Producing music

word-sauce

word-sauce

Active member
I think being a music producer would be the sickest job ever but im not exactly certain what they do. If your the producer do you make like the beat and stuff or what? I have a rough idea of what they do i think like they do advertizing and stuff too but back to my two questions. What exactly do they do? and how would you get into it?
 
producers make the beat, synth line, everything pretty much. the real genius isnt the rapper its the producer. he sets everything up except the rhymes. if u wanna be a producer u can go to school and shit. but u can take the easy route and just have talent and time. download any of these programs and learn them inside and out. ableton, reason, logic, cubase, pro tools (which is pretty much the standard). basically you just gotta be good at making beats, and a good thing to know is how to DJ. this place isnt that good to learn try these places.
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm

this is the ultimate guide to producing at home. its the bible.
http://www.livesets.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=12
http://www.idmforums.com/

these are producer forums if u want to ask questions and get info.

read the guide if u wanna get started. if u wanna shine and do it as a career. you basically gotta setup a myspace and start remixing top 40 songs. and if u send them to the original label and they like it, they publish it on an EP or itunes.

oh and the number one thing to get is a midi controller/keyboard!
 
it helps a lot to know a bunch of theory, have some drumming experience and such, otherwise it's kinda just luck that gets you a good track
 
ya its alot of work. I used to play around with fruityloops alot, you might want to look into that program, you can do some sweet shit. It's hard as hell to make a good track though.
 
i did music theory for 3 years and have been playing drums for 5 i just need to get to a site where i can experiment with sounds and stuff the ratatat remix's 2 album inspired me
 
yeah. basically what you first need to do is go out and buy a midi keyboard (look for m-audio keyboards), hook it up to the computer, download a torrent of any of the programs that i listed above for free, and play with their synthesizers and drum kits. u can also download synth sounds and other drum kits. it'll all really cost just like 100 bucks for the keyboard.

another thing that is very valuable is know how to dj. know how to count beats, and how to analyze a song. you gotta know that one good hook in any song, and know how to exploit it.
 
i karma +ed all you guys but im just downloading the demo to this fruityloops thing now because i dont know if im any good or like this at all yet but ill definetly look into one of those.
 
man i would recommend NOT reading that shit. be creative with your music, because then it will become something of your own and wont sound like a bunch of other shit... i started like a year and a half ago and completely sucked balls when i was starting out, then i got to know the programs and my equipment, now i can throw down like 10 minute freestyle beats that dont get boring, its pretty dope... if your looking into starting this shit i'd recommend getting either reason or fruity loops and buy a cheap midi controller and then you have instant fun.
 
not m-audio, shits weak. if you want cheap go with that but if you want something that'll last and have a much better feel then go with basically any other brand, except e-mu, its worse than m-audio.
if you just want to do beats for hip-hop type stuff you could just get a tabletop unit like an akai mpc or a roland 8800, you wouldn't need mad software for that.
 
i would say above all know roughly how to play drums. never playing drums held me back for so long, and so i had to listen painfully to other song for every detail and understand how to make them a) bang and b) sound natural. without quality drums your song/beat/whatever will severely lack.
 
first u hit up freewilley and join our music producers cult....

then there are a million things to decide... rock/rap/what?

Producers in hip-hop tend to be the instrumentalists.... they have a dual job. In rock, they tend to focus on the musical arrangements... kinda like roger waters of pink floyd. they dont necessarily chop up samples and play the instruments themselves, but they have the ears to know what needs to come in at the right time. its not an easy job thats for sure....
 
Im thinking more hip-hop or rap stuff but I still havn't tried this at all yet so i still don't know. Like i said i've been playing drums for 5 years and i downloaded the torrent to that fruityloops thing but i dont know how to start it, right now its in a shared folder with all my music and when i click it nothing happens anyone know whats up or how to get fruityloops another way?
 
Native Instruments has really decent student pricing if you want to be legit and buy the software. Music Production software companies are small and stealing from them is the equivilant to stealing local music. go ahead and download microsoft office, but you should support and buy software from companies like this.
 
lawlz, i wont make fun of you because your in the electro cult, but the cheapest midi you can buy is like a behringer BCD3000 and thats still like 190$ on ebay
 
what are you talking about? you can buy an m-audio midi keyboard on craigslist, kijiji, and even ebay for 100 bucks easy. u just gotta look more. m-audio isnt shit either. probably has the most compatability with any program.
 
i just got turn tables.. they are sooo much fun.. was gonna start tooling around with fruity loops, just downloaded a pack of wavs... have acid aswell so just need time.
 
Does anyone wanna help me out with fruity loops? ive been messing around i can make my own beat and stuff i just need to some things. Pm me or in this thread. my main question is how do i just get a rap in, no beat no sound just the acapella rapping. I know you can drag songs in but that plays the whole song
 
id say build the parts of the song in fruity loops... get sony acid and put it all together in there dude.
 
I dunno what your talking about or how to do that... i just got this all i knwo is how to add different sounds in, make a beat, record a beat, and change the tune of notes.
 
k basically make your beat

record your beat

you have your lovely .mp3 beat

get acid

put your beat in there

play it over and over

add more tracks with other fun noises

etc
 
^ fruity loops is awesome man, reason is just fuckin confusing and way more complex than it needs to be. I've used both for quite sometime and fruity loops is better
 
dude, you gotta know the basics before doing your own thing, all really good painters learn technical drawing and stuff.
 
^ yea but with these programs, its pretty easy to learn the basics on your own, plus if you dont read that thing you discover a lot more things.. little tip if your using fruity loops, use all the packs on the sides and import them into something like toxic or poizone, it makes for sick beats.
 
yeah, i just tried reason its fucking complex as hell. i know thats what my friend uses though, but hes up therere. Im downloading wav's for fruity loops now cause the ganked copy of fruity loops is giving me crap about theirs.
 
^ man, reason is wack, people think there better than everyone else when they use it, just cause it makes very little sense, but does the exact same thing as FL. try using fruity loops XL, you can download the torrent from www.mininova.org
 
yeah thats what i got, 7xxl.. im downloading reasons drum kits 2 right now.. its 2 gigs.. hopefully thats dope =D.
 
^ yea good stuff man, make sure you have enough ram to run them shits, cause if your computers too slow when your doing shit it will lag and the music will skip
 
i'm currently running ableton and cakewalk

i also have a turntable, mixer, 2 synthesizers, and other instruments

if you need any advice on gear give me the specifics and i'll tell you what you need
 
i'd strongly suggest ableton

and as far as midi controllers go look around, i have an m-audio at the moment and it's bleh, go for something better if you want to do any work outside of the studio

this really isn't the forum for these kind of questions, go to harmonycentral.com

my name there is enx

 
one of my favorite midi's for a cheap price is the Behringer BCD3000 (Traktor 3) if you want a good midi for a steady price you should def look into it.. they run on ebay for about 200$ and you could actually dj a whole set on it if you wanted to.
 
theoretically a producer is in charge of all the creative aspects of making a song or album. although I"m sure there are musicians who like to take over some if not most of the creativity too.

 
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