Electronic Music

[TerribleAssassin]

What kind of electronic music do you want to make, anyway?

What ever people want, intial ideas are Electro House, Drum and Bass and Dubstep.

I might be misinterpreting this, but if you're looking to write music for other people, I assume you're looking to get paid, at some point? I sorta feel like I should warn you this isn't a lucrative pursuit (for about 98% of all electronic musicians). Better, perhaps, to write what YOU want and if you can sell it, bonus.

But, whatever, that said, I assume you know what you're doing.

The genre's you're interested in working in tend to lend themselves well to "sample collage" styles of composition. While I would still advocate something like FL Studio or Reason as an ideal platform, depending on how far you want to take things you might also be comfortable getting your foot in the door using looped phrase samples in an environment like Sony's Acid or Apple's Garageband.

There is also REAPER, probably the best freeware workstation, similar to the two aforementioned products.

There are tons of free breakbeat and hip hop drum loops all over the internet. Grab a few, install Reaper (vst compatible) and you're sailing at $0. If you like it, save up and buy FL or Reason. Then some proper studio speakers.

Good luck!

Considering Christmas is fast approaching and I usually gain a relatively decent amount of money, the Fruity version of FL Studio 9 looks attractive. And I probably could use REAPER for extras. Speakers, I have some pretty decent Logitech ones that would come in handy until I can afford Studio speakers, and I know a drummer, so he should come in handy. And I'll try make music I like in the genre's and send it around my basshead freinds.

Thanks for advice!

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Well, I'm honestly more into listening to it than making it, but Mayhem did this song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opuyNAitBdE] using this [http://openmpt.org/] and something similar to this. [http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/musical-instruments/aa64/] I would assume that they would be good, although I've never used either of those...

 

[BENZOOKA]

Scream Tracker

 

[zen5887]

I couldn't recommend Reason 5 enough. Get a trial, watch some tutorials and you'll be fine.

 

[ActivatorX]

FL StudioI was considering this, does the demo allow you to save files? Because I'm not in pocket and if it doesn't I'll just use the Nero's sound editor with loops made from the old keyboard.

I've been using it since version 3, now 9, (one time price - lifetime updates, they've been excellent about honoring), so it's been awhile since I wrangled with the demo. As I recall it either A) disables saving / exporting altogether, or B) lets you save .flp project files, but doesn't let you export any audio?

I suppose it's probably worth saying that if you're interested in getting into writing electronic music, you WILL be spending money, just like with any other genre. Most products, including FL, like everyone's been touting, have one or two boxes in retail stores, but offer more flexible pricing : features solutions from their websites.

Again, KvRaudio - you'll find lots of freeware.

What kind of electronic music do you want to make, anyway?

What ever people want, intial ideas are Electro House, Drum and Bass and Dubstep.

If you ever plan on becoming a real DJ in pursuit of money/poon, you will have to concentrate on sub-genres that are more similar. Electro House is quite different to D&B and Dubstep.
The styles differ quite a bit, so you would have to be concentrating on three styles.
Not to mention that most people who are into Electronica aren't really happy with "multi-subgenre artists", so to speak.
Take for example Guetta & Tiësto. They both started out with Trance and their work was impressive. Now, they are pretty much Electro-House DJs who make shitty club music with 3 6 Mafia (Tiësto) and Fergie (Guetta).
They now serve to more "casual listeners" - teenagers who like boring club music.
This brought out a lot of hate all over the world for DJs like them.

That was kind of offtopic, but still. I had to share my opinion.
I would recommend FL Studio. There are tons of free sound packs, plugins and instruments available on the internet for FL Studio.
It's most likely the easiest software to use, with the biggest functionality.