A profound psychedelic experience. Seeking guidance from you lovely souls!

The Lounge General Discussion
#22

Wow, that sounds beautiful!

If I can give you my two cents, for now just forget fussing about the equipment too much and just grab something to get you started with. It can be a guitar, a piano, a 2$ app on your phone, a korg volca keys, doesn’t matter really. The main thing is get you either playing or programming an instrument, and getting a feel for things.

Back when I started, there was no-one to teach how to use any of that gear. All I had was a synth I bought from a local music store… I would just flick through the presets and play it… everything sounded so cool! Then later on one mate showed me how to add a sequencer for controlling the synth, and things just grew naturally from there.

If you’re drawn into electronic music by the beat, get something that has drum sounds on it and start programming some beats. Even a smartphone can be used for this, and the apps for phones are very affordable, some of them even free.

If you’re more into melodies and harmonies, getting an instrument, even something like a guitar, or a pawn shop keyboard will get you started on playing.

If there’s one advice I can give for someone starting out on 2018, it’s ”find your own way, have fun, be kind to yourself. Equipment always loses the fight against a good song”.

the internet is a great place to learn how to do specific things, but don’t let anyone 1up on you with their opinions.

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#23

You will need the following>
Sampler
Drum Machine
Mono Synth
Poly Synth
Reverb and Delay
Mixer

And what I have>
Sampler - Digitakt and Maschine
Drum Machine - RYTM and Maschine
Mono Synth - iPad Moog Model D and 15 plus sequencing apps
Poly Synth - Digitone plus iPad apps
Reverb and Delay - included so no hardware
Mixer - Ableton and Maschine

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#25

I fall into the “don’t need much at the start” camp, else you will probably get frustrated and lose interest, start simple, 1 piece of gear and learn the hell out of how it works, something like a Digitakt is a good place to start, it is capable of release quality pieces without any other gear, with some caveats.

Learn how to program rhythms, both by step and realtime, learn about everything else after you have learned this, a good way to learn is to play along to tracks that you like, identifying each drum instrument and playing it, then once you have this down, add or remove to make your own variation. Eventually you will get the idea and start coming up with your own original ideas.

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#26

Korg Monologue is a good place to start, re: classic subtractive synthesis (it’s a monophonic synthesizer, with two VCOs), and it’s inexpensive.

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#28

+1 for Novation Curcuit. Low cost, great fun. Battery powered and great size for the park. Used for about 220€
Want more? Get a Digitakt.
DO NOT START WITH THE OCTATRACK. The rabbit hole is toooo deep.

Do not push yourself too much, going full nerd mode takes years :wink:

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#29

this

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#30

Great advice guys. I appreciate it wholeheartedly. Sounds like the digitakt is getting a lot of votes. I really like the approach of learning just one instrument inside and out. Thanks a bunch for responding. Every one of you. The one thing that blows me away is the amount of support coming my way.

+1 for the mods who designed this forum btw. The mechanics and ease of use are amazing. Further supports my decision to invest in elektron products.

Much love! :hearts::hearts:

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#31

Another +1 for the “start with only a Digitakt” suggestion. I do think there’s a case for adding a very simple subtractive monophonic synth soon after that though. It’s good sample food for the Digi, you can learn to MIDI sequence it from the Digi, and it will teach you the basics of synthesis. Something like a Korg Monologue or a Roland Aira System-1. The System-1 is VA but it has a very nice simple, straightforward layout*, onboard reverb and delay, and a wide palette of possible sounds.

( * only two ‘gotchas’ I can think of on the System-1 are that oscillator coarse tune is on a shift-function, and that it overdrives quite easily if you turn the oscillators up too far, but that’s intended behaviour…)

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#32

It figures you’d have an experience like that while at an amazing party, vibeing to Sunshine Jones’ music. It’s funny, I actually got introduced to him and his music by way of attending a weekly drum circle he put together at a local park. Back then ('96-'97?) there were maybe four of us there at any time, max, lol!

Anyhow - I’d echo the sentiment of most folks on here. Start small. Making electronic music is fun, but it can also be a ton of work. There will frustration, and elation. Both are part of the process. Stick with it, learn your gear inside out, and you will be rewarded. A small sampler is probably the thing that’ll get you the most mileage, but a decent VA or analog synth can also be cool for exploring sound worlds. I just suggest a sampler since you can actually structure some tracks with it. I also agree that connecting with other like minded people is better than all the YouTube tutorials in the world. Good luck and have fun!

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#33

after listening to the recent release by Jogging House, i would also recommend a tape recorder to go with the Digitakt. it’s a great and simple way to capture audio ideas in progress, whilst at the same time the medium of tape provides a natural warmth and slight compression that helps the sounds play nicely together.

re/ a synth to go with the potential Digitakt, the cool thing about a quality analogue synth like say the OB-6 is that if you buy one used for a decent price, it’s also possible to sell for a similar price if later choosing to do something else.

amazing photograph of the experiential event btw.

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#34

"mission. To somehow, someway, create music and share it with the world "

I agree get one piece of hardwaire to begin with, or maybe something for drrums (the DT is probably a great option) and a mono synth. But, if you want to “share it with the world”, you need to record it. And for this, decent soundcard and getting to know ONE production program is the way to go (unless you’ve got a good mate with a studio and a lot of time for you.), Someone above suggested getting a tape recorder, but how are you gonna post a tape recording to e.g. Soundcloud? You could get e.g. an old Tascam multitrack recorder, , but a DAW gives you infinitely greater possibilities, and with a decent soundcard, far superior sound quality. The only tape worth it’s while IMO is a decent reel to reel, (but you still need to record that to something digital to get it to the world) but they’re generally very expensive. To summarize, what I’m saying is with a DAW you get far more possibilities for much less money than trying to do everything OTB.

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#35

Before you do anything, you should take a look at software on your phone and tablet (if you own one). There is a ton of good software to get you started making sound without spending more than two digits, maximum. You can get lost for hours - I got through a three-day power outage two weeks ago messing around with Garageband on my old iPhone. I started out ten years ago making music on my Nintendo DS with the Korg DS-20 app.

If you’re starting out, want to go DAWless, and can afford the few extra hundred I would recommend the Deluge. It offers more options to get you started creating music and seems a bit more hands-on than the Digitakt in terms of composition. For example, it has a synthesis engine and the sequencer offers a better “song mode.” I don’t own one, but I’m pretty sure it offers sampling through the inputs similarly to the Digitakt.

That being said, the Digitakt offers more dynamic sound-processing. I can almost guarantee that the dedicated delay/reverb/compressor in the Digitakt is going to be richer than an “all-around” groovebox - especially since you can easily resample internally. This isn’t to say that Deluge sounds bad, just that Elektron DSP is known for being stellar. The Digitakt might take a little longer to finish a track by itself - it plays very well with friends though.

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#36

No specific advice here (although, I can’t resist - Digitakt + Grandmother sounds like a first-class combination that could be rewarding for years!). I just wanted to say your post is a breath of fresh air and a much-needed reminder that this is all about powerful experiences and communicating the innermost parts of our souls and psyches. The gear is secondary. The feeling of creating something that moves you and/or other people to their core is and always will be the primary reason for doing this!

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#37

First please stop calling house and tech house EDM and I saw Sunshine Jones last month or so, cool guy fully dawless live sets but that is not EDM! Yes I know EDM = Electronic Dance Music that’s totally misleading to people getting into into electronic music … EDM is not house, tech house, Techno, minimal or any of the many live sets I’ve seen … arghhh sorry I’ve had this argument so many times and it makes me mad all the time, people just name shit poorly.

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#38

@khaled My mistake, i thought EDM was the umbrella name for a number of sub genres with House, and tech house under that umbrella. Thank you for the correction.

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#39

I am the one who’s sorry for how I sounded, I know it’s a common mistake. it just piss me off how THEY misappropriated the umbrella term for electronic music

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#40

I want to give a huge thanks to all lovely souls out there who responded to this topic. It seems the digitakt has been mentioned quite a couple times for being a good place to start. I think it is a good idea to use software to start with just to test the waters a bit, but unfortunately my phone and computer are not the best, and I find myself leaning more toward using an actual piece of hardware instead of a computer. Not to say the least I am not open to learning a DAW, but I feel a powerful urge to use a physical piece of equipment first. Maybe it has to do with reverse engineering junk i used to find in my neighborhood on trash day.

I’ve been doing my homework and watching and reading as much as I can about the digitakt and deluge. There’s some nice videos out there for both. I’m torn between the two. Ultimately I guess it just comes down to having the cojones to pull the trigger on a purchase and see if you gel with what you got.

Great responses from all. You’ve helped tremendously in the process of narrowing things down and helped point me in a general direction.

I’d like to think this thread will help a lot of people like me just starting out. Its a wealth of passed down knowledge and opinion. :pray::pray::pray:

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#41

And to answer your question :
The best way is to go to youtube and see what different hardware makers have at the moment, look into the demos and see what you like, the simple reason is every single one here or anywhere else have different tastes, likes and dislikes.
Second go to your local hardware shop and try them for yourself, playability and fun is a very big factor!
Third look into the second hand market (either locally or even on here, things are sometimes really cheaper and you can make some good deals).
Fourth start with cheaper gear because you are gonna make mistakes and flipping something for a couple hundred of bucks is easier than flipping something worth a couple of thousands.
Fifth keep reading from other people experiences, like in this space, but with a grain of salt because everyone is just giving his own perspective it doesn’t mean they are right or wrong, it’s just their perspective on things … like some people like full analogue, some just digital, some will mix both, some will go all dawless, some just in the box, some will mix both, some just use samples, some don’t, some don’t care, some will get portable gear, some just use their gear at home or on a studio so they don’t care about portability, some just swear by modular, some stay away from it etc. bottom line it’s just a trial and error and these are things you have to figure out for yourself … and believe me to some extend the process is part of the fun.
I know I didn’t name any gear but I hope this helps :wink:

EDIT : for youtube these are good ones to start with for demos/tutorials/news



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#42

One more important thing - once you’ve made your purchase make sure to spend more time playing your instrument than looking for the next one to buy! :joy:

You might do well with a monosynth to pair with a Digitakt if you go in that direction. The Behringer D sounds great if you’re willing to wait for a pre-order. The three oscillators will let you make chords to sample easily without polyphony. But Korg Monologue is another good option and the new IK Uno Synth will also be available soon for a slightly tighter budget.

Sampler/Monosynth is a good place to start.

Definitely keep it simple and don’t spend money if you don’t have to.

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#43

It’s actually pretty interesting to be able to bring your gear outside and play in nature. So I would say Deluge could be an interesting instrument to start with playing electronic music.
But you wouldn’t go wrong with Digitakt either. Maybe just more inclined to add new pieces of gear at some point.

Don’t underestimate Pocket Operators, you can have a lot of fun with these !

Try recording some tracks, even if you’re not entirely satisfied with them. That will teach you a lot, and they’ll become milestones on your path.

This feeling you have and the possibility to get back to it and share it by playing music is a blessing. I hope you’ll be able to give and receive a lot in the years to come.

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