9 year old kid: what HW or SW to buy him to make music?

[2tan]

How about the Waldorf Blofeld?
U give him a simple midi keyboard and hook him up with a simple daw and he can have fun for hours..

[pyvnd]

Where did the guy go?

[Stiff]

Originally Posted by shadowfac

TMy first "instrument" was a Commodore 16 that I used to make rhythmic noise sequences in BASIC.

I like you

[tysonviolin]

+1 on a synth. Get him a used Juno6 so he can understand synthesis basics.

[msl]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Reason, I think it's a great, easy to learn starting point. All the patching and routing that you can do between synths and the mixer will give him a good idea for hardware and synthesis later. He can then step up to a full blown DAW easier. Otherwise I guess I would agree with the combination of an Electribe and GarageBand maybe.

[muziekschuur]

How about taking him to a bandpractice and asking him afterwards what he'd considder fun?

Usually kids themselves say what they'd like.


Muziekschuur

[Digital Send]

Garageband or Magix Music Maker

[complex]

Originally Posted by ignatius

a roland SH-101 or some kind of simple synth with lot's of knobs buttons and sliders but no menu..

or maybe one of those roland handsonic hand drum things. good for a kid to beat on

agreed or a really simple soft synth like massive

[muziekschuur]

Roland Interactive Tour Index


There are many instruments out there. Violin, flute, drums, bass guitar paukes harp, contrabass etc etc.

Just show him the above link and use that presentation to see how he reacts on it. Roland has great tools for starters. So has Korg. And it's all there in nice presentations. You can even use Youtube.

It would be a shame if you went out and spent a lot of money to see it trashed or tucked away somewhere because the kid has no interest in it.

Muziekschuur

[Beermaster]

Tie the best of both worlds up - Go with Garage Band as a great starting point in being able to record and produce tracks ( one of the UKs most popular TV shows was scored entirely with Garage Band ! ! ) -

But:

LEARN A REAL INSTRUMENT ! and as keyboards are the standard input for most DAWs and systems - Learn to play the Piano. At his age it will pay dividends in the future if he actually starts to learn about MUSIC. Toys and Reason and Synths are fun to mess with and great to use as tools but If you don't really understand music you're very quickly going to be stuck in a dead end. Open his mind to what is possible and exciting to undertstand - Get some Formal Music Lessons.

Beer

[kraku]

Originally Posted by pyvnd

Where did the guy go?

Who? Me? Right here, reading what people are suggesting

Keep'em coming. Very good suggestions

[peteblues]

another vote for piano (or maybe guitar). If he learns the basics of an instrument (or even beyond that), it'll get him ahead.
In addition, you can have him mess around on the computer with cheap software or freeware and a midi keyboard. Just tell him to practice the piano 1/2 hour each day first, then he can get on the computer.
He'll thank you later for the 'basic training'

[Stevil]

sh-201 & a pair of headphones. kids love to twiddle the knobs on programmable synths.

[wax808]

I have both a Kaossilator and the DS-10 for the Game Boy.


The DS10 is a great way for someone to be able to learn step sequencing and synthesis. It's pretty impressive for how much it costs. The sound quality is not there, but the portability just might be what the young man needs in order to harness his creativity.

The Kaossilator is a different beast altogether. The sound quality IS there. But he wont be able to save his music without a recorder, but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

Then again the Kaossilator is a whole lot of instant gratification and not a ton of substance. It might be counterproductive.


The Korg DS-10 is such a killer little unit. It seems perfect to me to teach the basics of step sequencing, track mutes, etc. And it's only 40 bucks.

[kraku]

I've read the thread through a couple of times and I've got a vague idea what sort of direction I want to take with this issue of finding the perfect startup setup for my nephew. First I want to share more information about this thing:

The kid already has some lousy uninspiring home keyboard (MIDI/GM2 capable) which doesn't have interesting knobs on it which would give you instant feedback/gratification when you do something with them. This is probably why he's not playing that keyboard, and I can't blame him: I wouldn't be interested in that particular keyboard either. But the kid was quite interested in my Korg EMX-1 since it was really easy to come up with drum pattens and change the drum sounds.

I'm starting to look into the possibility of buying him some kind of groovebox and combine it with that uninspiring keyboard of his. Together they could work miracles. The groovebox would be the inspiring gadget which could create the backgrounds for his songs and the keyboard would add into it (possible melodies, or maybe a source for sampled sounds if the groovebox can sample stuff).

His dad already has several computers, including a mac which might have GarageBand installed (if I'm lucky). If the kid could create rhythms/basslines/melodies one track at a time and record them into GarageBand, it would be a very hands-on experience for him.

Here are some (hopefully) inspiring grooveboxes which might work for him:

Korg ES-1:
+ you can input notes in it with the keyboard
+ should be quite simple to learn to use
+ could sample drum and instrument sounds from his home keyboard
+ lots of fun with a microphone
- doesn't have any preset sounds, so you need extra work each time you start it up (sample stuff before you play)

Korg EM-1:
+ you can input notes in it with the keyboard
+ has drums
+ has simple VA sounds
- possibly a bit harder to learn to use since isn't concentrated on one thing only

Yamaha AN-200:
+ you can input notes in it with the keyboard (?)
+ has drums
+ has VA sounds
- I've no experience what-so-ever with Yamaha groove boxes so I don't really know if this is easy to learn or not

Roland SH-32:
+ you can input notes in it with the keyboard (?)
+ has drums
+ has VA sounds
- I've no experience what-so-ever with Roland groove boxes so I don't really know if this is easy to learn or not


Maybe one of the above or some other groovebox/drummachine/something plus the home keyboard could inspire him to learn to play the most simple parts straight into GarageBand with his keyboard. This would be the start to learning how to play an instrument

Any other ideas what could I combine with his home keyboard and GarageBand? He needs some gadget which inspires him to try out lots of different and interesting musical things.

[ignatius]

Originally Posted by complex

agreed or a really simple soft synth like massive

simple?

for a 9 yr old?

i wouldn't go the software route. i'd go for hardware. there's lot's of great ideas in this thread.

[Johnny Wrong]

I'm suprised no one has suggested one of these:

See it in action @ 2:40

[sleepwalker]

Alesis OASYS 88 - Perfect for young children, especially if you're not sure the hobby will stick.

[Swami Digital]

Originally Posted by bleepbleep

Tenori-ON

That would be my choice to give.

[Brian!]

If you're set on hardware, instead of asking us, it might be a lot more productive to take the kid to a music store and give him a chance to play around with stuff there to see what he likes. Kids are fickle and what we think might be a good instrument could possibly be completely wrong.

[shadowfac]

Originally Posted by sleepwalker

Alesis OASYS 88

Alesis OASYS?

[Beermaster]

Originally Posted by Swami Digital

That would be my choice to give.

Tenori-on ?

Complete waste of time and an expensive mistake. A toy not a learning aid.

[TheBoss]

Originally Posted by Beermaster

A second hand upright piano !

Getting kid involved at age 9 in technical would not be smart thing to do...upright piano best choice for the kid. He will have plenty of time to write music once he knows what music is. Giving him software to write music at the moment is like giving child book to read only he/she sees shape of square calling it circle. Or kid can read APPLE but its not because he is reading it its because he understands that what the word apple looks like. Once he is a bit grown he will know difference between square and circle comes as second nature. Worse thing you can do for his creativity is giving him software.

[Beermaster]

Originally Posted by kraku

Maybe one of the above or some other groovebox/drummachine/something plus the home keyboard could inspire him to learn to play the most simple parts straight into GarageBand with his keyboard. This would be the start to learning how to play an instrument

Nope. I think it would do what it always does when people buy kids these sort of things without seeing the bigger picture: For a while he'll like the preset rhythms and patterns then after a while he'll get frustrated and bored because he won't have learned how to make it up himself nor how to play. Seen it happen many times before. I even have a friend who to this very day in his late 30's has been a 'song writer' since being a kid and still doesn't know one chord from another, who takes weeks and weeks to get his keyboard parts working because he doesn't understand the basics and is only able to get his material together by trial and error ( and a big host of Loops - arpeggiators preset sequences )

Learn the alphabet then you can form sentences.

Originally Posted by kraku

Any other ideas what could I combine with his home keyboard and GarageBand? He needs some gadget which inspires him to try out lots of different and interesting musical things.

A teacher who can show him and guide him ( armed with a MIDI lead to connect the existing keyboard to Garage Band )

Its not about the tools its about the knowledge

Beer

[hogberto]

Originally Posted by shadowfac

Alesis OASYS?

pedant.

[msl]

I think the most important point made so far is to see what his natural inclination is, and then go with that. Yeah take him to a big music store and see what he like the most. I'm not against the hardware route, something with a built in sequencer, a groovebox like an Electribe. Mind you I never could get my head around my partners ESX1.

But I think you all might be seriously underestimating the kids these days. Most are totally computer literate, even more so than some of us. A "closed" system like Reason would be fine. I think for a 9 year old that multi-tracking into GB and dealing with midi and latencies and such would be much harder. I really like the Korg DS10 option also, cheep and simple, and I bet the kid already has a DS lying around.

[lhm1138]

Yamaha DJX.

People laugh at this thing, but I would've killed for something like that as a kid.

[shadowfac]

Originally Posted by hogberto

pedant.

No, I just thought it was some kind of joke I didn't get.

[soultrane]

for young students, i think the best program out there is reason.

its the most visual of programs. its self contained. and nothing could be easier than programming your beats on the redrum and bringing in parts via the dr. rex.

i haven't played around too much w. garage band, but garage band means u have to have a mac.

u can pick up a suitable pc and an older version of reason for about $250 bucks.

i gave reason to one of my students (he was 12) and he called me in about 4 days and said "i can now do every function on reason without touching the mouse."

oh yes... kids love reason!!!

[Swami Digital]

Originally Posted by Beermaster

Tenori-on ?

Complete waste of time and an expensive mistake. A toy not a learning aid.

Not at all actually. It's not a toy at all, but the multiple modes of feedback (both visual and auditory) help children understand music a great deal. And most importantly, they find it more fun than traditional lessons, which means they keep at it. It even helps open up more interest in traditional lessons. (Which, while I agree are the best thing for a child, they don't often enjoy them.)

As an example, my aunt and uncle wanted their son to learn piano. He started and stopped lessons twice (once because he got a bad teacher and the other time because he just lost interest and didn't want to learn anymore). They were dismayed because he has a lot of interest in music, but just didn't seem interested in lessons. I brought him over to my studio a few times, and the first thing that caught his eye was the Tenori-on. I let him borrow it, and he played with it for hours creating songs. He learned a lot about structure and relationships of sounds in intervals from it. He also learned about how different sounds fit together in a song because of it.

Eventually, he started using it with Garage Band (with my help) and from there he got interested in piano lessons again. Sometimes, you really have to consider how to motivate and get a child interested rather than what would be the 'ideal' starting point. Once they are really motivated, then they are much more willing to dedicate themselves.

-D