Tips for Electronica beginners

IanBru · Joined: Jun 08, 2005 Posts: 2 Location: London, UK

Hi Guys and Gals

I'm looking to start making my own electronica music in the Four Tet/Autechre/MYLO genre. Does anyone have any tips on what equipment /software to buy, or what methods to use?

Help is appreciated!

Also, I prefer to work on Apple Mac, so software suggestions for OS X would be really useful.

I could have posted this in the technical section of the forum, but I could see that there are quite a few electronica artists here, so please god help me fulfill my electronica potential!!

Cheers

glaive · Joined: Sep 14, 2003 Posts: 69 Location: Bloomington, IN

I'd recommend using Ableton Live. Between that, lite version of DSP-Quattro (an audio editor), and free Audio Units such as Automat, you'll be able to go a long way.

seraph · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:29 pm Post subject:

I moved your post to "How-tos", it seems more appropriate. by looking at other posts there you should get a few ideas "on what equipment /software to buy, or what methods to use" Very Happy

Kassen · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:50 pm Post subject:

This is realy tricky. Good artists in that style tend to know how audio and gear works on a very deep level and could probably get their sound from anything. Autechre is known to use quite a bit of modified gear and custom programing....

Ableton Live is probably a good start because of the granular time streching and the grain delay. You may want to get a very early lowfi sampler and learn it inside out. The free vst (probably also au?) plugin "suppatrigga" is popular amongst artists who want to sound along those lines as is the language Max/Msp. Soundhack is free and Mac-only, you want that too.

If you are serious there is realy no other option then learning digital techniques by heart, down to the level where you could program them yourself if need be. "computer music tutorial" and "microsound", both by Curtis Roads will be requirered reading but for a start this may help.

Learning all of the rules makes disregarding them much more productive.

seraph · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:56 pm Post subject:

jkn · Joined: Mar 14, 2004 Posts: 469 Location: La Porte, IN, USA

This recent post might help:

http://www.electro-music.com/forum/topic-6694.html

I'm a non-Apple person - so not much help there.

However, if you've got some spare change around the house ($500...) - Max/MSP may be up your alley - this started as Mac software: http://www.cycling74.com/products/index.html

Or a cousin of Max/MSP is PD which is a free download: http://www.puredata.org/

......................

In general - everyone uses different hardware/software - I've followed Autechre for a long time and they've used a ton of different hardware and software through the years.

Best advice I can really give is to use the equipment you have and add things piece by piece (whether hardware or software) - borrow your friends gear, try it out in stores or software demos - and don't rush too much.

seraph · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 2:01 pm Post subject:

glaive · Joined: Sep 14, 2003 Posts: 69 Location: Bloomington, IN

Not sure how hardcore this guy is, but CSound is always an option, too.

Kassen · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:28 pm Post subject:

Csound is realy hardcore, yes, but the csound book is very good. the theory is illustrated with code examples, you can´t get much more direct then that.

also; csound´s ancestors are realy the source of it all so it desreves respect and attention.

elektro80 · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:56 pm Post subject:

There might be one issue missing here, and that is the musical bit of where to start. The tools themselves aren´t´really the music. It is of course very obvious that if you want to make AC/DC style rock, you might look into buying a guitar.. and take it from there. However, having a guitar does not make the music. As for the synths and software mentioned, all of these are very fluid and adaptable tools. Live has gotten a certain reputation, there are many users who are mostly into the very evident features of it.. and the result is very often the Ableton Live laptop music. This is not a problem, but there is far more to Live and any other tool mentioned here. If you can imagine it, you might damned well be able to make the music too with these tools. You will still be left with actual music bit which isnt really about the very tools at hand. A valid method is of course by copying. Newbie rock bands have been doing this and it might work. With electronic music of this type it might work too, but I also see that some kind of musical training of some sort really could be helpful. I have no idea what might be a nice place to start for you. It could be drums? A flute? The cello? Double bass? No matter what, some kind of muscial training approach might prove to be really relevant. One result could be that you would train yourself to actually hear and understand ryhthms and events "better". You like Autechre. That is a great start. But why stop there? Why not go for as good as Autechre but different? Very Happy

Kassen · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:16 pm Post subject:

I have no answsers but I´m quite intimate with the question.

Still, regardless of where you end up, you can´t realy go wrong with learning the basics which is why I sugested that.

jkn · Joined: Mar 14, 2004 Posts: 469 Location: La Porte, IN, USA

The poster asked for equipment help originally... Smile

I definitely don't disagree with the recommendation to learn and listen... no matter where you're at musically, what instruments, techniques, tools you've learned, etc... there's always something more. (which of course goes for everything in life, not just music....)

I learned a lot from reading about and researching csound - that's a very good resource. There are a ton of resources though - pick the ones that appeal to you.

jkn · Joined: Mar 14, 2004 Posts: 469 Location: La Porte, IN, USA

Kassen · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:10 am Post subject:

Stanley Pain · Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 8:53 am Post subject:

something that sounds like Mylo/Autechre?

wow. that would be something! Very Happy

if you want to sound like Mylo, go the fruityloops/ableton route. something that does a lot of the work for you and you are able to sketch things in quick. simple user interface, but when you scratch the surface both those programmes are capable of sustaining very individualistic and "advanced" sounds.

if you want to sound like autechre, being a Mac user it would be silly of you to ignore Metasynth. this prog. allows you to literally draw the sound you want to appear. very very good for experimental stuff and a very novel but intuitive way to work with sound. will get you some really nice effects, glitchy, smooth or just plain avante-garde. i know Aphex Twin and autechre have both used this prog. i'm a PC user. bah.

zembla · Joined: Oct 18, 2005 Posts: 12 Location: UK

Thought I'd attempt to resuscitate this thread. I'm sure it's been mentioned before on these forums but this SoS interview with Mr Four Tet seems to show that you don't need anything beyond a PC and a couple of old bits of software. It's quite inspirational, especially his use of the generic/crummy/freebie Creative microphone.

In the same way the whole micro/gameboy music scene is very interesting as well, but that might just be my interest in constrained art-forms Wink

Jim

v-un-v · Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:42 pm Post subject:

Don't give up your day job!

That's my 2 cents.

As for computer software- it's fun messing with SuperCollider - best of all it's FREE!!! What's also great with SC is that it hardly uses any cpu cycles so if you get an old cheap PB3400 running OS 8/9 for eg, you have a dynamite music/ noise box!

zembla · Joined: Oct 18, 2005 Posts: 12 Location: UK

You have to give up the day job just to get your head round all the software out there Wink

SuperCollider looks interesting, and can run on linux as well!

Jim

Kassen · Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:25 pm Post subject: