If you had to start learning music production from zero

The Lounge General Discussion
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I feel a little seen by this thread… over 20 years now, some tracks made, but not nearly enough. Endless gear bought and sold.

An interesting thing seems to happen with electronic music: everyone that starts working with electronic music fashions themselves as a music producer.

It’s a little odd when you think about it from the perspective of other musical instruments.

Think about how many guitars are sold… most people who pick up a guitar want to learn to strum some chords, play a few tunes, and enjoy themselves as a way of creative escape.

Nobody is looking at that person and thinking “wow, they didn’t release a full album of their own guitar music, what a failure”. And more importantly, the person that bought the guitar doesn’t feel that way, either.

Whereas with electronic music gear, it seems to be so common (externally and self-imposed) to think that if you’re not putting out full tracks regularly you are a failure.

I’m still struggling myself with this, and I still DO want to release more music (even now at 50).

But I also think it’s totally fine to just dabble in these instruments. Make sounds, create loops, jam. If you’re enjoying it, then don’t stop! Life is short and creative outlets are critical to happiness.

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I’m a fellow 2005-er! Happy twentieth anniversary to what sounds like a complicated relationship. It’s great that you’re renewing your focus and establishing clear goals. Also, your current setup is absolutely perfect.

There’s already tons of great advice in this thread and I don’t have a ton to add, but I will say that, “having an idea in your head,” isn’t always what people think. It could be as simple as hearing a rhythmic pattern on your commute and deconstructing it when you get home, or seeing a phrase on a billboard and turning it over in your head until a melody starts to form. Maybe open a random music theory article on Wikipedia and implement it to the best of your understanding — odds are you’ll wind up with more misses than hits, but when it works, you’ll feel like a genius. You don’t need an original idea, you just need a spark!

My best-received song (i.e. the only song my friends actually seemed to enjoy listening to) started off with me trying to learn an 11/8 beat to impress some people I had been jamming with. I figured out a catchy drum groove but couldn’t decide if I liked it better phrased 5-6 or 6-5, then I thought, “Why not phrase it 5-6-6-5?”

I strummed some chords, sang some nonsense based on a news article I read that day about a potential postal workers strike, exported without mixing, uploaded it to SoundCloud, and kept the demo in the back of my mind. The idea stuck, so over time I refined the chord progression with a few tricks I knew from learning Beatles songs but didn’t really understand. And then I (incorrectly) substituted a chord because I had read a Wikipedia article that was above my head.

Probably too much boring detail, but the point is, I worked my way from a very basic drum rudiment to a song that people actually enjoyed, and at no point did I have “an original idea.” So don’t sell yourself short, just have fun!

Edit: it’s probably not to everyone’s taste given that this is an electronic music forum, but here is the song in question: Post Office Blues | John R. Julius

Edit-Edit: and the original SoundCloud demo, why not: Stream Better Call the Mailman by John R. Julius | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

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Sort of coming back after a hiatus. I’ve dabbled but haven’t properly been focused on anything since 2018 for reasons.

Things I’m doing differently this time:

  • Accepting that my drums have always been kinda rubbish. If I want pounding drums or a nice solid groove to anchor a track then I’m far better using Kontakt libraries and then modifying to taste. So far really enjoying Session drummer and Abbey Road libraries.

  • Realised several years ago that I had relied too much on programming (out of laziness) and it made my music sound too robotic and artificial. If I can program it, then it’s worth attempting to play (within reason). This means more practice. Drums are a definite exception.

  • Hardware is a lot of fun but I also get real bored real quickly and end up looking for the next thing to scratch the itch. Also results in uncomfortable levels of clutter and I get annoyed by timing issues when using multiple sequencers. And I’ve spent way too much money only to end up selling at a loss. Focusing on software + nice keyboard keeps things simple while the possibilities are limitless.

  • Even with an audio production degree, it was always a pain to get a mix I’m happy with from home. Never really had an adequate listening environment that translates elsewhere. Plan is to either book studio time or hire a mix engineer once I’ve got a bunch of stuff ready to go. And then have it mastered.

  • Got diagnosed a while back with ADHD (as well as autism) so there’s a few issues with my executive function. Was always too drained to do anything after work. Turns out getting in the habit of getting up early in the morning and working for an hour or two on my interests BEFORE going to my paid job makes everything a whole lot easier and allows me to make a fair bit of progress. Software installation and/or surfing the net etc gets done in the evening. Am also getting better at self management in general, so I’m less likely to burn out.

  • Staying on track by keeping a notebook. I have a lot of ideas but also the tendency to get sidetracked very easily. It’s also good for planning and mind mapping ideas before I even turn on the computer. Sometimes an idea won’t work in the current context but could sound awesome elsewhere with a few tweaks. So I write that down too.

  • Also using a scratchpad and often set myself a task for the following session. Sometimes that task will be something simple like “try experimenting with bringing in X sound that you were playing with”. Doesn’t have to be serious production line thinking, just something to help get over that initial inertia in the morning.

Current gear I’m actually using:

MacBook Pro M2
Software: Reason 12, Komplete Ultimate, Wavelab Elements and a handful of useful VSTs
Yamaha CP88
Field recording gear: Zoom F3, Zoom H5 Studio, clippy mics, blimp, tripod etc.

Got a few other nice to have bits of HW but they’re in storage.

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I do think Live & a Push 3 is a good shout. But to really get fun and enjoyment out of the writing process, I think I’d be tempted going down the Ableton Move route first.

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Doing Melodies on Push is not fun, you also want a keyboard imo

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This ! All the way !

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What does it mean to you for a piece of music to be ‘finished’? What is your goal?

In many endeavours there is a principle that ‘the last 10% takes 90% of the time’ (or variations on that theme).

However something I live (and work) by is ‘the Goldilocks principle’, the idea of good enough, ‘the 80/20’ rule - which recognises that the last 20% of refinement has diminishing returns (sometimes even negative returns) and is where projects die, become frustrating, and you lose satisfaction in what you’re creating. That first 80% is where you have the biggest impact and also have the most fun.

If your problem is that you’re refining things to death - just stop.

If your problem is that you’re struggling to turn a sketch into something ‘more’ (and care about that, because you don’t have to), then there are several song structure techniques that can help and various YouTube resources to help with building bridges, variations etc. that can help round out a song. Another good tip is to drag a song you like and wish to create into Ableton and break it up into it’s requisite parts. Study it, work out how it’s structured and what they’ve done.

But also, unless your goal is to become a commercial artist then please for the love of god just focus on having fun! Sometimes a sketch is enough - putting pressure on yourself to ‘finish’ something for the sake of having a finished object is bit necessary.

I’ll also leave you with the pondering that what you create doesn’t need to be good - that’s ego - embrace creating and stop worrying about subjective measures you may never achieve, not least of all because the continual struggle of the artist is that nothing you do is good enough.

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  • would go hardware as early as i could afford
  • would NOT waste my time on esoteric stuff like CSound / SuperCollider (just wrong tools for my goals)
  • would learn music theory some 10 years earlier than i actually did

that’s all.

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Totally agree.
I also got into the habit of getting up earlu when everyone is still sleeping and preparing my session for the evening by eliminating all the tasks that require concentration and that I will have trouble doing properly with the fatigue of the day.

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Interestingly I’m not from a keyboard background, but I did always used to use a controller keyboard. But over the past few years, I’ve found I actually write a better sequence of notes on a pad controller than on a traditional keyboard layout.

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There is so much to be said on your points. And I completely agree on the just good enough and just have fun thing.

It seems that everyone is obsessed with a side hustle nowadays, and people are missing out on just having fun creating. Not everyone can be the next Picasso, David Bailey etc anyway.

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And on the subject of Picasso, he once said:

To finish means to be through with the work, to kill it, to rid it of its soul.

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Ooof, AuDHD is a pain to work around.

On another note, artistic projects are never completed, merely abandoned.

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