDI doofer and it’s essentially free.

Probably massive overkill (depending on your skill level) but Reaper is free DAW software and very good

I use Reaper and Ableton. My 10yo is pretty good with both but probably cos I’m around to help him out (I used to work in the industry). You can try out nearly all DAW’s for free.

Given the budget I’d go for Reaper and try the ASIO4ALL driver with your existing soundcard. Failing that you might need to budget for a proper soundcard. Ebay might work out well for you here.

The free version of Tracktion is great too. Simple drag n drop of everything. Personally prefer it to Reaper but as with all DAWs there’s a fair bit of ‘what you get used to’ in terms of which tools you find easiest, and I’ve been using Tracktion since the first version that I was on the beta test team for so might be biased…

https://www.tracktion.com/products/t6-daw

Hi all, that is for the responses. I need to go off and do more investigation. I took a look at stagelight last night. Surprisingly easy to build up a track, and allows you to build your own loops. If I could get going in 30 mins, I’m sure she can. It seems the way to add vocAls though is to just record and import the audio file. I’m a bit surprised it’s not more integrated? Is that normal, or just because it’s cheap, simple software.

Kayla1 – thanks for the offer. I was going down the USB route, as I thought it would be simpler,. It if I have to buy some interface anyway, then midi keyboard would work.

And on that subject, when people talked about sound cards, I assumed one that plugs inside the pc (like in the olden days), but everything looks like it connects through usb, so how does having an extra hop reduce latency?

Have you looked at Audacity[/url]?

That can do multiple track recording / playback and MIDI in quite a basic (uncomplicated) way.
And it’s free!

That Plumber guy up there has your answer 🙂

although not in your budget

you can have my https://www.boss.info/us/products/micro_br_br-80/

for £50 and postage – its the best I can think of to resolve this issue I think.

The ‘extra hop’ through a USB interface is insignificant in the great scheme of things. The gains come through a chip and driver architecture that is dedicated to providing (near) real-time audio.

Plumber- that is interesting, although I’m still figuring out what to do. Looks like as well as working as a recorder, could also operate as an interface? Or is it just for transferring recordings to a PC?

MTBroutes – that interface is for analogue input (i.e. the mic). I’m getting confused now,do I need a better interface for a usb midi keyboard thing, or is that ok straight in, and I just need the extra box for mic, guitar, etc?

Extra box for the mic, guitar, headphones etc. A USB keyboard is fine straight in.

Plumber- that is interesting, although I’m still figuring out what to do. Looks like as well as working as a recorder, could also operate as an interface? Or is it just for transferring recordings to a PC?

Transfer of files to a pc for further ‘work’ after recording on board via built in mics – best solution I can think of for you budget

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interesting thread this but not being computer savvy most of it is double dutch to me. My son wants to start recording his trumpet and cornet playing with possibly some electric guitar thrown in. Can anyone point us in the right direction? We have a P.C and an ipad available . thanks

interesting thread this but not being computer savvy most of it is double dutch to me. My son wants to start recording his trumpet and cornet playing with possibly some electric guitar thrown in. Can anyone point us in the right direction? We have a P.C and an ipad available . thanks

My 2p worth from recording some old cronies that used to be a band.

You’ll need:

A decent audio interface (one that supports XLR and Jack connections) – can be had for under £100. USB is fine for home recording. I have a 2 channel ProSonus, picked up for £60 (Amazon refurb) – its also a high quality out for the headphones.

A microphone – I’d go for an XLR based one, I’m wary of direct USB ones – OK for podcasting but vocals and instruments I think not. Condenser mics are cheaper now and ‘better’ for vocals and acoustic instrument recording. Thomann is the CRC of music stuff, Behringer their own brand kit which is usually serviceable.

Software. I use Mac so will be of little use, but there are many packages and most heave trial / cheap limited versions. Garage Band on OS X is fine for basic use, and great for quick’n’dirty demos.

Monitoring to listen back – cheapest way is some ‘flat’ closed back headphones – I have some AKG ones, under £50 and perfectly adequate for home use. All mixes sound different on different kit, so you’ll bounce the results around a few things anyway.

Very useful optional extra – little USB keyboard, to sequence in strings, drums etc. – I created a mellotron for example to pop in the background of a track.

That should cover the basics off. Doable for under £200 I reckon if you shop around. You can probably get cheaper using the built in sound card etc. but it can get into lead hell then.

Op – have a look for reaper on pc, for Mac, garage band is free.

Focusrite interfaces come with Ableton or pro tools lite or the suchlike I think. I use logic so can’t help

This:

Reason Essentials[/url]

Shop around, you can get it a little bit cheaper.

and then something like this

Controller Keyboard

The good thing about Reason is that you can have endless fun and the GUI actually gives you something to look at. And if she gets into it, you can upgrade to the full version