Free stuff & costs for beginners

[davedavidson]

About 20 odd years ago you got primitive software called ‘trackers’ to produce music on a computer. I used to make music with the ‘tracker software’ of the day and thought it was great fun. Now 20 years later I want to get into making music on my PC again as a hobby or perhaps a way of making a small extra income.

At first I tried music magix – wow, what a piece of buggy crap. After some research I settled on learning FL Studio and spent a whole lot of time learning it. What I’m now busy with is to search for free VST’s and samples and putting down some early tracks which sounds far from professional. (I like composing my own music.) Some of the free instruments and samples are good but I soon realized that if you want to do really cool stuff you will need to buy instruments like KONTAKT or get some paid VSTs and samples – Would I be correct in assuming this?

It would seem that it is very easy to start spending a lot of money on instruments and other paid things but before I start spending a lot of money I would like to know how people actually make money with music they produce? Are there lots of people who actually make money with the music they produce and how?

I’d like to buy some more things like KONTAKT and other instruments but if there is no prospect of earning anything out of it then it only looks like an expensive hobby.

 

[scrapheaper]

Next to no-one profits from music and that shouldn't be your goal- there are easier ways to make money.

The upside is the basics are pretty cheap these days- if you get the producer edition of FL then you will have all the instruments you need: Sytrus and wasp will allow you to make any synthesized sound you could possibly desire, as long as you know how to use them well and your stock FX.

Kontakt is very good for recreating a wide range of 'real' instruments: if you want orchestral instruments, guitar, percussion etc it's a good one to get.
A slightly cheaper alternative that I like is 'Dimension pro' which can do a pretty good attempt at most instruments as well.

Freesound.com is a great website for specific sample noises for free i.e. horns, doorbells, barking dogs etc.
You can also find a lot of percussion sample packs for free for all genres just by googling 'free snare sample packs' 'free house kicks' etc

 

[I'mNoGuru]

If your after value... Maschine Mikro comes with about 20gig of content plus the Maschine software (which can be run as a vst or standalone) and is a solid controller.
NI sounds are for the most part very usable.