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Any way to compose compelling electronic music without having to spend time learning a commercial app like Ableton?
by brcmthrowaway 1y ago
Any way to compose compelling electronic music without having to spend time learning a commercial app like Ableton?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mfro 1y agoLearning the app is not the difficult part. It is honing your style within the toolset you're comfortable with. Every DAW has its pain points and learning curve. Spend a few hours a week with each and see which one works for you, is my advice. Same as any other tool, you can't create effectively until you've become comfortable with it.
- jamboca 1y agoLiterally hundreds or even thousands of ways, physical instrument such as sequencer/sampler, other DAWs. It’s not about learning a commercial app it’s about understanding principles of music production irrelevant of your platform. Just pick one and go: your ears won’t know any difference
- lynx97 1y agoYou'll have to spend time learning whatever tool you are going to employ. If commercial is the issue... Have a look at SuperCollider. It has a learning curve, new programming language and all that. But the flexibility and actual software architecture is pretty unmatched in its own nieche IMO.
- brcmthrowaway 1y agoI haven't heard anything nice from SuperCollider
- nyeah 1y agoMe either. Links or no downvotes, bruhs.
- briangriffinfan 1y agoThere are open source trackers like Famitracker, and there are kinda-sorta-half-decent open source DAWs now like Ardour and LMMS.
- brudgers 1y agoEurorack? But it won’t save you time. Or money.
- fssys 1y agopuredata or supercollider - although I would honestly recommend Max/MSP over either (but it is commercial). Ableton is great and most DAWs in general are useful and quite similar so the skills are transferable, but they do lend themselves to specific orthodox kinds of composition, dance music and sound collage basically.
- bezko 1y agohttps://vcvrack.com/ https://vcvrack.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/c/omricohen-music https://www.youtube.com/c/omricohen-music
- whilenot-dev 1y agoSo many to choose from (in alphabetical order)... - Bytebeat: https://dollchan.net/bytebeat/ https://dollchan.net/bytebeat/ (https://greggman.com/downloads/examples/html5bytebeat/html5bytebeat.html https://greggman.com/downloads/examples/html5bytebeat/html5b... !Warning loud!) - Cardinal: https://cardinal.kx.studio/live https://cardinal.kx.studio/live - Glicol: https://glicol.org https://glicol.org - Kabelsalat: https://kabel.salat.dev https://kabel.salat.dev - NoiseCraft: https://noisecraft.app https://noisecraft.app - Strudel: https://strudel.cc https://strudel.cc (https://github.com/terryds/awesome-strudel https://github.com/terryds/awesome-strudel) - Tidal Cycles: https://tidalcycles.org https://tidalcycles.org
- nyeah 1y agoYou're really going to dump a total newbie into simulated rack synths, computer music languages, and whatnot? In order to "save time" over learning a DAW? I'm sympathetic to some of what you're plugging. Really. I love VCVRack. But have mercy!
- theSuda 1y agoI am one of those newbies and I spent way too much of my morning going through all of these. :D I love Ableton though. You can google any random thing about it and get an answer somewhere because it's so widely used. Dunno what OP has against it. It's not hard to come by Ableton Live Lite license for free. I think just buying their iphone app gives you access to Lite license.
- nyeah 1y agoThat stuff is kind of cool, but it's definitely not a shortcut to making an ordinary song! I haven't used Ableton for 5 years or so. I got addicted to GB and then Logic (an easy step from GB). But I should try it again. I mean Ableton is what Grimes uses. She's my (musical) like role model. (Only musical tho.)
- dv_dt 1y agoI have been seeing a few DJ with livestreams composing with Strudel. It's a live web repl programming based approach. I don't think it necessarily scales to professional use, but it's a reasonable intro to the core concepts. I've gone through the tutorial and it was honestly the most fun I've had on the web in a while. https://strudel.cc/workshop/getting-started/ https://strudel.cc/workshop/getting-started/
- Karrot_Kream 1y agoHey thanks I hadn't heard of this.
- dv_dt 1y agoYou're welcome. I should expand on my "professional use" comment as i think it may be overly critical. Strudel is being used professionally by some artists. What I meant by the comment is the expertise you get in Strudel as a tool is not directly transferrable to the tools that most of the other electronic music artists use professionally. All of the fundamental concepts and skills map over but how things are directly done is very different in Strudel (and its cousins - the history of Strudel is fascinating too) from other electronic music tools used by professional artists.
- rs186 1y agoIt's like asking whether you can do serious photography without Photoshop/Lightroom or create games without Unreal/Unity. The answer is you can, but do you really want to? Your most important goal is to use a tool to get the job done. The tool is a method to get there, not something you want to fight with.
- duped 1y agoIt's more like when kids start taking music lessons. Most parents aren't going to spend more than $100-200 on an instrument, in case the kid decides they want to quit. But the entrypoint for virtually any instrument that you could call "playable" is usually north of $500 (which also competes against a massive supply of used instruments from people that spent $500+ and then quit). There's nothing wrong with playing around with Reaper, Garageband, BandLab, or any of the more entry level "instruments" in this analogy. Preferable even, if you don't want to blow hundreds of bucks on a program.
- mrob 1y agoYou can get perfectly playable electric guitars in the $100 to $200 price range. It might need some setup first but you can learn to do that yourself from online videos. Modern mass production means popular instruments can be excellent value for money.
- duped 1y agoSure, but keep in mind that's not how people who have never picked up an instrument think. It takes a level of expertise to get there. The point is that cheap is fine for beginners, while the more expensive stuff is worth it for serious practitioners.
- nyeah 1y agoI'm sure it seems that way to you, but for people who never touched an electric guitar before that's going to be torture. You need an instrument that you really want to pick up and play, that stays in tune, etc. It doesn't need to be $1500, but at $150 they better have an uncle who's a guitar tech. I have an old Gibson Marauder that rapidly gets out of tune. So far no shop has been able to do anything about that. It would probably go for $400 or more retail, to a beginner who doesn't notice (or thinks the problem is his/her fault). But it's no fun to play. Chords sound bad. And that kind of thing is not unusual.
- mclau157 1y agoLook up DJ Dave and using Strudel to make music, its fun!
- rollcat 1y agoHonorable mention: FruityLoops. I remember it from high school, 2006, we've had a hand-me-down 486 with maybe 32mb RAM? The boys made some great loops, I brought a guitar, we ran a freakin live hip hop show, standing ovations, FL delivered.
- thrtythreeforty 1y agoIf you bought FL back then, you should still have a license for the latest FL Studio! They offer lifetime updates, which is a pretty good offer if you like the software. (I use Bitwig which doesn't, but I find it worth the tradeoff.)
- Slow_Hand 1y agoAs opposed to what? Spending time learning any of the alternative tools out there? Everything you do is going to have a learning curve, so you might as well start learning the tool that does what you want. If you don't want to use a computer, you could write and perform exclusively using hardware. Like a modular synthesizer, or a standalone synth, or an Elektron box (Digitakt, Digitone, etc).
- nyeah 1y agoIf you want to make "normal" electronic music (and never tried before), use GarageBand on an iPad. It's easier to learn than Ableton et al. because GarageBand has reasonable settings built in. I.e. it will make sounds right away, without endless screwing around. (You might even try GarageBand on a phone, if the screen is large enough.) If you want to make "experimental" music then ... you'll have to experiment. Most of the recommendations in these comments are aimed at experimental music. Most things labeled "computer music" belong to a very specific retro experimental music aesthetic, literally dating back to the era when you could barely make music on a computer at all. Much of this music was heavily influenced by academic workers. That may be exactly what you're looking for! On the other hand if you're not quite sure what I'm talking about, then be aware that "computer music" is not the only, or even the sanest, way to make music on your computer.
- bpc777 1y agoAgreed! If you have an Apple device GarageBand is the best way to get started.
- bpc777 1y agoOnce you start getting into many tracks and advanced routing it seems like the choice (for me at least) is Logic Pro or Ableton Live. And I find Ableton much more fun to use when I want to jam, whereas Logic feels more like programming which is also great. FL Studio is also lots of fun. Try various options and see what fits best with what you are trying to do.
- nyeah 1y agoI use Logic but I should try Ableton again. It's been years.
- xoac 1y agoLearning a bit of ableton is the least hard part of making compelling electronic music. Bitwig is fine as well. There is such a deluge of people eager to teach you via youtube or udemy etc.
- ofalkaed 1y agoSure, but what will work for you will depend on what you consider "compelling electronic music," it is a big and diverse field and each have different tools which suit them. Without having some idea about your interests and direction in electronic music, you will just get a massive list of random applications which may or may not work for your goals.
- bpc777 1y agoAbleton Live is very intuitive and there is a lite version that is bundled with some interfaces (https://www.ableton.com/en/products/live-lite/features/?pk_vid=409c4e05019cb888175400124493e286 https://www.ableton.com/en/products/live-lite/features/?pk_v...). It has been years so I don't remember which interface / version I started with but I quickly fell in love and upgraded to the full version. The time I have spent learning it has been fun and worthwhile, so maybe give it a try.
- ethan_smith 1y agoTry LMMS, Pure Data, VCV Rack, or SunVox - all powerful free/open-source alternatives that can produce professional-quality electronic music without the Ableton learning curve or cost.