new to electronic music productions

kawi77

New member
Hi all.I am new here. I started my electronic mucis journey possibly in 1998. I have decided that after long time djing would be good to bring myself to next level and do some electronic music productions and being more specific TRANCE music. I do tent to listen some progressive house and really love some latin/ tribal drumms themes too. I did some search already to find suitable exuipment for me.Except my Laptop( asus with I5 processor, geforce 745 and 8 GB of Ram memory also want to upgrade hdd to sshd to speed up work) i would like to use M-AUDIO Axiom 49 mk2. I have club mixer Denon dnx1600 which is fully midi mappable. I was wondering if i could use it as sound card or it is too much hassle.There are some audio cards which are good too.I think M audio axiom 49 is with semi wheighted keys. I suppose it is good for piano melodies to be created. I watched also some tutorials and videos on youtube people explaining Fl studio, Cubase and Reason.I thought to get Cubase and rewire Fl studio as plugin and. Fl studio seems to be easier and with clearer view to edit beats.I saw Orjan Nilsen running it for minutes creating some nice tune.My other questions are related gear and soft. Do sliders and encoders help when using main keyboard?Do i need any other synths to creat quality sounding tunes?Maybe some small purchase just to extend physical gear would be beneficial?I read some opinions that Reason is made for electronic music productions so that is my concern if i get Reason 4 and will not like to work on it.I know there is many ways to setup your mini studio but general tips would direct me please.If i decide for any software do all vst plugins work with all programs or i must get plugin for particular Program? Many thanks for inputs.
Last question is related to music knowledge and notes.Should i start with few piano lessons with kayboard first?
I played flute in primary school but iw as ages ago. I no not know notes and i am scared to start any project now knowing which keys to hit if i want to create melody and melody will be falsed.
Thank you for your inputs.
 
I have club mixer Denon dnx1600 which is fully midi mappable. I was wondering if i could use it as sound card or it is too much hassle.

It should work just fine - the specs say it works as a 4 in, 4 out audio interface and it has drivers for Mac/Win - but of course, I'm not sure if this product is still supported. Go to their site & see if there are proper drivers that work with your operating system. Also check the manual on how to install it, as sometimes the installation procedures can demand for things to be done in a certain order for things to work smoothly.

I think M audio axiom 49 is with semi wheighted keys. I suppose it is good for piano melodies to be created.

It's ok, does the job.

I watched also some tutorials and videos on youtube people explaining Fl studio, Cubase and Reason.I thought to get Cubase and rewire Fl studio as plugin and. Fl studio seems to be easier and with clearer view to edit beats.

Well, that's gonna be a highly personal preference. Easy enough to download the FL & Reason demo versions and simply try them out. Cubase can be demoed, but it still needs a physical dongle (=copy protection device) even for the demo, so it's a bit trickier in that sense.

My other questions are related gear and soft. Do sliders and encoders help when using main keyboard?

Well...they can be helpful, depending on what you want them to do. Their usage is pretty open ended; they do what you set them to do.

Do i need any other synths to creat quality sounding tunes?Maybe some small purchase just to extend physical gear would be beneficial?

Other synths besides what? Even though I personally use hardware synths almost exclusively, I'm not sure it's for everybody, especially if you're just starting out - and especially if the reason for getting one is just because it's hardware. They can be very hands-on (depending on the interface), but they don't multiply (so you can only use one "instance" whereas you can run as many instances of a plugin as your computer can handle) and you have to record the audio output through your interface. Not that it's hard or anything, but I'd probably try out some software synths first and then start thinking about hardware when you have an idea of what to actually look for.

I read some opinions that Reason is made for electronic music productions so that is my concern if i get Reason 4 and will not like to work on it.

I guess it used to be that way, mainly because there weren't really any traditional audio tracks or the ability to even record audio in it (even though this could be sort of worked around with the samplers) – but nowadays it's starting to be quite a bit like other DAWs, so you can pretty much do whatever you want with it. It still uses it's own proprietary "rack" system and the plugins (called Rack Extensions) for that only work in Reason, but besides that, it's more or less like everything else, as far as the basic feature set goes.

If i decide for any software do all vst plugins work with all programs or i must get plugin for particular Program?

VST is one of the various plugin formats - meaning all plugins are not VSTs. It's by far the most popular format though, and besides a few exceptions (Pro Tools uses it's own RTAS format; Logic - which is Mac-only anyway - uses Audio Units), they work pretty much in any program.

Last question is related to music knowledge and notes.Should i start with few piano lessons with kayboard first?
I played flute in primary school but iw as ages ago. I no not know notes and i am scared to start any project now knowing which keys to hit if i want to create melody and melody will be falsed.
Thank you for your inputs.

Piano lessons aren't gonna hurt, and if you've played the flute (as have I :D) I'm pretty sure the basics will come back to you pretty quickly. I don't think there should be anything to fear though; we learn through our mistakes and there aren't really any wrongs or rights in music. It's what you make of it.
 
I see you are new so hopefully I can answer your question and also a little more that you may need to understand and know.

You might want to think about using just one DAW. I might be wrong, butt I think FL is a DAW with built in effects and synths. Most DAWs have built in stuff as well. If you use FL, it really isn't free in the end from what I hear. You have to pay money back if you make money.

Most DAW's are compatible with VST2. Now there is also VST3. But if you have some VST3 mixed in and installed with VST2 in the same "Steinburg folder" or "VST folder" where your DAW locates them then it won't work because VST3 is not compatible with VST2 when installed together.

As far as I know VST3's have a VST2 version usually as well. So just install it as VST2 and your DAW should accept it. Or install them all as VST3's only. But not VST2 and VST3's all in the same folder your DAW finds it in for locating. Ofcourse, do your research on the VST you want to purchase. Looks at the specs and see if it is compatible with the DAW you want to use. Which most VST's are compatible with most main DAW's out there. Kinda the dirty work you have to do too as a home producer. BUt not too much to fret about. If it is a mainstream DAW and VST it typically works together. Mostly older freebie stuff has problems only. (From what I have experienced and heard.)

Also on top of that. One thing to make sure of is that you are using all 32 bit VST's on a 32 bit operating system. Example (windows 7 32 Bit or windows XP) OR all 64 bit on a 64 bit system for example (Windows 7 64 Bit.). That is because a 64 bit DAW cannot use 32 bit plugins without something such as a "bridge" software program such as JBridge. In that case such programs such as Jbridge permit you to use 32 bit or 64 bit programs with a 64 or 32 bit DAW regardless of 32bit or 64 bitness. Jbridge allows compatibility with most VST's to work with 32bit vs 64bit or 64bit to 32bit in other words. But not VST2 and VST3 mixture. Take in mind a 32 bit computer cannot use more than 3 GB of RAM regardless of if you have Jbridge. Only a 64 Bit Operating System allows 4 or more GB of RAM to be used. And in the case of Jbridge even with 32 bit VST's. Nowadays it recomened to have 64 bit System and DAW. DAW's and VSTs are becoming more and more demanding. But if you want to fiddle around and just learn 3 GB is fine. Even so you can still make a song on 3 GB sometimes. Just not really really really comlplex with tons of different tracks and effects. But still with 3 Gb you can make a long song and make it plenty! interesting enough with effects and plenty of tracks. I've made over 40 tracks on 32 Bit 3GB RAM. That's just crazy enough and superfluous in most cases. Once you start getting 3rd part stuff you may need more than 3 GB RAM.
I would suggest getting one DAW for simplicity and ease of workflow so you can make music easily and effortlessly while relaxing and not working too hard with your hands and computer skills. That way you can still use VST's of your choice such as well my favorites for EDM and rock. Rapture, ZEta2, Sylenth1, and Synthmaster2. ALso Waves.com is awesome for Limiters to put on that professional touch that some DAW limiters don't offer. Such as for eg, my Ableton Live 8 doesn't have a good Limiter. So I use various Waves.com VST effects for analogness and a different flavor in conjunction with Live's fairly transparent and clear effects.

Ive always heard good things about Steinburgs Cubase. But one thing to consider is that you like how well their effects work, for "you". Each DAW has different sounding effects with the way they are in analog nature from what I understand. So in other words, pick a DAW based upon research of how well it will work for "your" sound. Not just workflow, but also if you like their effects. All are not equal so pick something that suits "your" needs and "wants". But to make it effects are things like compressors, limiters, eq's, reverb and chorus. Each DAW probably has the same effects for the most part, but they might sound a little different. Just a little probably. But it sure does add up in a full "mix", (song). It creates a perceived sound even listeners take a liking to or find unnatractive.

A little tip if your short on money is waiting for sales and subscribing to Email and companies at KVRaudio. ANd places such as Plugin Boutique.

For keyboard, the way I learned in just by practicing. Keyboard is different than piano. I find before you start doing lessons, try getting a grasp of the way you learn by yourself. Music is al about art and the way you do it "your" own way. So once you get your DAW and keyboard, don't be afraid to just fiddle around for a long time and learn different ways to play that are you. Be free. Try going at it and honing your skills privately for example. That way you are all original you are impeded by mathematical lessons and you stay yourself and are creative. Once you start making music and beats on your DAW youll develop your own sound in time and with lots of hard work probably. Just be yourself with your melodies. Then make a beat to make it work or vice versa. It's kinda like writing and essay. SOmetimes you just have to start and see where it leads you. Then make it your rough draft (or not) and build upon the rock. WHen your learning your constantly failing. That normal. So expect to fall be fore you can walk and run.

God bless.

Faith Fox
 
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Hello. Thanks for good tips.I am using Asus 550lf machine with 8GB of ram, hybrid drive and i5 Intel processor.I have installed Fl studio 11 and cubase 5. I have also installed vst plugins like side kick4.3,zebra2, sylenth1,zebralette.Some of them could not be used however within cubase 5 as vst3.Fl studio allowed me to do that. I wanted to do rewire option to use Fl studio as plugin within Cubase however I can not see this plugin listed in Fl studio.In terms of gear i have purchased Focusrite 2i2 card, some powered monitors Tannoy 8d and synth Novation sl49 mk2.
Main problem is for me now to rewire programs.
I have watched some tutorial but everything comes to missing rewire plugin within Fl. How to add/install this dll ?Many thanks
 
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You also hold the title of what could very well be the most delayed response in the history of Internet.
:P
 
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I had issues with equipment.Does Your highness require more explanations or would like to bring something to my topic with whole respect ?I do bunch of different things in my life and music production in not most important thing in my life.So please help me out and do not make silly comments otherwise move to next one.
Soem update. I found "rewired" plugin under VST/generators in FL studio, There is Fl studio, Ableton and reason listed but no Cubase.When you open Cubase and go to devices/vst instruments then you can enable Fl studio as vsti in " system" section or under plugins/fruity/generator and there is a list of plugins.In my thinking that is manual assigment and must be done every time you open project.Is there auto rewire option so when i open both daws it will be enabled?When play button is hit on either fl studio nothing is getting played in Cubase and if i hit play button in Cubase fl studio is not getting activated.I have assigned fl studio vsti to 1st channel of 64 from vsti pluging in Cubase.
However in Fl studio and Rewire window and menu with client choice Cubase is not listed.
 
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I am edgy when some people try me instead go to the business.So shall we:Pg
Google search...benn there already,haha.Thank you:)
I have double checked midi options in Rewire plugin window within FLstudio and drop menu shows only Fl studio can be hosted within FL studio.Cubase is not listed.
Do i need to setup some midi ports to Fl detect Cubase or it should see it automatically?
 
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Hmm.. Let me check if I understood this correctly. Are you actually trying to rewire FL studio into Cubase, or are you trying to rewire Cubase into FL studio?

If the latter, there's your problem as Cubase will not run as a rewire slave, only as the host.

If it's the former..it really should just be as easy as you fire up Cubase first, and then FL studio once you opened up a project in Cubase. Activate however many outputs you wish to use and send the tracks in FL studio to the right output (this I can't help with since I don't know FL studio)

Also external vsts will be inactive in the slave daw while in rewire mode. So only the stock plugins would work.
Have you actually read the manual on image-line for how to do all of this?
 
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I would like to run FL studio within cubase.When both programmes are running it is possible to view rewired plugin and run it FL studio menu.When opening vst instruments settings in Cubase Fl studio can be ran under system/plugin/vsti/fl studio.
However when hitting play button in Cubase will not activate Fl studio.Also when recording in Cubase and playing in Fl nothing is being recorded in Cubase.Fl appears as midi channel in Cubase but is silent.I've added two screen shots.
 

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I'm really not familiar with the way you're trying to do this. How I do it in Cubase is just open it up, and then I make a audio track (not midi) , activate the rewire output in Cubase and connect the output of one channel in for example Ableton and play it like that with a midi track connected to the audio track in Cubase. I don't actually open Ableton up as a vst plugin inside Cubase so I can't help you with that other than to search around in Google for you.. Which I guess you can just do by yourself. :s


Sorry, obviously that should have read audio track in Cubase, and connect the output of a track in Ableton to it, and then connect a midi track to the audio track in Cubase.


And is there a particular reason why you chose to get the very latest version of FL studio and the stoneage version of Cubase?
 
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It should probably work anyway, even with older versions but I was just curious.

Please do that!
 
Hi eveyone.I did purchase Cubase 7 and upgraded to 7.5 ( not much change).This has everything in order and rewire function works as should be.
I have started to practice some chords on piano.Videos are good but for purpose of me making trance music major chords will not make much use.Do you recommend some page or videos i could get something related with minor keys?
I follow some FL Studio videos online about chords,melodies,compression and side chaining.
I have few questions.If you do sidechaining than for instance kick triggering volume of instrument you want to duck is silent after you assing channels.From some youtube video i understood that you have to run two exactly same kicks so one is always heard.Another questions is when i did sidechaining and used some snares and hits after i assigned bass and pads from synth to channel being triggered by kick compression snares and hits were silent even where running step sequencer.After i did sidechain bass,pads with kick i assigned percussion instruments to same mixer channel as sum from compression.Is that correct or it will sound muddier or simply snares and other will not be affected by compressing kick.
One more thing.When i did two patterns running in song mode in big arrangement window and copy/paste both patterns ( 8 measures each) it did not sound good at ends and beggining of next pattern.When i zoomed in patterns appeared to be not fitting perfectly into song measures lines.I stretched them here and there.Was my mistake when coppying or some settings?I thouht that when you have 1st pattern from sequence maker as 1 and 3 pattern in song mode and 2nd pattern as 2 and 4 and if you clik between 1 and 3 pattern nr2 will appear when i try to match lines?
When assinging kick as first 1/4 note and please tell me if bass should be at same first 1/4 note of each measure and at places when you decide to randomize pattern adding some 1/4 notes?
 
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To your first question regarding sidechaining a compressor; it doesn't have to be exactly the same, but a lot of people do that so they can keep the sidechain effect when the kick is not playing.

Second question; if you put a Compressor on a bus, and sidechain the kick to it, any sound you send to that bus will be affected by the compressor.

Third question; you can send any sum of any sound you want to any bus, but I don't understand why you'd want to have bass, pad and percussion hits on the same bus before going into the mix bus. But there's no reason why you can't. The sidechained sounds you send to a new bus will not have the compressor acting upon any other sounds not present on the Channel where the compressor actually is inserted.

Fourth question; just make sure you got snap on and that you use a reasonable quantize value (like bars). If you just create a clip, and you insert notes in it, and you make a note that is longer than the clip Cubase will ask you if you want to make the clip bigger to fit the whole note or just ignore it. If you hit the first option it could be that the clip had been lengthened by a tiny amount, thus making copy pasting odd in lengths.

Fifth questions; have no idea what you mean.
 
Third question was related to situation when running all samples in sequencer after sidechaining bass and pads with kick triggerint it i had all snares and hits silent so this is why i have asked if is common to run them as summ after sidechaining or before on separate channels so you avoid one channel being muddy.I asked if you trigger particularly bass and synths only when kick comes in or really there is no principle here?Of course i did filter each sample with fabfilter cutting off what was not required for particular sound leaving more room to another freq.With measures( fl studio) all notes were quarter or half so i was surprised that patterns were sounding off or if you prefer with glitch.So i assume that before transfering to song mode snap tool must be activated.
 
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Sending separate channels to different busses or all to the same doesn't increase or decrease "muddiness". The entire mix is summed at some point in one end anyway and that's what you're hearing.

You can sidechain anything to anything, the limit is your imagination. For obvious reasons I wouldn't sidechain compress a clap to a kick, but other than that, anything works. Try hi-hats for example.

I may be having a bit of a hard time to understand what it is you are saying exactly.. It may be you or the fact that English is not my first language.
 
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The main reason I do ask about sidechaining principles is that when you run a lot of sounds to one bus and later apply compression by sidechaining and you would like to change some sound of particular sample affected by compressing kick you will affect other sounds too.Do You run few sidechained channels in mixer and tweak each compression separate then?Another question is related to FL Studio automation. I know that automation can be applied to most of things in this DAW.For non FL vst plugins you can use option "last tweaked" after you moved parameter knob from vst.How do you create automation clip for let's say dry/wet knob moving slowly and by the very end moving faster?I though that automation clip has time line and volume.Am I right to say that you have to create some spikes one next to each other to create such a progressively changin parameter?Again the reason I ask is my worry about matching sample time with dry/wet effect progression.
One more thing.What is function in piano roll to hold "play " marker ad moving across to check how particular sound or chords souds like and when you are happy You release to marker moving by its own?
BTW.
English is my second language too.I assume that it can take few lines more to write to describe the issue.
Thank you:)
 
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If I do sidechain compress sounds I usually do that before sending them to any bus for further processing. But again there's no reason why you couldn't do it on the bus, I just like to have more control and mostly don't use the same setting for several sounds for different reasons.

If I understand you correctly I think you'd be better of doing those kind of things with an lfo modulating the parameter you want, and then another lfo to modulate the rate/speed of the first one. But again here, you can do it that way and snap the points to grid, it will take you a longer time to get it done but in the end you'd have more control over it.

As for the rest, I really don't know I am not familiar with FL studio.
 
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I know that automation can be applied to most of things in this DAW.For non FL vst plugins you can use option "last tweaked" after you moved parameter knob from vst.How do you create automation clip for let's say dry/wet knob moving slowly and by the very end moving faster?I though that automation clip has time line and volume.Am I right to say that you have to create some spikes one next to each other to create such a progressively changin parameter?Again the reason I ask is my worry about matching sample time with dry/wet effect progression.
One more thing.What is function in piano roll to hold "play " marker ad moving across to check how particular sound or chords souds like and when you are happy You release to marker moving by its own?

To address your question with automation, have you tried adjusting the curve (tension) in the middle of the two points? If that's not the type of curve you need, you can try to change the type of line itself. If you right click the ending point of that line, select "alternate single curve". That will give you a line with a slightly different kind of slope.

For your other question on the piano roll, hold right click on the time marker and drag across to select the section of time that you want to hear your sounds play. This will cause it to loop continuously. Then just double click the time marker again to stop it from looping.



Now, for your question about the sidechaining... I think your use of the phrase "sidechain compression" is a bit unclear. Think we need more information, how exactly are you setting up your sidechain? There are different methods within FL. Are you using the peak controller? Or are you using an actual compressor/limiter?
 
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