How did you get started making Electronic Music

[djgizmo]

How did you start making electronic music?
What software/gear did you first acquire?
Were any of you DJ's that transitioned to producer?
What do you wish to accomplish with your time producing music?


I'll start...

A) Probably got started making electronic music after watching a lot of PC demos. Most had music made with a program called Scream Tracker - used 8bit PCM samples saved together in sequences in .mod and .s3m files and were quite small.
B) First software I acquired that was Cakewalk 2.0 for windows 3.1 - Used a sound blaster 16 and a yamaha DB50XG daughter card to make songs. The daughter card alone back then was $200
C) I wish I could say yes. I dj every once and an while, but compared to the talent on this board, my production skills are shameful. I wish I knew how you guys got not only your inspiration, but the talent to assemble everything together in a cohesive track
D) I'd like to progress enough where I could have my tunes played by local and regional djs and have some remix work under my belt.

[Acid Hazard]

Logical progression from DJing. Started that in 1993, bought a Korg PolySix in 1996, and a TR-626. Started there =o]

[seen-da-sizer]

Started building a Transcendent 2000 in the late 1970's. Recorded with a Revox B77 using ping-pong technique. Used my home stereo for monitoring: NO mixer, NO effects, NO outboard gear, NO sequencer, NO drum machine.

[timbreman]

I guess it was around 95 I purchased a Yamaha RY-20 to practice my bass guitar with. I ended up spending more time writing beats than playing bass. I actually wrote some really nice beats on that little thing. Then one day I tried saving a patch and it froze. I powered it down and then back up and everything I had written for the last year was gone! poof!

Sadly I didnt have anything that I recorded those beats with so all was lost. So I took this as a sign from higher powers that it was time to move on. Ironically the person I sold it to was this older man in his 70's who did volunteer work for a prison here in Texas. He wanted the drum machine to give to the inmates as something to pass the time in prison. I wonder if that little RY-20 is still, to this day, being played by inmates in prison. Or maybe it was just sold for cigarettes. lol

So then I moved on to an MC-303 which was very cool for the day but then when the JP8000 came out I did anything and everything I could to get it. Then in one of my biggest mistakes I later sold my JP for an MC505 thinking it would be better. WRONG! Luckily I later got a JP8080 which I still have to this day. Only thing I really miss was that cool ribbon controller on the 8000. There were many other synths and drum machines I also owned along the way. The red and blue electribes, the RY-30, AN200, AN1X, CS1X, and even a Quasimidi Polymorph.

Then the pinnacle for me was really when a friend got me into computers and showed me this program by sonic foundry called "acid". Seeing how easily everything was put together like paintbrushing a picture was a serious breakthrough for me. So now to this day I still have my JP8080 and now using Acid Pro 6 which is sadly now owned by Sony. It's a constant struggle of learning but it's worth it.

In the long run it would have been much easier to just have stuck with the bass playing only (which I do still play btw). But what fun would that have been?

I've got a friend who is a 3 time grammy winner for his bass playing and he is just now trying to learn Pro Tools and recording. I teach him and he teaches me. The hard part is there is SOO damn much to show him about eq, recording, vst's, envelopes, etc, etc.

Anyway that's my story and sorry for making it so long. Just chillin with not much to do right now and figured I would tell my tale.

[Milesy303]

Some music production program for the Amiga. A real crappy "eJay" type thing back in the early and mid 90s. I then got octamed and was tracking samples I got off the internet (this was about 95/96 when the web was still very rough and new.

I then actually got eJay when it came out - I was only 16 still in 1997. I Then got octamed for the PC and messed about with various things. I then got sonic foundry ACID and started making bootlegs.... daft things like Jennifer Lopez singing over Paul Van Dyk - For An Angel lol. I then got cubase 2 I think it was

[MarcB]

In 1985ish, I bought a Casio HT-3000 Synth(??) off a friend and linked it to my spectrum 48k via a midibox/sampler called RAM! the music box.

it had a whole 1.3 seconds of 8bit sampling , sounded dreadful but that was me hooked. The stuff I did back then probably sounded better than the shit I churn out now

[space2012]

i havent started

[GGreen]

Seen-Da-sizer ,


Crazy question but you dont happen to still have the manual/schematics for the transendant do you ?

Ive got one to and its got an issue but I no longer have the schmatics.

Do you have copies of or know of the where abouts of any?

Cheers

Gareth

[plaid_emu]

All the way from kindergarten through eighth grade I was friends with this girl whose father was a regional rep for Korg. Now he's the National Sales Rep for Kurzweil, Jeff Dunmire. He brought in all these synths and samplers and set them up in the class room to demonstrate their capabilities. This was probably around 1987 or 88' and that shit blew my mind as a little kid. He's a phenomenal keyboard player. I ended up moving into his neighborhood in 1990 and he'd let me play his M1 and Wavestation as much as I wanted while visiting with his daughter. I needed a real synth in the worst way.

Then I saw the Ensoniq TS-10 when I was a Freshman in high school. I loved the sound of the thing and it looked fairly user friendly. Would've been a BIG step up from the Yamaha PSR-150 I had at the time. Couldn't convince my mom to let me have all the money she made me save from birthday cards since I was little. It was all sitting in a savings account.

So by this time I'm like 15 and getting really serious. My neighbor the Kurzweil rep lends me his K2000 for a week. What a nice guy, huh? DAMN I had to have a K2000, but they were SO expensive. I was also looking at the Roland XP-50 because it was substantially cheaper and had the Techno and Vintage Synth Expansion cards available. I ended up going with the XP-50 and I'm still kicking myself in the ass for that decision to this day. That thing was NOT a good synth for beginners. The Interface was terrible and the manual was even worse.

So I slowly learn how to program/sequence this thing and eventually start playing DJ sets with it once I bought an SP-202. I regularly played in clubs for a few years and then did some smaller sized "raves" (or "parties" or whatever you wanna call 'em).

Then I eventually started messing around with creating music with modern synths/plug-ins and DAW software about 4 years ago. So many parameters and possibilities, I've been bogged down in technology hell. I haven't made a complete live set or played anywhere in a few of years now! But I sure have learned a lot about synthesis and recording!

[shadowfac]

Originally Posted by djgizmo

How did you start making electronic music?
What software/gear did you first acquire?
Were any of you DJ's that transitioned to producer?
What do you wish to accomplish with your time producing music?

I started making music (sort of) about 20 years ago with a Commodore 16, programming noise sequences in BASIC. Then I got an Atari 65XE and did the same - the Atari's Pokey chip could produce some crazy sounds.

A few years later, I was overdubbing tapes, using the tape recorder as a sampler. Me and some friends had fun making stupid songs with that approach. I also had a Casio SK-5, a Casio CA-100, a cheap OTTO DJ's mixer and a crap turntable, although I never DJ'ed ever.

Around 1995/1996, I also discovered PC demos, and fell in love with them. I started using FastTracker II and formed a demo group (called "Delabu Alama") with a couple friends. That's when I started taking music more seriously, although I never studied music formally.

In 1999 I started a master's degree with a scholarship, but since I was still living at my parents', I could blow most of my stipend in gear. First thing I bought was a Zoom RT-234 drum machine (which I sometimes miss) and then a Korg X5D. Since then, I haven't really been able to stop.

I got a pirate copy of old Cakewalk Professional 7 and started messing with it. When I decided I would continue making music for the rest of my life, Sonar 1.0 was already out and I bought a legit copy.

I'm not so sure what I want to accomplish with my music. First of all, it's something I have to do. I've always needed a hobby. When I was a kid, programming computers used to be my hobby, but now is my job, so I needed a new one. For that same reason, I don't think I want to do music professionally. I don't want any pressures when making music. Of course, I'd like to do some gigs and have lots of people listen to my stuff, and maybe even sell some albums, but fortunately, I don't have to worry about my record doing bad on the charts or stuff like that.

[alexp]

I started out making tape loops, as I couldnt afford a synth. I was listening to Skinny Puppy, Depeche Mode, as well as Kraftwerk, Yaz, Erasure, and I got the first vinyl of a little known band known as Pet Shop Boys. This was about 1985. I was 10.


I used to make all kinds of weird noises using found sounds, and structuring them into beats. I managed to scrape together a bunch of cash, and bought a Roland JX3P, which was a dream come true for me. My parents got me an Akai S612 for my 12th birthday which was absolutely amazing.

As for software, I got into it late. I got an Atari 512 around 1998, and Cubase software. Been a Cubase user ever since. Before that, I was using an Alesis MMT8.

Was never a DJ. I spin music sometimes at clubs, but I got into it after the fact.

I have accomplished what I didnt think I could. I have had 3 singles in the top 10 in Europe. Worked on a load of Television, film and video game stuff. Have a couple bands that help pay the bills. And I can live the life I want to live, which I felt was out of my reach.






alexP

[wax808]

When I was a young kid in the mid 80's my aunt was in a very successful cover band. They used to practice at my house. Their keyboard player had a DX-7 and other cool stuff and I was hooked. My mom went out and bought me a CZ-1000 which I still have. Then when I was 16 I worked all summer to get an Amiga500, and my mom bought me Bars & Pipes. I wish I would have used it more.

I left music for a long time. Now in my 30's I picked it up again. Did my first show a year ago, and now DJ sometimes for extra money. I started wanting to make hip-hop beats for a local artist who is really good. Now I am finding myself making stuff that is completely different than what I originally set out to do.


Music is a huge part of my life now. I play guitar and sing, I record weird shlt. I love it.

[keybdwizrd]

I started piano lessons in 1963.

In the early 70's my high school bought an EML-101 for the music department. I did an independent study course in electronic music for credit, composing a couple of pieces using just the EML and a 4-track tape deck.

I've been fiddling with synths ever since.

[seen-da-sizer]

Originally Posted by gfx

Crazy question but you dont happen to still have the manual/schematics for the transendant do you?

Many years ago I gave (as for free) away the Transcendent to a collector. I simply did not have any use for it at that time. Silly me! All the documentation and related electronic magazine articles describing the functions and build of kit have been included in that giveaway.

You may get some more information about the Transcendent 2000 from these enthusiast web sites:

Transcendent 2006 - About
Powertran Transcendent 2000 - cykong.com

[msl]

Was always into 80's synth stuff and ebm, new order, omd, kraftwerk, nitzer ebb, ministry, big time DM fan. Decided I wanted to make edm when I saw F242 play live in '88, I was 15 at the time, managed to blag my way in with a fake id! Used all my savings and bought an Ensoniq EPS two months later. Then set about recording everything in my house and sampling all my record collection! Just ran it though the home stereo and to cassette.

My dad had a mac at the time so I messed around with Alchemy and Sound Designer a fair amount.

Started to dj many years later 2000-2001, at private parties originally then later in clubs, did it for about 4-5 years, weekly residencies, etc, but don't really much anymore. I have a few good friends that are such savage dj's I just can't compete!

I'm happy enough progressing my production skills, working with other producers and vocalists. Playing out, esp the (good) private parties and raves. I still want to play more internationally, only done that a few times so far. Have a few things in the pipeline for 09, we'll see how it goes.

[Popbott]

When I was little, while visiting mty aunt's house, my parents used to yell at me when I played her piano. That made me want to play it more, but I never could. I asked for a keyboard on every birthday, but it never happened, they just wanted me to study all the time. Over time, on my younger sister's powered fan organ, I secretly learned the classic nursery rhyme songs and more.

When I was 10 or so, my older brother bought a Casio MT-40. He would let me use it if I would do his chores, like making up his bed in the morning and washing his car. If I didn't do it, or other favors, he would take it away. I eventually gained ownership somehow along the way.

When I was a little older, I sold my beloved comic book collection for $180 to some kid at school and when out and bought a Yamaha PSS-560 for $200. On our way home, holding it in the car, my Dad said it was a waste of money and made me feel stupid for buying it. But I didn't care, I loved it anyhow and played it all the time. I would make up songs and record them on a tape player, multi-tracking with two tape recorders and "Y" cables. My punhishment for not getting good grades was taking the keyboards away.

That started my keyboard synth buying/playing which continues to this day. I now have a room full of all the synthesizers I have ever wanted. Recently, my beloved comic book collection has slowly been repurchased, except for the Uncanny X-Men issues I am still working on!

[pyvnd]

I was really into techno and rave and house and stuff when I was younger. I loved it (still do, but things aren't the same). At the time, they way I participated in it was to become a DJ and spend lots of money on that equipment and loads of records. Half the records (probably much more than half actually) that I spent precious money on ended up not being very good 6 months after. I was ignorant to the whole production of it. I had no idea what to do or anything and in a way it never even entered my head that I could make it myself.

Now I'm older and most of my records have been given away. I keep two record boxes and one record bag full. And CDs of course. And it has continued into gear which I've been into for 6 years now. It's a continuous learning experience and I think sometimes I lose myself too much in tech and not enough in actually finishing tracks. But I'm trying. I'm not a pro but it's more than a hobby.

[GuneyOzsan]

I was using deluxe music in Amiga in 90's. I was about 13-14 nice memories

[Melodius Rex]

When I was 2 my grandmother bought a Hammond B-3 (seriously.) I guess it started there.

[cosmos]

the first time that i heard a psytrance track ... i think it was around 90' ?.. cant remember.. since then i got into making music (impulse tracker) then moved to cubase-logic-cubase worked for years .. i never was happy with the sound of VSTi so i bought an XT (my first synth), then i understand that byuing synth's in israel is very expensive (not mentioning external hardware..) and theres no way im going back to use VSTi so i moved to NY 3 days within my release from the army, 4.5 years later i got back home with my entier (US) studio..
now im here, very happy with what i got so far.
its Music time now..

[Konketsu]

I'll play.

I got my first synth in 1986, a Roland Juno 1 that I saved up for using the money that I made on my paper route. Started buggering around with MIDI around the same time, because I was in the school stage band and we had a Juno 2, DX21 and a blue SH101. I loved the SH sounds, but hated that it didn't have any patch storage or MIDI like the Juno 2. I detested the DX21, but mainly because I couldn't figure it out (I was 12) and the teacher knew **** all about synthesis of any kind.

Later on (1989? 1990?), I got exposed to Performer on a little Mac. all MIDI, no audio. A different school this time, and they had a Roland D-20 and some korg rackmount thing connected to the mac. I had my Juno 1 and a new DR550 mark one, and I made weird proto-techno writing sheet notation on Performer. My teachers thought I was insane; I was growing up in rural BC and was pretty isolated from the outside world, and was getting my musical education from my high school band teacher, my classical piano teacher, and the stoned hippy that was showing me how to improvise and play jazz standards. My electronic fascination with loops/pattern repetition seemingly came out of nowhere. Around the same time a friend of mine had traveled to Holland to visit his extended family and brought me back a mixtape of something called "house music".

Started doing Live PAs around 1996 or so with an MC-303, Juno 106 and Akai S950. Still have the Akai. I didn't learn how to DJ until around 1999 or 2000, and I don't really bother with it although I've taught a few people how to do it.

Not really sure if I'm trying to accomplish anything, I'm just doing music because it's the right thing for me to be doing; it feels wrong if I don't do music.

[seven]

When I was just a wee lad I found myself fascinated by non-standard sounds on recordings. This is a little embarrassing to admit but I bought the 45 of Gary Wright's Dream Weaver and listened to the bubbly synth intro about 1000 times (I didn't care for the song, I just liked the sound of the intro).

Then I got a copy of Switched-On Bach. Wow!

I had always been a musical sort. My family had a piano, one of those shopping mall organs (I wish I had the drum machine out of it today), and an old pump organ from the early 1900's. I didn't really take lessons, but I was always picking out little songs.

Fast forward to 8th grade, I was a budding punk rocker and there was a bunch of talk among my friends about starting bands - of course none of them knew how to play anything. It wasn't long before I was singing in a punk band fronting a bunch of guys who only knew 3 chords. My garage became the practice space because my father was the cool father.

So now I have a cheap PA and amps, acoustic drums, an a Radio Shack mic. I started by recording a single track to tape, playing the tape back through the PA, taking the out from the PA and feeding it back to another tape deck while I play the next part over it.

Around grade 9 my father bought me a Casio-something for birthday. This drastically changed the music I was working on. My acoustic drum tracks were replaced by the Casio. Around the same time I got a TI-99 computer and started programming music note sequences in whatever version of Basic the TI-99 used. The TI was pretty cool because you could program up to 3 notes playing at a time. This programming took hours because each note had a line entry which specified the frequency of the note, the duration and volume level. There was no copy/paste and it was all on volatile memory so after you get 30 or more lines of code entered it is wise to back up your song to data cassette.

The local music store found a supply of Moog Rouges and were blowing them out at, if I recall, $200 each. I convinced my father to loan me the $40-some dollars I was short and bought one. Shortly after I found a $100 bill on the ground and despite my friends pleas for a "kegger party" I bought the Yamaha MR-10 drum machine instead (I still have it today - I sold the Moog last year though).

So through the first part of High School I was a mohawked punk rock singer by day and a closet electronic musician by night.

I ended up meeting another kid who introduced me to experimental music - not long after we joined forces and created a band. I consider the work I did with this shaped how I think of writing and recording today. We spent a great deal of time doing interesting things to create interesting sounds. We played with tape loops, micing strange things and bashing it with hammers for a beat, playing back a recorded track into speakers that were altered or placed on a resonate thing (the furnace duct work provided really cool sounds) which we would mic and record. We'd climb the superstructure at Gasworks Park in Seattle at 3 am and record a rhythm track which would later be layered with synths and vocals.

I ended up buying an Atari ST, Edit Tracs software, and started getting MIDI keyboards. When it came time for someone like me to buy a cassette 4-track, I just jumped ahead and bought a Tascam 38 1/2 inch 8-track and a cheapo Fostex 16x4 mixing board (which wasn't a bad board really). I already knew I needed more tracks then my punk band what with all the solo recording and strange sounds.

Back then I wasn't traditional electronic as we think of it today, but most of the music was voiced by a synth, with drum machines doing 50% or more of the drum tracks.

[Johnny Wrong]

Went to my first Acid House party in a warehouse at 14 and had my mind blown.

I was on a mission from that point onwards, so I needed DJ gear.......................

I bet my mum she couldn't quit smoking for a year and if she smoked she had to buy me turntables and a mixer.
If she didn't smoke, I had to clean the bathroom every week for a year.

Came home early from school 3 months later, and caught her as she tried to stuff the ashtray into the microwave before I saw it

Got some club gigs over the next couple of years, met a few producers and learnt enough to start buying some bits and pieces.

Started off with a Roland R8, 707, Waldorf Microwave, Akai S3000 and a little A+H desk.

Honestly, I think some of the stuff I was doing back then was better than what I'm doing now even though now I have loads more gear.

[origin35]

How did you start making electronic music?

14 years old (around 1992-1993) started taking old school techno CDs imported from England and mashing them together on my Tascam cassette 4 track. Then realized that synths were cool, so got a Roland Juno Alpha.

Then moved to cubase when I realized that I couldnt actually use the Alpha unless I had a band, so I was in Cubase 3.1 for a while, then Cubase VST. (Holy crap, audio!) Around that time, my setup was a Mackie 1604, EMU ESI-4000, Yamaha CS1X, Akai S2000, and a computer with a M-Audio Delta-44. All of this was in my Mom's house.

I was a producer first, then tacked on a DJ career that did me just fine.

I've toured Europe, and played all over America. I think I did what I needed to. More to come tho. =)

woot.

-origin

[Strobian]

I was playing guitar and recording on a 4 track then, somewhere around 95-96. Heard some acid house, and attended some legendary events from Plastikman and others in the midwest. Started with a mackie mixer, Dat, MMT-8, DX100, Mc-303, Tr-626 and a 909.

[Milesy303]

Originally Posted by Johnny Wrong

Came home early from school 3 months later, and caught her as she tried to stuff the ashtray into the microwave before I saw it

Genius... I remember a similar thing when my mum had stopped smoking. Came down the stairs and she didn't know I was in.... she had pushed the ashtray under the couch... I came in and she was trying to act completely innocent mean while there was smoke blowing out from under the couch all out the sides lol

[piotr]

p.

[revstate]

we got a virus kb in late 2000 when we were 20. it was recommended to us by our friend ronan, our friend mads, and our friend todd. we used cubase and fruity loops at the start.

[kraku]

I started playing songs by ear when I was about 6-7 years old. I did this every time I visited my aunt; they had this really old organ from the 60s or so.

When I was 8 years old, I became interested in computer programming and one of the things I used computers for was programming music on them using BASIC programming language. I used MSX for this which my cousin had.

For three years I visited my aunt a couple of times a week, spending most of the time learning how to play different songs on organ (I never learned to read the notes). I also spend lots of time thinking about cool drum beats and kind of beatboxed them while I was alone (I still do this).

Then finally, in 1988, when I was 11 years old, my father bought me Yamaha PSR-36. I was playing it almost daily, copying all the synthesizer classics you might know, starting from Jarre and Vangelis... PSR-36 had two really cool features which I absolutely loved: you could write your own short drum patterns with it and you could tweak the sounds (FM synthesis, very limited sound editing options). It was nothing compared to the "real" synths I own now, but it was mind blowing to "almost create" your own sounds from scratch. So I spent lots of time tweaking the sounds and drum patterns to sound as close as possible to the songs I tried to copy.

Around 1988 I also started visiting a couple of my friends who had Amiga computers. I used Sound Tracker software to write MOD music on them.

Two years passed by and in 1990 I got Scream Tracker 2 on my computer. I spent lots of time writing music (both own and covers). This was the time when I finally started shifting into writing my own stuff more regularly than not. I usually recorded the songs I wrote on a regular home tape recorder.

Years passed and when I was in civil service, I bought my very first real synth: Korg Prophecy. I was blown away what it could do. I used it with Cakewalk. Then I bought Alesis DM5 and recorded samples from my hardware and made music with Fast Tracker 2.

Somewhere around 1998 or 1999 I bought Kurzweil K2000VP and that was the turning point after which I couldn't control my self anymore and I just had to spend all my money on buying gear

And no, I never DJ'd...

[grantlandau]

crakzzz. hahha jk.. sort of. no no. nm.

when I was 8 years old: allen organ w/ beats and pushbutton chords, me singing over top w/ a microcassette recorder. I was sold after that.