TBH … this doesn’t exist … there is no musical “instrument”, which can do the creative work by itself and prevent mistakes.
For creating beats it takes more, than the usual synth. There should be polyphony and multitimbrality.
If there is one synth only at least some kind of multi-track recording device or a looper should be used with the synth, to create the beat layer by layer.
IMO the closest thing to support a beginning and evolving beat maker would be:
for groovy, laid back/driving, much human touch and feel beats: MPC
for techno, more straight on the grid beats: Elektron devices or other step sequencer supported instruments.
It’s easy to get ones head around the MPC, it doesn’t take to dive deep at the beginning, just switch it on … get a kit loaded from the factory library … and play the pads …
There are quite some interesting features for assistance:
quantization, swing, and metronom
performance mode with many scales, cords, and even a couple of cord progressions … select one, just play the pads and because this is already made to fit a particular mood or style, even an untrained aspirant will generate nice music in short time.
there is even the function “Pitch Quantize”, which forces any notes played to scales
a decent sample library ready to load quality samples, kits, and entire demos
But it would be a good idea to get into music theory as well, and understand at least some basics. It doesn’t hurt and it can open doors …
And as so often, also the secret with Elektron, MPC, etc. is
… surprise …
practice, practice, practice …
it’s not a synth.
it’s youtube.
a bare minimum of music theory necessary for contemporary popular music genres can be learnt in a few hours. this is even less than one weekend.
after this, you basically want a piece of gear with scale mode.
Learn very basic music theory on youtube, (a long weekend)
Find a synth that can do kinda everything (drums, chords, bass, leads )and has a lot of tutorials. (Id suggest something like the Analog 4 or the Digitone)
…my son (14) and his last x mas present i gave him, a model samples, don’t wanna click together…
thinking about a mpc one for a next try…there u get it all…
two synth, scale modes, touch screen and beats beats beats…all in one box, ready to go anywhere and to nail and finish ideas all the way to final mixes…
Analog Four or Digitone would surely be awful choices - sounds like something that’s as simple as possible is needed. Something to just press a few things and music comes out, not with a steep learning curve and complicated structure etc.
If you really want a standalone synthesizer, Novation Circuit for sure. If he can use synth software on a computer/phone/tablet instead, a Novation Launchpad MIDI controller.
Today we learned again: if you ask any question that let people name gear, and you wait long enough, you have a dictionary of all devices that are buyable to that time!
You’re probably right, but I often see and hear people with maybe a high grade in music theory really overthinking stuff, depends on genre, I guess it depends on actual exposure to the music you’re making too.
I wouldn’t say that knowing nothing or only little about music theory is better for any genre.
IMO the problem is this … music theory is often taught as the only right way to do things and everybody should commit to it. Now if this was the true way, we would all sit in circles around camp fires, hit stones with stones, wood with wood, and shout in a rhythm … hooo - hooo - …
I remember some great music advisers explaining that music theory is basically the science, why some music is liked by cultures, how it developed, how it’s composed, how it’s arranged, what rules have been applied, and so forth. Music theory tries to understand and to explain. They also said music theory should not be taken as an idiological or dogmatic set of rules, which must be applied. Often the exact opposite makes great music … break the rules … but know, what you are doing.
Breaking the rules - developing new rules - and breaking them again seems to be the process of creating great (new) music.
There are great talented musicians, who have it in their blood without having to learn music theory in school. They do it right unconciously. Some even don’t read music. But who is like those? IMO most musicians would benefit from learning some basic or even advanced theory
