What to do

[Abusive-Daddy]

i'm pretty darn addicted to dubstep, love the stuff, slowly taking over my life etc

three month ago my mate bought virtual dj and ableton as he seemed to think spending £500 would give him the ability to produce some awesome dub, he gave up two weeks later.

so two weeks ago i got on to him and asked if i could have his software if he wasn't using it and somehow he said yes, so here I am with virtual dj and ableton 7, a passion for dub and not a clue what to do with certainly ableton. i got the hang of virtual dj pretty quick, read up about djing etc and can use it to a degree that at least pleases my ears.

the trouble is what can i do to further my passion, i've not really got all the money in the world and i've got no musical talent that i know of so do i accept the fact i'll be better off a listener or has anyone any other advice? anything appreciated, cheers!

[contakt321]

If you truly want to make music, Ableton alone is powerful enough to make a release worthy record.

Money isn't the issue now, it's knowledge and practice.

Work your way through the built in Ableton tutorials, watch the youtube videos, and most importantly make as much music as possible. It may not happen overnight but you will get better and better as time goes on.

Good luck!

PS: Don't forget to read the production bible, lots of good info in there!

[FSTZ]

practice, practice, practice

[Abusive-Daddy]

If you truly want to make music, Ableton alone is powerful enough to make a release worthy record.

Money isn't the issue now, it's knowledge and practice.

Work your way through the built in Ableton tutorials, watch the youtube videos, and most importantly make as much music as possible. It may not happen overnight but you will get better and better as time goes on.

Good luck!

PS: Don't forget to read the production bible, lots of good info in there!

Well, when you see top artists using ableton you've gotta wonder what more i could want really to start off with...

do you think it matters that i've literally no musical knowledge at all?

i've been looking at youtube tuts and recreating a few bits on ableton, i guess i just need to keep going with it

i think i've listened to so much top class dubstep that anything i make just sounds disgusting!

[contakt321]

Nope, plenty of masterpieces have been made by people who don't have a music background and plenty of shit songs have been made by folks who have studied music forever.

Your music is not gonna be on the level of Skream for a while, it's okay. You have to start somewhere.

I also recommend watching the Rusko Masterclass video (I think on youtube) and the El-B Masterclass video (thread on here with the link) those two vids will give you a fair understanding of putting a song together.

[deadly_habit]

practice, practice, practice

i'll also add read, read, read and experiment, experiment, experiment

[86.]

If you truly want to make music, Ableton alone is powerful enough to make a release worthy record.

Money isn't the issue now, it's knowledge and practice.

Work your way through the built in Ableton tutorials, watch the youtube videos, and most importantly make as much music as possible. It may not happen overnight but you will get better and better as time goes on.

Good luck!

PS: Don't forget to read the production bible, lots of good info in there!

Well, when you see top artists using ableton you've gotta wonder what more i could want really to start off with...

do you think it matters that i've literally no musical knowledge at all?

i've been looking at youtube tuts and recreating a few bits on ableton, i guess i just need to keep going with it

i think i've listened to so much top class dubstep that anything i make just sounds disgusting!

you don't need any musical knowledge...though it helps. I always pretend to myself that I know nothing bout music but I was trained for 12 years or something. It helps.

But as far as the starting off goes, it's rough for awhile. Definitely made a lot of garbage for the first year. the following year was beats that could have been good had they had proper tweaking/had I read shit (i.e. production qu'ran). This year, I'm more happy with a lot of things.

One thing I liked doing in the very beginning was banging out two beats a day. what that does exactly, I can't describe it too well...but something about making a lot of music and finding your way around the program helps.

Ableton is the shit. All the programs are the shit in their own way, but study ableton and you'll be fine.

And although you're addicted to dubstep...don't let that be the sole inspiration for making tunes. Listen to other genres (even completely random ones) and listen to what's going on in there.

finally, don't get caught up in (this should sound this way, this should always sound that way)

[Abusive-Daddy]

Well, thanks for all the advice guys, I guess so far I've been a little bit stuck on the idea of making dubstep and not thinking about anything else, with four elements it sounds simple but Ableton is pretty big haha.

I think I'll just play around with a few things such as the wobble and see what happens, I never realised there was such a devoted and active forum for dubstep about, it's like fucking heaven!

[86.]

yea the traffic this site gets in general is ridiculous.

but yeah, keep at it!

[64hz]

just fill up your harddrive with experiments and practising, when its full, sit down and make a song.

[Abusive-Daddy]

Haha, I'll be posting this site about the place for sure.

Well, I've got about 300gb left to play with on the external =/

Sadly, limitations with an oldish laptop =[

[contakt321]

Quick tip for Ableton if your CPU is running slow:

After you get an element of your song to your liking, you can right click and "freeze" it to save memory/processing - if you need to edit it, you can then right click and "unfreeze" it.

OR

You can can transform it to audio (much easier on the CPU) by first "freezing" and then right click and "flatten". If you do this, you will lost the ability to edit notes via midi, but can be useful in saving power, creating limitations, etc + w/ Ableton's envelopes, there is still plenty you can do to it.

[Rickmansworth]

ASSIGN LFO TO TEH FILTAR CUTOFZ

[collige]

just fill up your harddrive with experiments and practising, when its full, sit down and make a song.

I disagree. Try making full tunes right off the bat. They'll be shit but you'll learn good song structure and you'll have a bunch of shit tunes you can go back to to fix up when your skills are better instead just a hard drive full of random sounds.

[hurlingdervish]

just fill up your harddrive with experiments and practising, when its full, sit down and make a song.

I disagree. Try making full tunes right off the bat. They'll be shit but you'll learn good song structure and you'll have a bunch of shit tunes you can go back to to fix up when your skills are better instead just a hard drive full of random sounds.

never underestimate a harddrive full of random sounds that YOU made...


anywho my 2 cents:

every song is a practice session, you just have a copy of it. when a guitarist practices, he doesn't always record the session, but if he does then its to analyze his mistakes

you may be making "songs" but they are still practice sessions

[jolly wailer]

this is like wolfboy


u know nothing of music.. it sets u up to potentially make some pretty wonky stuff


fstz said practice practice practice


I'd add experiment experiment experiment

[Abusive-Daddy]

Haha, some nice advice there I'd say.

I'll be back tomorrow asking novice questions, being a noob and annoying you all, thanks very much.

[Ongelegen]

practice, practice, practice

i'll also add read, read, read and experiment, experiment, experiment

THIS!, for a few years

[JFK]

@ Abusive-Daddy......

What the fuck is going on with your username?

Is that supposed to be fucking funny?

Twat.

[DZA]

@ Abusive-Daddy......

What the fuck is going on with your username?

Is that supposed to be fucking funny?

Twat.