New here, introducing myself with a few questions.

bailzey

New member
Hi to all I'm Josh, I'm new here and I just wanted to introduce myself and give you a little of my background in production. I also wanted get some advice on where I need to head to achieve the results I want, maybe I can also help others with the things I already know.

I began to take an interest in music production around the age of 14. I actually had music tuition at high school but I didn't apply myself what so ever and never really learnt much at all. Looking back on it I wish I had paid more attention, because I actually really needed the groundwork in music theory to produce music easily, I always loved to listen to music from a young age though. Anyhow, back then Tiesto and the likes were rocking the electronic scene with huge euphoric trance tracks like the adagio for strings remix. As an intrigued individual I wondered how they made these sounds, adagio for strings is kind of a clash between traditional violin like sounds mixed with electronic pads and leads etc. I started to look on youtube and realised that to produce these sort of sounds I was going to have to get hold of a digital audio workstation and it just so happened that the first one I stumbled on was Image-Line's Fruity Loops. There were many videos and tutorials out there to aid me. I spent hours upon hours toying around with FL and finally (for the most part) I got an understanding of how it worked as a software. I was always limited by my music theory however and everything was almost always by ear or following chord progressions I had found in guides. Around five years went by and in that time I would begin to take an influence by artists such as David Guetta and Deadmau5 which brought me into the world of house. I would still play around on fruity loops but my lack of understanding musically as well as electronically frustrated me and I almost always ended up leaving projects I had become stuck on. I had hundreds of files from things I had started then not gotten anywhere with. In that five years I was still using the same old clunky laptop which froze a lot, and it's CPU couldn't handle all of the sound processing I was adding to my tracks. At this point due to lack of funds for hardware and getting a full time job producing took a backdrop and my interests moved into other areas, life took over I guess! I did still listen to a lot of music though and really took an interest in hip-hop and R&B at this time in my life.

Fast forward to late 2015, I had more spare time on my hands now since friends were all starting to settle down a little and my life overall just wasn't as manic. Now with enough funds via success in my career as an electrical engineer I bought a Macbook Pro and got hold of logic pro X. I spent some time playing around with it but it's environment was all new and I found my patience wore thin. My listening preferences for music had again broadened in the time between producing taking a backdrop and here. I found as I got a little older, it was ok to like music just for the sake of liking it, not just to fit in with your friends. I listened to pop, rock, indie, hip-hop, house, electro. Regardless of genre, I liked the music that still had that sort of dreamy "electronic" feel. Back to producing. My short lived days of Logic Pro X use came to an end and with it so did my producing.

Jump to 2017, I had the chance to snap up a kickass iMac at a good price. I had an itch that needed to be scratched and that itch was producing. I installed bootcamp and with it I bough a fresh copy of FL Studio. I've spent many hours since them re learning and learning more than I ever did on the program. I'm now in a position (or somewhere near) where I can make my own sounds using vst's and I understand how a few of them work, rather than just cranking knobs and hoping for the best... I still have things to learn though. My main interest now is in synthy electro sort of beats. Inspiration wise; Porter Robinson's worlds album is a HUGE favourite of mine, but also future bass and trap from artists such as Martin Garrix, Marshmello and The Chainsmokers. As you can probably see I'm not a one genre sort of guy and I tend to like music that takes influence from more than the genre it fits into. Back to producing, my music theory is still.. shall we say poor. However the quality of my producing has vastly improved.

So, hope I haven't bored you to sleep I just want to ask a few questions.

- What's the best way for me to pick up the basic music theory I.e. chords, scales etc. are there any websites people recommend, should I take up playing a musical instrument? As it stands I'm completely self taught with a mixture of playing around on FL and watching hour upon hour of youtube videos.

- Has anybody got any tutorials for adding vocals to my tracks? I'm mainly talking about pre recorded vocals found online, since I don't want to have to buy any as of yet, I'm just not in a position to. I want to learn how to change things like the key and make them fit to the beat. I'm having a bit of hard time with that at the moment.

- Ableton Live or FL Studio? I see a lot of people using Ableton and it appears as though the workflow is better. Tracks in FL can become rather cluttered and it tends to be easy to loose track of channels and plug-ins. I do also have Ableton just never taken the time to learn it. I'm wondering if I should.


That's it! Go easy on me guys, there's still a lot I don't know!
 
Welcome and as long as you do music for the love, which is all that is left of doing so in the current era of music, you'll be fine. Also, it is a mistake to treat music as an identity the way clothes, etc. are worn w/relation to fitting in with friends.
 
I think it's easy to fall in line especially as a kid. You follow the trends your friends do. Getting older just broadens your appreciation and understanding.
 
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