Hello beautiful souls, I’ve been listening to music since my childhood. My father used to play on a turntable and listen to music. My father was a big fan of Harry Belafonte at that time and I still have faded memories of listening to it with my dad. It makes me nostalgic whenever I think about that. Now I want to get into music production as a hobby, as I said earlier I’ve consumed a lot of music in my life but I don’t know much about the production aspect of it. Yes I know a little bit about guitar and piano, because I used to play it but I considered myself an absolute beginner. Please help me to follow my new hobby. I want you to guide me from where I can start my journey? What things do I need to start with? Thank you 
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There are many ways, but I find a little sampler like the DT (or DTII if you get that kind of money) a good way to start crafting little patterns.
Second hand is a good thing if you’re unsure what will click best.
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A) dont call it ‘producing music’
B) what musical instruments can you play?
C) what musical instruments/gear do you own?
D) if you have answered B or C, start recording yourself playing. Thats where you start. The rest will follow.
If you cant answer B or C, get an musical instrument of your choice, start from there.
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There are 2 paths:
- self taught
- with a guide
If you are proficient in absorbing what you read and interpreting what you hear, and if you feel up to it, you can forge a path through music theory and learning some production via youtube on your own.
If you need a guide, find a reasonable teacher who you can deal with as a person and pick a voice - guitar / piano / groovebox / etc.
Focus on one thing and when you feel comfortable with it, move on.
The best advice is to not trip over your own shoelaces and just take it one step at a time.
Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and all that, but having some plan is better than no plan.
Or you could just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks, but you’ll get more out of less if you invest something in the educational side as a companion to your exploration and just remember, it’s a hobby, so don’t be discouraged if your early efforts are rough because that’s the same for any hobby or vocation.
Even as a child your first steps lead you back to the ground, so don’t get discouraged if you try running too early and fall a little bit. It’s nothing out of the ordinary and the biggest opponent will always be yourself.
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Eat acid and go play a hand drum in the forest at night alone.
Start there.
Then make a fire.
Sing a little song to yourself.
Sharpen a stick and blacken the tip in the embers of the fire.
Raise the stick to the sky as the clouds open up and the rains return, nourishing the lands.
Feel around in the darkness and find your soul.
Hang on tight to that thing, it’s slippery and very quick.
Never forget that lonesome feeling when you hear Harry Belafonte. That feeling has tremendous importance in music.
Also, never relinquish the sharpened stick. You’ll lose your powers.
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I feel so serious right now.
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You should! We are guiding a soul onto the path!
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For there is power in stick.
He who controls the stick, controls the universe!
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Stay well away from making music. It will consume your money, time, sleep and thoughts.
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You just start.
I started learning to write music (which is what we called “music production” in the 1970s) by borrowing my mum’s cheap as shit classical guitar, restringing it with steel strings, and trying to learn whatever I desired.
I was terrible and so this took a very long time. Eventually someone showed me some cowboy chords, and then after that some barre chords.
Eventually I stopped being quite so terrible and started writing some songs of my own. I’d noticed patterns “A song has a chorus and a verse” so I just did that. I wrote verses and choruses, I wrote awful lyrics and horrible melodies.
Over time I wrote more and more terrible songs, learned about different ways to write music (“Wow - not all music has lyrics!”) and there isn’t an end to this tale yet because I’m not dead.
So yeah. You just start. Pick an instrument - guitar, piano, sampler, drum machine, anything and try and do something musical with it. It might suck. So try again. And keep going like that until it doesn’t suck as much.
If you’re an anti-social person (like me) then you might want to do it all on your own. If you’re not anti-social then finding other people to make music with will help loads - other people have all sorts of ideas, they can be helpful, making music with other people can be quite fun.
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That’s already a good start … the level doesn’t matter …
Try a groove-box … like one of the Elektrons or others … those may take you relatively quickly to your first musical output.
To become a “producer” you need knowledge and experience. There are many topics, techniques, workflows to be mastered … but this is not mandatory, if it’s about having fun creating musical content for yourself.
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A looper pedal for guitar (or anything that can record audio to a decent quality via mic or line in) is a good way to start, but not the only way.
MuseScore (as music composition software) was arguably my first “foray” into music production, although it didn’t really get to much beyond messing around with writing sheet music digitally. Soundtrap was the next one I took a little more seriously, but its online-only freemium and subscription-based approach could put some people off.
You could get an MPC, sampler, a groovebox or a DAW (Waveform is a good free one that I’ve been using, but this is one of many options out there). Don’t feel too intimidated, take advantage of free software trials and find one that suits you the best. Only if you settle on a workflow you really like, ideally messing around with software first, should you buy a DAW.
Main reason I wanted to go the hardware route (settling on the MPC One+ for now) was because I found it a bit distracting to work on a computer; this isn’t set in stone however. I’d recommend stepping into hardware only if you’re certain you’re gonna be performing live or otherwise do not want a computer to distract you or suddenly fail on you.
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…a room…a laptop…a daw software…an audio interface…any instrument of ur choice…maybe a mic, since ur voice is the most universal and oldest instrument there is, even if ur not into singing at all and some headphones…
it’s been never ever that cheap to just get started…technically.
while most essential for ALL of this to happen is UR mindset…
so, hell yeah, give it a try…it’s a bad career choice but nevertheless one of the best and most fulfilling hobbies on this planet…
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Also team stick! Stupid potatoes!
I recommend starting with a DAW as eventually you will need to use one for producing music at least if you want to share with others aside from live performance. Perhaps obtain a free trial of Ableton Live, Reaper or Logic Pro or start with free Garage Band if you are a Mac user? Then perhaps pick one piece of hardware such as an Elektron Digitakt and learn how to record to the DAW.
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yup I started with a laptop, audio interface and Ableton Push 2 controller.
Get yourself a lofi pedal and play a cheap synth with your guitar and piano in minor keys. Get some drum break loops, and you have instant BOC Belafonte vibes.
Get a DAW (I suggest Ableton Live) and a midi keyboard. Start small, experiment and progress will come naturally. Youtube is full of tutorials as well.
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I think this should go without saying, but people still like to ask questions like op on a forum or reddit for some reason.
I recommend spending some time on YouTube, there are some amazing tutorials made over years, by talented people, musical explorers, beginners…, on daws, drum mashines, instruments, singing, composing, everything you can think of.
Whatever questions you have just type in search bar and you’ll get the answer.
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Download the free version of FL Studio and watch a tutorial to get started. Imo this is the easiest way to see if it’s for you. A lot of freinds started with FL studio and either stayed with it or moved to hardware later.
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