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Guide to making electronic music

Ranked #14,088 in Music, #389,104 overall

This lens is (will be) a complete guide to making electronic music

Whilst on a long bus drive through Europe I decided, in order to prepare for writing a book on the subject, record all the knowledge I've accumulated on making electronic music, right from recording your own sounds up to marketing and selling your music on the internet.

Warning: This lens is a work in progress.

I've produced many electronic tracks and released music through internet record labels. The aim of this lense is to brainstorm and share my knowledge and also expand it through interacting with other members of the Squidoo community.

Contents

  1. What you will find here
  2. Upgrading your piffling existing sound card
  3. M-Audio Firewire Audiophile Soundcard on Ebay
  4. Recording sound - Buying a sound recorder
  5. The M-Audio Microtrack is a great portable sound recorder
  6. Recording your sounds
  7. Aphex Twin - Bucephalus Bouncing Ball
  8. Recording vocals - How to Video on Youtube
  9. How to record vocals for your project
  10. How to record vocals for your project
  11. Steps to consider when post-processing your recorded sounds
  12. Sound Editing Software
  13. New Amazon
  14. Organising your Samples - A list of free software
  15. Why organise your samples and audio files?
  16. Videos about how to organise your samples

What you will find here

Record Sounds
Edit Sounds
Create sounds from scratch
Arrange drums
Create bass
Create melody
Create sound effects
Record vocals
Record live instruments
Buy hardware
Mixdown
Work into track
Different musical styles
Marketing and sell.

Upgrading your piffling existing sound card

It's most likely if you have an off the shelf laptop or PC it came with a soundcard not really ideal for seriously making music. Buying a pro soundcard (and later audio interface) will reduce the latency (the reaction between hardware and when you hear the sound) and reduce the pressure on your computer's processor. Some soundcards are essential for the amount of extra inputs and outputs required for performing live or in a band.

M-Audio Firewire Audiophile Soundcard on Ebay

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Recording sound - Buying a sound recorder

Check out some sound recorders for sale. Your first step is to buy a decent sound recorder. It's by no means necessary to make digital music. But if you start early you will start to build and develop a personal library of sounds from which you can draw for use in your compositions.

Things to consider:
Battery and memory
Storage medium and suitability for destination and durability
Durability of unit - susceptibility to dust/water
Case for protection
Types of microphone required and different uses

The M-Audio Microtrack is a great portable sound recorder

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Recording your sounds

Before you leave:
Check batteries and memory, take spares with you
Have clear ideas about what you want to record

On site:
Check levels
Headphones to hear unwanted background noises and avoid - Quality of sound important - difficult to remove background noise afterwards
Record as wave in either 41,000 or 48,000
Record with a project in mind or record what is most attractive at the time- be creative
Get ideas from location - take a journey to record ethnic sounds from exotic (or not exotic) locations
Record sounds in local neighbourhoods
Make your own sounds - set up thing to make noise - household items - it can be a lot of fun!!

Aphex Twin - Bucephalus Bouncing Ball

Aphex Twin - Bucephalus Bouncing Ball is an excellent example of create use of sounds. Whether he recorded the sounds or synthesised them.
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Recording vocals - How to Video on Youtube

Affordable equipment and freeware music software has made recording your own vocals for home studio projects a reality.

How to record vocals for your project

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How to record vocals for your project

1

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Part 1 - home recording studio tips and song writing tips 0 points

2

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How To Record Music At Home : How To Record Vocals At Home 0 points

3

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How To Build a Vocal / Recording / Sound Booth - Cheap Soundproofing / Acoustic Solutions 0 points

Steps to consider when post-processing your recorded sounds

Depends on project-

Software: Goldwave, Audacity, Sony Sound Forge
  • plugin to remove noise
  • compression / volume
  • cutting sample
  • avoid clipping / glitches (unless that's what you want)
  • Zoom in on the wavelength and Join up the wavelength so it's a continuous line - remove clips

Sound Editing Software

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New Amazon

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Organising your Samples - A list of free software

Sample Tagger
Sample tagger is a Windows (min. XP) software that can be used as an audio sample cataloguer or a file explorer dedicatedto audio samples. The software is a kind of database application which holds the structure of your personnal sample collection (wac, aiff, flac, mp3, midi file) in a explorer-style view. Each item can be described by a custom set of 255 'tags'. The collection can be consulted using a logical tag filtering system or a string search system. All data are saved in an external file, SampleTagger never directly write data in the sample file. Additionaly, three virtual folders allow to putsome items together which could be droped into an audio software (main sequencer, virtual synth,virtual sampler etc).

Why organise your samples and audio files?

  1. method for reducing choice paralysis from having too many samples
  2. naming convention makes it easy to search samples
  3. folder organisation and tagging makes it easy to find types of files- e.g. percussive and Indian might be 2 tags. A folder name might be drums with sub-folders of real drum kits, electro drum kit, 808, 909 etc. Or you might have folders organised into countries - which would be nice for combining cultural styles.
  4. Helps in the create process- make it as fast as possible to search for as near as possible to the sound / drum in your head. Don't end up wasting time wading through reams of disorganised samples (like I used to when I first started) (but it also helps sometime to jump in at the deep end and see what comes up).
  5. Don't go mad with the organisation. You want to make music, that's the end aim. Better to have a partially organised sample collection and be making music rather than a well organised one and no music actually being made. A bit of chaos is good for an artist.

Videos about how to organise your samples

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by

awelch

My name is Andrew Welch. I'm 26 Years old. I'm a long distance cyclist, website developer, photographer, writer, and mountain bike enthusiast. The last... more »

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