Hello everyone, I hope you are doing well;
When I was younger I was really excited about music, I always wanted to produce since I knew  how to DJ pretty well.
To make the long story short; I went to school for long years to become a Medical Doctor and kind of forgot about my other dream but I still have the passion for Dance Music, let's call it that "hate the new EDM term" I want to continue with my passion and start producing. What kind of gear do you reccomend to start? Do I need hardware or with my laptop and software to start it's good? What software shoul I buy? Logic since I have macbook. sorry for asking so much questions but  I really want to follow my drems.

Thank you so much for the prompt response;
I was between Logic or Ableton....any cons or pros?

Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Live has a great warp feature that works a bit better with retiming audio than I've found Logic to be able to. Live also lives up to its name and allows for lives performances where Logic isn't really setup to do that. However, Logic does come with a feature very similar to melodyne which is a great feature for fixing up vocals. I feel that, if you disregard Live's ability to be used in live performance, both Live and Logic deliver a somewhat similar package. I much prefer Logic and feel more at home with it but that's most likely because I've put over a thousand hours into it while I've probably used Live for about 10 or 15 hours at most.

It seems to me that the general consensus is that Logic is better with linear arrangement (although technically they are both quite capable of this, people seem to lean towards Logic on this one) and of course Live wins the live aspect. Ableton does have more support for plugins as it can load both VST and AU plugins (Logic can only use AU) but I've not found this to be a big problem in the long run.

One other thing you may consider is that Logic is $199 for its full (and only) version, while Ableton's full Live 9 Suite comes in at $749. Ableton does offer a free trial so that is an option if you'd like to try it out, sadly Logic does not, however I'm sure you could find some way to try out Logic as well before you choose which daw to go with.

Hope that helps you out a bit, feel free to ask questions. I'll do my best to answer, plus there's a lot of both Logic and Live users here on the forums who can probably chime in if needed.

Digital Audio Workstation is the only thing really 100% necessary to begin producing..

If you want to get serious about music production, and anyone who disagrees here I just don't see how you could, but you need good studio speakers.

Professional songs sound the way they do a lot in part due to really efficient EQing, compression, limiting, and so forth. If you can't hear a certain frequency (aka on your laptop's shitty speakers) then how are you going to shape those frequencies to fit your track? Yeah you could make a song without studio speakers, but honestly it won't be quality. When you listen to your music on a laptop vs studio speakers the difference is extremely noticeable.

When you first begin producing there's going to be a time frame where you don't need studio speakers, because you're simply just learning. Learn your DAW, learn your synth, take masterclasses on them to know how to control every parameter, study some reference track's song arrangements, transitions and FX.

Eventually then, probably once you have made your track's general arrangement, it would be wise (necessary) to work with EQ and the entire frequency spectrum, which is where you really do need good speakers (or headphones, but personally I don't ever use them).

Quote from: Kenny Troy on January 21, 2016, 05:01:18 pm

If you want to get serious about music production, and anyone who disagrees here I just don't see how you could, but you need good studio speakers.

Mmmmhhh. Sure, you'll need them if you get to the stage of doing your own mixdowns, but I feel like you could get away without them while you're learning the basics of composition and sound design. I don't have monitors these days (though I use a friend's from time to time), but I'm much more confident about the music I'm making now than I was the last time I used monitors regularly. I'm tempted to say that headphones could be better than a particularly bad, untreated room even with good monitors, but just my opinion.


I don't mean to say that studio monitors are unimportant, but I wouldn't discourage anyone from getting into producing if all they have to go on is headphones.

I definitely can agree with this - and a lot of music production comes down to personal preferences. But at some points higher quality gear will allow you to be more precise and build a better track. Ya know, like a builder making a home out of straw or bricks.

Digital Audio Workstation is the only thing really 100% necessary to begin producing..

When you first begin producing there's going to be a time frame where you don't need studio speakers, because you're simply just learning. Learn your DAW, learn your synth, take masterclasses on them to know how to control every parameter, study some reference track's song arrangements, transitions and FX.

Eventually then, probably once you have made your track's general arrangement, it would be wise (necessary) to work with EQ and the entire frequency spectrum, which is where you really do need good speakers (or headphones, but personally I don't ever use them).

Start small, with really not accurate gear.

If you find yourself serious about it, then come back and ask more specific questions about gear.

Other wise all you need is a computer for the most part.

The investment isn't that bad, but it just sucks to drop a few thousand on something you might not pursue for the rest of your life.

You just need a Laptop with a DAW.
After you've been using it for a few months and have got a bit comfortable with it.
I'd recommend that you get Headphones(I use Audio Technica) and a Midi Keyboard and if possible,studio monitors.

Hello everyone, just thought would be nice to do a follow up, so I went and bought Logic Pro X.
Honestly couldn't resist it was only 199.00 compared to Ableton it was a great deal, now the real question its; Where can a learn the basic any recommendations?

YouTube tutorials are the best way to start imo. If you want to pay a monthly subscription (they may have a free week trial) check out ADSR Courses. Amazing site.

https://www.youtube.com/user/SeamlessR

https://www.youtube.com/user/DigitalVideoFX

https://www.youtube.com/user/Z3NWorld