Hacker News

Get started making music

2023-05-146:281176243learningmusic.ableton.com

In these lessons, you'll learn the basics of music making. No prior experience or equipment is required; you'll do everything right here in your browser. To get started, check out the boxes below.…

In these lessons, you'll learn the basics of music making. No prior experience or equipment is required; you'll do everything right here in your browser.

To get started, check out the boxes below. Each one contains a small piece of music. Click a box to turn it on or off.

Please use a browser that supports Web Audio such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge."}>

After playing with these boxes for a while, you'll discover certain combinations that you like. Many types of music are created in exactly this way — by mixing and matching small musical ideas to make interesting combinations, and then changing those combinations over time.

Now you've combined pre-made musical patterns. Next, you'll make some patterns of your own.


Read the original article

prhrb

Karma: 2128
...
 @Hacker__News
@hacker._news

Comments

  • By efields 2023-05-1520:299 reply

    I think this is a really good primer for electronic music production if you're going to start from absolutely zero.

    If you specifically want to program beats, I recommend this quirky book "Pocket Operations": https://shittyrecording.studio. It's basically guitar tabs for drum machines. Pick out some styles as a foundation and then build on top of it. Think of it as boilerplate code.

    Being a software dev by day, and a former musician in high school, the current world of digital music production tools is as incredible as it is overwhelming. It's good to have something that orients your practice and experimentation.

    • By filoleg 2023-05-1520:562 reply

      This is fantastic, thank you for sharing!

      Literally a no-fluff cheatsheet for drum patterns presented in the simplest to digest form possible, and without losing any important parts. Programming drum patterns has always been daunting to me, as it seemed like everyone just "knew" their patterns and how to play around them. Even though I knew that it wasn't the case, it was still difficult to approach. But with this boilerplate, it's like a massive blocker is just gone for me. And by going through even just a a portion of the patterns, I can easily see how one can acquire a sense for them and is able to come up with their own takes.

      • By dist-epoch 2023-05-1521:524 reply

        Or you could just try to reproduce the beats of your favorite songs. It will be incredibly difficult at first, but after some tens of hours you should be able to slowly program the simpler ones.

        Obviously you need some native beat tracking capabilities, it seems some people just lack this skill.

        https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.0077...

        • By agmand 2023-05-1522:062 reply

          There's a music teacher at NYU, Ethan Hein, that seems to be working on this exactly in the context of groove pedagogy. For example, he recently picked apart the amen break in a blog post [0] and tried to replicate it in ableton from scratch, methodically. He first lies out the basic pieces or the groove, then builds up the groove adding and removing elements, gradually complexifying it.

          As someone who has trouble with drum patterns as well I really liked the idea.

          [0] https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2023/building-the-amen-break/

          • By notmypenguin 2023-05-168:472 reply

            Might I suggest simply playing with a basic drumset in real life for a few hours? A kick snare and hihat are the principal components needed. I contend that you will organically discover a kind of conversational dialogue between the kick and snare that known beats are a result of. It’s something that will inform your drum programming immensely, even if you never pick up drum sticks again

            • By vlachen 2023-05-1611:153 reply

              This pings on something I've been wishing for locally: I would like there to be a music shop that has a short time studio rental (30min to an hour) where you can access a trap set (specifically for me) or other piece of gear, already setup with headphones and monitors, such that you could just go in an play for a while, without an investment. A place to just jam for a little bit and explore, able to be separated such that any awkwardness or shyness can be reduced. Maybe this is a common thing and I just don't know how to ask for it.

              • By soperj 2023-05-1616:321 reply

                You can go into pretty well any music store and play the drums there for as long as you want. Even electronic ones with headphones on. I used to work in one, and there was a guy who would come in on his lunch hour everyday and just play. Honestly don't even know if he owned a drum kit at home.

                • By vlachen 2023-05-1618:521 reply

                  In my head, which is based on decades old experience and the occasional stop by a music store, what I'd be wailing on is demo kit, out on the main floor. To me, that's different from getting a small, private soundproof-ish room where I can pop a few songs onto the headphones and hit it.

                  I don't want to be a drummer and I'm not interested in performing publicly. I just want to rock out and suck as hard as I can, without feeling the social awkwardness of being out in the middle of the store.

                  • By soperj 2023-05-1620:27

                    I guess I've never been to a music store that has the drums on the main floor. Nearly all the main sections are dedicated to guitars because that's what sells. I've even been to some where the drums are on a different floor. Personally, as a computer programmer, I've embraced social awkwardness as a core part of my being though, so being terrible at drums in front of bunch of people I don't know would be right up my alley haha.

              • By freedomben 2023-05-1616:192 reply

                What would a reasonable fee/rate be like for such a thing? It's an interesting idea but I'm considering the economics of it.

                • By vlachen 2023-05-1618:57

                  I don't have the information to say. I would say that the kit doesn't have to be top of the line gear. The fee would need to cover wear and tear (and maybe a deposit or kicker if someone gets a little overzealous,) hourly rate of whomever is maintaining the setup, plus some margin.

                  What I'd be willing to pay is something on the order of up to $50 for a session. I think the sweet spot would be $30-$40 for something like 20 to 30 minutes.

                • By gtani 2023-05-1722:54

                  There's probably rehearsal studios in the burbs with a minimal drum kit and minimal backline for $25/hour, in San Francisco i remember i being at least 3x that but really worth the money. Part of the experience is going into a dungeon like environment, inhaling huge amounts of smoke and wondering if you'll survive.

              • By acomjean 2023-05-1617:241 reply

                thats a pretty good idea. I went to a university that had a music department and practice rooms. (Keep people from playing in the dorms). They were pretty soundproof rooms, and many had a piano. I used to walk around and sometimes duck into an empty room and play the pianos (not a music major..) I'm not great but it was a fun break from studying.

                • By vlachen 2023-05-1618:53

                  That's what I'm thinking. Just a small room, soundproof. Cost for entry covers upkeep plus some margin. Hook your phone into the monitor or headphones and go to town.

            • By gtani 2023-05-1722:50

              this is a really great idea. I never played a kit until after 15 years of involuntary music lessons as a kid, including a stint in high school percussion section. Just having high hat, snare and kick is like magic.

              At least i hope it's magic for somebody, playing clarinet or pedal steel for me is magic, whereas playing my best instruments, piano, guitar, flute, not really magic.

          • By completelylegit 2023-05-163:471 reply

            Look for the Ableton live realtime “reproducing prodigy’s fire starter in ableton”, it’s really a wonderful example. You’ll appreciate it.

            • By dpflan 2023-05-167:26

              Wow, thank you!

        • By murphm8 2023-05-1522:12

          For anyone who is interested in structured learning around the idea of listening and reproducing, I suggest Audible Genius Building Blocks[1].

          [1] https://www.audiblegenius.com/buildingblocks

        • By efields 2023-05-1613:18

          > Or you could just try to reproduce the beats of your favorite songs.

          Depends! I went into hobbyist music production a few months ago probably bc I saw a cool midi controller that my kids might find interesting. Fast forward a few months and I've bought and sold a few $100s of gear and now I have these great immersive music making sessions with just a Korg Volca Beats and a MicroFreak.

          I'll save you all hours of YouTube synth hype bois by stating that the MicroFreak is hands down the best way to learn synthesizers. It packs SO MUCH into a small, tactile form factor. The manual is actually a fun read and explains each and every parameter in an engaging way. It is a masterclass in approachable documentation for a complex subject, (and was probably translated from French, since Arturia is a French company).

        • By completelylegit 2023-05-163:44

          For what it’s worth there is a builtin feature(s) with Ableton where you can:

          * Convert audio clip to MIDI drum track

          * Convert audio clip to MIDI melody

          * Convert audio clip to MIDI harmony

          None of them work exceptionally well but they get they get enough done that they’re useful for a first pass approximation in many situations.

      • By chaosprint 2023-05-165:46

        Have you tried to use the code to make drum/note patterns:

        https://glicol.org/tour#sequencer

        I am open to all feedbacks!

    • By smcnally 2023-05-162:121 reply

      Thank you for reminding about Paul Wenzel’s music stuff. Building atop boilerplate is also good to remember and do.

      > and a former musician in high school

      s/former/recovering

    • By flaviuspopan 2023-05-172:531 reply

      You have no idea how unfathomably timely this discovery was. Truly unreal. I've scoured the internet for a while trying to collect every dataset known to humanity about beat programming in this exact sense. Thank you.

    • By albert_e 2023-05-163:502 reply

      excellent

      is there a simple / Lightweight software tool that will let kids get into drums and music..using this book as a starter?

    • By zoklet-enjoyer 2023-05-162:53

      I just bought that book a couple months ago. It's really cool for punching in drum beats real quick

    • By dcist 2023-05-161:151 reply

      This is great! Thanks for sharing. If you have any more recommendations like this, I’m all ears.

      • By efields 2023-05-1616:47

        It’s the only thing I’ve found/needed. Just like any instrument, drums/drum machines can be pitched, respond to velocity, and are affected by sounds played around them. Understanding where your sounds fall in the EQ spectrum is huge. Don’t sleep on amplification, saturation, and EQ.

    • By gtani 2023-05-1723:00

      and anybody that wants to go serious/pro, there's Snoman's Dance Music Manual, 4th edition but earlier editions shd still be useful.

    • By 867-5309 2023-05-168:46

      this book needs to be turned into an interactive website

    • By poisonarena 2023-05-1523:431 reply

      > recommend this quirky book "Pocket >Operations"

      edit: oops

      • By darkvertex 2023-05-1523:48

        Uhhh... Did you read the site? That book is a free PDF.

  • By munificent 2023-05-1522:203 reply

    I love love love Ableton Live. It's possibly my favorite piece of software today.

    If you're a software engineer interested in UX, I think Live will fit your brain like a hand in glove. It reminds me very much of emacs or vi where the app is designed to disappear from view and let you focus on your content.

    Also, it's incredibly programmable and generative at many many different levels:

    * Session view lets you build arrangements on the fly in realtime.

    * Follow actions on clips let you automatically build sequences of clips, loop, them, randomly chain them, etc. It's like control flow for clips.

    * The various built-in synths and effects support all sorts of dynamic modulation to make timbres evolve on their own.

    * Then, of course, there is Max4Live, a full-fledged visual programming environment integrated deeply into the app.

    You, of course, can ignore all that stuff and just make completed fixed tracks. But if you're interested in the live aspects of Live, then the software really feels like a substrate that you can use to build your own bespoke instrument for playing your music in real time.

    I love it so much.

    • By FractalHQ 2023-05-1523:263 reply

      I agree, and with over 15 years of experience with Live and a fruitful music career thanks to it, I have a deep respect for it. It’s hard to use anything else because of how many small, seemingly insignificant workflow features it has which add up quick in a session.

      _But_ - man is it far behind the modern DAWS like Studio One and Bitwig in the low-level fundamentals like plug-in isolation, multithreading, and flexibility in terms of your ability to offload frozen tracks from RAM. This puts a bottleneck on the max size of a session before it becomes unstable and unusable. Even with 32GB RAM and a top-shelf CPU, my ability to finish a song grinds to a halt around the 100 track range. My songs can have 150 tracks with 1-20 plugins and 1-30 automation lanes per track by the time they are finished, and the number of hours I’ve lost from crashing or just waiting for it to respond could easily add up to months at this point.

      And small things like the inability to know if a plug-in is the VST2 or VST3 version have been driving me nuts for over a decade.

      My music is absurdly abnormal in terms of complexity though, and the vast majority of people will never encounter these problems. I worry, however, that the glacial pace of development likely due to the prehistoric tech stack at Ableton will prevent it from ever closing the growing gap made by the increasingly valuable feature sets of modern DAWs have been able to push out quickly and consistently.

      Either way, Ableton Live is a great demonstration of the incredibly fine nuance involved in a good UX. They got a lot of little things right, and that alone has been the largest contributor to their success in the industry.

      • By flxy 2023-05-162:19

        As a hobbyist musician even I notice Live's flaws. And while it does indeed get out of your way most of the time, when it doesn't you can't change it and it becomes frustrating. While other larger players in the industry are farther ahead, just how far behind Live really is becomes especially apparent when you look at Reaper. They're fundamentally different in their approaches, yes. But Reaper's pace for adding new features and how up-to-date they are in terms of the changing landscape of the industry (CLAP plugins, ARA2 support, etc.) is impressive considering their small team. But Ableton's focus with Live seems to be more towards adding content rather than features or large overhauls. At least that's my impression.

        I genuinely love Live's workflow. It feels the most natural to me. But the ever growing list of annoyances and shortcomings make me look into other DAWs fairly frequently. Though sadly no other one has really stuck with me so far.

      • By enqk 2023-05-165:21

        There was a defect in Live’s implementation of VST3’s UI that lead to poor UI performance (lag) that got fixed in the upcoming 11.3, it’s in beta test right now.

        It most affected users with hundred of tracks and VSTs in most of them. No impact on VST2.

      • By honkycat 2023-05-1523:452 reply

        What I want to see from Bitwig is better integration with daw controllers.

        I'm addicted to my ableton push... i can't move over just because of that.

        I've tried the driven by moss stuff and it works great but eh... just not quite as good overall.

        • By SSLy 2023-05-1617:16

          They just released native support for those:

          Controller script added for Novation Launchpad Pro MK3 Controller script added for Novation Launchpad X (via reassigning the Rec Button) Controller script added for Novation Launchpad Mini MK3 (via the special 4th row buttons) Controller script added for Akai APC Mini MK2 Controller script added for Akai APC Key25 MK2 Controller script updated for Novation Launchpad Pro (MK1)

        • By lmpdev 2023-05-161:432 reply

          Wouldn't the onus be on the controller manufacturers to ensure compatibility?

          • By prmoustache 2023-05-1610:161 reply

            Push is made by Ableton. I am not sure they are willing to help a company build by some of their ex developer who left them to build a new DAW with possibly stolen code and at least many ideas that were discussed internally.

            Despite the headquarters proximity, I think they are not the best friends.

            • By easyThrowaway 2023-05-1613:213 reply

              Not so sure about the "stolen" part. Bitwig code has a completely different code base (Java backend with UI written using Juce), and the sentiment at the time was that a few devs were frustrated by Ableton management rejecting several proposals that ultimately were implemented in Bitwig.

              Also the multitake tracks UI that was implemented in Live 11 is basically a (slightly improved) copy of the same feature on Bitwig.

              • By earthnail 2023-05-1613:51

                The stolen part mostly relates around the sales and distribution network, less around the code. Basically the sales equivalent of IP theft, and a really huge douche move by their CEO. Makes him very unsympathetic to me. Not as bad as Behringer but close.

              • By enqk 2023-05-1614:51

                I think it's the other way around, the Bitwig UI is what appears to be coded in Java.

          • By honkycat 2023-05-161:51

            Bitwig is extremely niche. Waiting around for controller manufacturers to implement isn't going to happen.

    • By cageface 2023-05-161:043 reply

      Ableton is great but these days I prefer Bitwig. It does most of what live does but lets you do more modular stuff without the massive context switch into Max.

      • By nassimm 2023-05-168:00

        I've used Ableton for about 12 years before making the switch to bitwig, it's the best thing I've ever done.

        There are very, very few Ableton features that I miss. The only thing I can think of is the automations rescaling I wish Bitwig would implement, otherwise it's vastly superior to Ableton in any other way. Especially the bounce/audio editing workflow, this thing makes me 2 to 3 times faster than when using Ableton (no hyperbole)

      • By easyThrowaway 2023-05-1613:38

        It's also massively cheaper. For a lot of the things available on stock Bitwig (~399$, often discounted at 249$) you need Live Suite + Max 4 Live + Cycling Max MSP, the asking price is no less than 1300$.

        Live main selling point right compared to Bitwig now is ubiquity, basically. You can expect to go into any recording studio, anywhere, and find a Live desk available.

      • By winternett 2023-05-165:08

        I use Acid Pro 10... I think it allows me to have a more original sound to be honest. At this point I've found that tools are leveling off in terms of capability and now it's more a matter of what a producer knows how to manipulate best. There are nuances like how audio clips and knowing how built in efx work that make transitioning to a new DAW painful until you catch up, the deep learning curve is steep for advanced production... Rather than switching, I already know how my current DAW works, and it works, so there's no need to change right now.

    • By anthonypz 2023-05-161:564 reply

      I've always been curious about synths and how they are programmed. I'm a JS dev learning Rust and was having ideas about building my own synth. Is Max4Live a good choice for building audio plugins in 2023? Also, is Rust a viable option for creating VST plugins?

      • By tumult 2023-05-166:002 reply

        I don't think Max4Live is not a good choice for building audio plugins. It's a weird platform that was designed for 'institutionalized academic music,' as I once read someone describe it. It's difficult to program in and not efficient. None of my favorite music software is made with it. It's also quite buggy, in my experience. For doing some basic extensions to Ableton Live specifically, beyond what VST allows access to, it's OK, since it's the only official way to do so.

        If you want to just dive into DSP using wires and boxes, with some additional code sprinkled in, SynthEdit or Reaktor Core are faster, more fun, and produce better results. If you don't mind C++, check out iPlug from REAPER's WDL codebase: https://www.cockos.com/wdl/ — there are some forks of it.

        There's also JUCE. You'll find some people complain about it and some people regret using it, despite it being relatively popular.

        There are some Rust things for doing VST (and AU) development. Here's one that I've seen a few things made with: https://github.com/robbert-vdh/nih-plug/tree/master I wouldn't worry too much about the differences between C++ and Rust in this world. Audio software tends to be buggy, so the bar for being considered 'good enough' is pretty low.

        • By tumult 2023-05-1613:39

          Can’t edit this comment now, but the opening sentence has a typo. It should say, “I don’t think Max4Live is a good choice for building audio plugins.”

        • By laratied 2023-05-174:18

          I have hated Max/MSP for at least the last 15 years. Designed for 'institutionalized academic music' made me chuckle.

          Autechre's Confield album is what it is good at doing. There is nothing more to do with the software after that album.

      • By easyThrowaway 2023-05-1613:44

        Max and M4L have a very specific jargon and tech legacy that makes them quite different compared to regular VSTs (not better nor worse, just different). Reaktor gets closer in terms of performance and limitations to regular VST development compared to Max, while still using a visual programming approach.

      • By pottering 2023-05-171:191 reply

        Max MSP has a lot of Javascript stuff, your JS experience will be very useful with Max For Live.

        • By tumult 2023-05-1717:53

          Handling/touching/processing MIDI events with JavaScript in Max will mess up the timing due to how Max handles scheduling — it will defer the event to a lower priority thread — so I don't recommend doing that. You can safely use JS for GUI code and using Ableton's API to manipulate the session and UI, though.

  • By javajosh 2023-05-1520:556 reply

    I like Ableton, but the better way to get started making music is with your voice, singing with songs that you like. Sing the melody, and also the bass and harmony parts. If you have a phone you can use the voice memo app to do two-part stuff. If you want to move up to an instrument, my favorite is the melodica, a breath-operated keyboard that is very cheap (~ $20), sounds great, and teaches the notes of a piano, and requires no electrical power to operate. In fact for some things I think the melodica is better than a piano, since in some ways it's closer to an organ with the ability to maintain and vary the sound over time.

    • By anthonypz 2023-05-161:07

      That's a funny instrument! I'm definitely getting one of these since I'm a terrible singer but I always have a tune in my head that I need to hum out loud.

      A few ios app recommendations I'd like to make are:

      - Rassel (a free and absurdly accurate pocket shaker app) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rassel-pocket-shaker/id1575364...

      - Ableton Note (Best 6 dollars I ever spent. It's a really fun way to experiment with musical ideas on the go. You can even record vocals and add effects.) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ableton-note/id1633243177

    • By Cthulhu_ 2023-05-167:53

      Alternatively / my personal preference and hot tip: Start with rhythm. Get a practice pad and some drum sticks and a free metronome app or website and try doing single, double, quarter and triple notes (I'm naming triples later because they're an odd number and as a first-time drummer they did me a bamboozle at the time).

      Then there's some exercises you can do with just paper and pens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eqLmkWOU6A

      A really versatile, affordable and fairly compact percussion instrument you can start off with as well is the Bodhrán; you can make some really great beats with it, see e.g. the opening scene of the film The Magdalene Sisters, just bodhrán and singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxXFs8EL35o. Here's another version of the same song where the artist plays it with just his hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mjWhMn-VnU

    • By asdfman123 2023-05-1521:511 reply

      Yeah, I wasted years sorta playing guitar and sorta fucking around with the computer.

      I knew how to practice effectively from my years in band, but I didn't use them because I was too busy rejecting who I was in high school.

      Now I'm learning piano and I've joined a choir, and I'm actually getting better at things instead of being a perpetually mediocre guitarist/singer.

      • By askafriend 2023-05-1521:531 reply

        It sounds like you just didn't like playing guitar?

        I much prefer playing guitar to piano or a choir.

        • By asdfman123 2023-05-1522:032 reply

          That was probably it too. I'm more wired for classical music, but I had to try to look cool in my 20s.

          I had discovered that music was one of my few interests that I could actually trade for social credit.

          • By herewulf 2023-05-165:58

            What about classical guitar? I.e: Nylon stringed, Spanish guitar. I've played Beethoven and Bach pieces on one. Granted one can do that on an electric or steel string, but something about the timbre lends classical guitar to classical music. Plus it's the only style of guitar which really sees regular classical concert performance.

          • By askafriend 2023-05-162:211 reply

            I guess guitar is much less of a statement these days (being in a band is no longer the coolest thing to do) so the social pressure bit feels less relatable to me. I did catch the tail end of that era though so I know what you're talking about.

            • By asdfman123 2023-05-163:47

              I never wanted to be a guitar god but I loved indie rock in the mid aughts.

    • By musicam 2023-05-1522:14

      I do similar to this, recording to a voice notes app, but then importing the clip into my DAW, which quite helpfully visualizes an approximation of the pitch I was singing at, and using this as a template to build instrumental parts upon. Usually my vocal tracks aren't in the final mix, once I've replaced them.

    • By courseofaction 2023-05-1521:27

      Good advice - no matter what you play, whether you produce electronically or acoustically, singing will help you internalize music, ready to be transferred to any sound-making object.

    • By syntheweave 2023-05-163:101 reply

      You can also go the route of dispensing with phones and learn to transcribe solfege into a notebook. This is something I just started exploring and while it does take practice to gain the ear to transcribe things, you can start by learning to write down children's songs like Baby Shark(do re fa fa fa fa-fa fa-fa)and gradually work up to pop melodies - and once you do that, songwriting becomes a very natural process. All the precision stuff, you can work out in the DAW once you have a general indication of melody and rhythm.

      • By motogpjimbo 2023-05-1714:36

        I think the solfege for Baby Shark would actually start with sol la do, or in the key of C, G A C. Because the phrase eventually ends by dropping down one semitone on the final "shark", which would end up being F# (Fi!) if you started at the root of the scale. The initial movement from G to C, or sol to do in solfege, is very common and something you spot everywhere once you're aware of it.

HackerNews

About