A real noob

Da59

New member
I am literally just starting. I plan to use FL Studio or Sonar X2 (i heard it depends on my preference, and those are mine).
Before I even begin to ask for specific help, I'd like to know if the following are good/important things (useful things) to know. You can expect threads on these later :)

DAW Choice>Drum Loop/Patterns> effects & > Mixing/Mastering >
>Keys / Synth sounds> Signal processing

Is that enought to start me off?
I hope I'm making it clear what my question is.
What I mean is, I'm ready to learn, but right now I don't even know what I'm supposed to learn, so it's pretty hard to ask for help!
 
All of those are pretty essential & vast subjects. A lot of newbies seem to bundle up mixing & mastering as if they're the same; I'd advise forgetting about mastering for now.
 
Yeah, trying to digest multiple big subjects on an abstract level is just gonna get you more confused - making music and solving problems as you encounter them will be much more valuable. You can & should definitely keep reading up on stuff at the same time, but the hands-on experience will be where you actually grasp what all that stuff means.
 
Ok but after I get the patterns/playlist (fl studio) down idk what to do. I want to add effects but i have NO IDEA where to start. I clicked on a VST once and i had no clue what to do. I can't possibly make a thread on each VST i encounter...i will edit my question

EDIT-Lol cant find the edit button so heres the edit-what's the very next thing I should do after "finishing" my loop?
 
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If you want to "add effects", think more specifically what it is exactly that you want to do - what's the effect you want to achieve? What kind of mood you want to evoke with said effects? Then you can start figuring out how to do it. This basically applies to all technical aspects of music production; instead of just going "oh this doesn't sound warm enough", you'll have to break it down and figure out why it doesn't sound the way you want it to and/or what it's lacking. This isn't easy at first, but there's no way around experience - you learn when you listen enough. But just experimenting with effects is a good place to start, as you'll need to understand how they sound and how they affect sound in the first place. These can't be substituted by any amount of reading. The good thing about DAWs and virtual effects is that you can't really break anything, you can easily try out unwordly combinations of multiple effects and can generally go crazy with it - don't be afraid to end up with stuff that sounds like shit. Staying on the beaten path isn't the way for sound explorers.
 
Ok. For now let's talk about reverb, since I see it a lot. What exactly does it mean (in terms of what's happening with the signal of the audio) and how do I apply it (in FL Studio)? I mean when I go into a Reverb vst, what are all the knobs for?
 
you seem to be getting the hang of things. I'm just as much a newbie at this thing as you are. My preferred DAWs are Reason and FL Studio(actually paid for the second 1). When you say loop do you mean just that as in a loop on one channel or have you filled the entire pattern with sounds?
 
I mean a single track when I say loop. Like a pattern. Not the song/pplaylist
im new to the forum and I don't know how to do this but can u PRivate message me n maybe we can share what we learned? :)
 
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