Beatmaking: Software
Obviously, to produce music, you need some sort of software that helps you do it (unless you want to write your own). And if you are just starting off, you probably don't have much cash to throw at production (and even if you do, I would suggest you not to, because it'd be a waste of money if you give up after a few hours).
So we are looking for free, usable, music production software.
Let's dive right in.
The DAW
A DAW, or a Digital Audio Workstation (fancy, right) is the piece of software that will help you produce on your computer. It's basically a program which either has some inbuilt instruments, or lets you use external ones (a full DAW allows for both), as well as support for some sort of audio processing. Most other stuff is helpful, but if you want something to qualify as a DAW, you need both these checkpoints.
So now you're going to go search for a DAW.
Except that you don't have to.
Definitely, go do some research and pick a DAW that you think will suit you (besides the tips in this series work in all DAWs), but if you want me to do the work for you, then go and get LMMS?
Why LMMS? For starters, it has most of the features a full professional and commercial DAW requires. The community of LMMS is amazing as well, and if you run into issues, you are way more likely to get some sort of support or advice on the forum.
Now let's look at some more stuff.
Other software
Now, if you're using a free DAW, chances are, you probably don't have good audio editing support. And on top of that, the instruments probably suck. So we need to hook ourselves up with some more software.
For starters: Audacity. This piece of free software will definitely cover up all your audio editing needs. I'm going to use this throughout the series, so if you want to follow me, then you need to get this.
Now for other instruments.
Instruments usually come as plugins that you can use in the DAW. Some others come as 'samples' - tiny bits of audio in .wav or .flac format which contain sounds of drums, melodies, and whatnot. These are imported using AudioFileProcessor in LMMS, or as a drag and drop from the menu. Some DAWs allow you to drag and drop from a File Explorer.
Now, I'm going to be using Windows for all of the series. Which is why my plugins will come as VST. These plugins come as .dll files, and can be imported into LMMS using VeSTige.
Which VSTs you want to use are honestly down to personal preference, but here's a few FREE ones to get you started:
-
Keyzone Classic (a decent piano plugin)
-
AGML 2 (guitar plugin)
-
TDR Kotelnikov (compressor - I'll explain what this does in a future article)
-
TDR Nova (equaliser - again, in a future article)
I actively use these VSTs, but whether or not you will use them is down to you.
To install the plugins, it depends on which DAW you are using. For LMMS, you tell the installer to install the VST plugin into C:/Users/<your username>/Documents/lmms/plugins, unless you have changed the LMMS directory. Note that it installs a program as well, and that goes into the Program Files as usual (best to leave this as default).
I would suggest reading the tutorials for installing the VSTs specific to your DAW, so you know exactly what to do.
You should now be prepped to start producing some basic beats! In the next article we will start figuring out drums, and maybe get a few samples as well.
See you there!
What We Did Today
-
Set up a DAW where we will produce music
-
Set up another program to help us in audio processing
-
Get a couple more instruments and install them