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Set-up advice for newbies
Right, my 18-year old son is now talking about wishing to set up music creation capabilities on his Win11 PC. Something that obviously brings a tear of joy to his fathers (that'd be me) eye.
He is completely new at music creation, and his mate has suggested FL Studio ($169 currently, apparently), whilst his other mate says "Ableton is the way to go". He asked me what I thought, and I have absolutely zero experience from FL Studio. I did use Ableton (Lite) on my iMac before I decided to purchase Logic Pro and that was that. The rest, for me, was all about creating on the iPad (surprise!). Therefore I feel I don't have a whole lot of advice to contribute to him.
When searching around I see the already mentioned ones. I also see BitWig, I see Reaper and I see Ardour. Obviously Cubase too. Also I could of course dream up scenarios with Serum, Falcon, Omnisphere, FabFilters etc, but I'm not so sure that is what I'd recommend to someone trying to figure out if they even like the creation process.
What would you say is a decently good DAW for PC these days, where he wouldn't have to spend all his money on instruments/plugs but still get "the most bang for the buck" so to say, and still set him up for a good work flow that he can grow in to?
What'd make the most sense to get in on, to see if he likes creating music on his PC at all?
Comments
Ableton is great, and if you have Koala already, then you probably have a basic Ableton license he can use. You can get him set up for 0 eurodollars.
One nice thing about Ableton is that there are a zillion great tutorials on YouTube.
Tbh most daws manage most things, so pick one you think he’ll like, and maybe that his friends are already using.
For ease of use and total power
Studio One
Reaper is free to use on an unlimited trial, pay $60 if you eventually want to buy it. Comes with very few VSTs but there are many, many excellent free VSTs as well as other free plugins. E.g., see this list: https://www.joehagenmusic.com/post/a-comprehensive-guide-to-high-quality-free-plugins-that-you-ll-actually-use
All the big-name DAWs are good. Still, I'd say Reaper is probably the most awesomely powerful, performant, and flexible DAW out there. Tons of resources online.
See, e.g, https://whyreaper.com/why-use-reaper/
Or Reaper's heavily trafficked forums at: https://forums.cockos.com/index.php
If I had an 18 year old son I'd get him started using something like Reaper, and set him loose to discover the world of free plugins. He'd learn a lot in the process, both about DAWs and music production, and also about saving money.
What sort of music does your son get into? This would influence my buying decision. I’m assuming that by the way his mates are going it’s probably going to be in the electronic direction. Ableton Live has a 90 day free trial period. Fl Studio has a 21 day free trial period. I’d just download these and have a play and see what gells for him. His mates are already using these DAWs so that should keep him vibing in the early “get to know your DAW” phase.
Back when I was your child’s age I pirated everything. But those were the wild west days of the internet. I went legit more than a decade ago, cause of my conscience, but still there’s a lot you can get from foss or similar, to get introduced to the basic concepts
I would add that it's not like open source software is only good for introduction to basic concepts. The open source synths like Vital, Surge XT, Cardinal, and others are powerhouses that rival the best commercial desktop synths and anything available on iOS.
Thanks for great insights and comments all. We'll start him off on Ableton Live Lite and take it from there (as I noticed I had a license for it from somewhere). He then has 2 weeks (roughly) to figure out if he likes it, and would like to stick with it, or if he wishes to go with his first question (FL Studio) which is on sale for another 2 weeks. I'm mostly trying to make him aware of that there are options and alternatives, to pretty much everything. It is good to get some of my points reinforced by you guys, so it isn't just me saying it.
Live lite is a great way to start!
Ableton (or any other major DAW) is an excellent choice. Don’t jump ship too soon though is my advice. Jumping from DAW to DAW just trying to find ”perfect” before you even know what you’re looking for is futile. Use what you have (he has) and start creating and you’ll (he’ll) soon figure out your (his) needs and wants!
Lycka till!
/DMfan🇸🇪
I’m gonna guess that means “good luck” 🤗
Spot on and welcome to the first class of Introductory Swedish by DMfan!😊
I should ofc have translated it afterwards, rude of me, sorry!
/DMfan🇸🇪
Let me introduce you to the known faculty for this semester: @Samu, @lasselu, @Pxlhg, @hellquist and myself. I am sure other not yet known faculty members will step in as vikarier (substitutes) if need be.
I've spent the past month or so really digging into Reaper (just because I sometimes need a 'challenge') and I'm actually liking it a lot to a point were I will very, very likely get a license just to get rid if the 'guilt' of using it for free...
It totally crushes Logic when it comes to actual daw-duties like audio-editing and has a lot of nice surprises under the hood when starting to dig deeper into automation scripts and stuff...
There is a bit of a 'learning curve' in Reaper but I bumped into Kenny Gioia and his amazing but slightly high-phased (which fits me well) videos that cover almost every aspect of Reaper (Some videos use an older version of Reaper but thankfully the terminology and UI hasn't changed that much so they are still easy to follow)
https://www.youtube.com/@REAPERMania
As with all DAWs the best way to learn Reaper is to focus on the 'task' that needs to be done and not how it is done in other DAWs. The terminology and keyboard shortcuts are a bit different but very logical once the whole thing 'clicks', starting to change keyboard shortcuts from day one will make it really hard to follow tutorials which is a mistake I made, so I reverted back to 'defaults' and only changed things like font-sizes and locations for docked items and some defaults for new projects etc.
On the iPad I'm primarily using LogicPro for iPad but I also enjoy using Cubasis and Drambo a LOT
Considering Reaper is free to download and use It's worth a shot!
(It doesn't many instruments like some other DAWs do but there's plenty of nice free stuff to download).
Start small and build out bigger. The decision to access a DAW also depents on what music he likes to make. If he's into beatmaking or sampling, The small version of ableton or maybe something serato might be useful. If he's into automation and building a DIY synth or digging synth fundamentals, Bitwig might be an option. Every DAW has his pro's and con's.
I guess this answer is late, but if you want a complete and fairly straightforward DAW, then FL Studio is fine. Especially since updates are free forever and it comes with a complete suite of instruments and effects. It has a really great piano roll too. It demands a lot of discipline though, because it gives you a lot of freedom to get messy.
Lots of tutorials online.
However, for generative music, definitely Bitwig. It lacks FL’s stemsplitter and built in scales for piano roll, and it has a yearly update cost (which you can always postpone until you like the value proposition), but the modulation options are truly amazing. You can even build full effects, instruments and midi processors in the grid. It has a more straightforward workflow than FL.
Bitwig is Ableton’s smarter sibling, but also a bit nerdier and thus not as popular with the “cool” kids.
Obviously that’s just scratching the surface, but Bitwig often gets overlooked, simply because of limited marketshare. Still, if you check youtubers who really know their stuff, a lot of them use Bitwig now. Also, marketshare is only part of the story, since unwillingness to change and “lag” plays a huge part. A DAW takes time to learn, and many stick with the first one they really get into.