alt Hacker NewsAny way to compose compelling electronic music without having to spend time learning a commercial app like Ableton?
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If you want to make "normal" electronic music (and never tried before), use GarageBand on an iPad. It's easier to learn than Ableton et al. because GarageBand has reasonable settings built in. I.e. it will make sounds right away, without endless screwing around. (You might even try GarageBand on a phone, if the screen is large enough.)
If you want to make "experimental" music then ... you'll have to experiment. Most of the recommendations in these comments are aimed at experimental music.
Most things labeled "computer music" belong to a very specific retro experimental music aesthetic, literally dating back to the era when you could barely make music on a computer at all. Much of this music was heavily influenced by academic workers. That may be exactly what you're looking for! On the other hand if you're not quite sure what I'm talking about, then be aware that "computer music" is not the only, or even the sanest, way to make music on your computer.
It's like asking whether you can do serious photography without Photoshop/Lightroom or create games without Unreal/Unity. The answer is you can, but do you really want to? Your most important goal is to use a tool to get the job done. The tool is a method to get there, not something you want to fight with.
I have been seeing a few DJ with livestreams composing with Strudel. It's a live web repl programming based approach. I don't think it necessarily scales to professional use, but it's a reasonable intro to the core concepts.
I've gone through the tutorial and it was honestly the most fun I've had on the web in a while.
Learning the app is not the difficult part. It is honing your style within the toolset you're comfortable with. Every DAW has its pain points and learning curve. Spend a few hours a week with each and see which one works for you, is my advice. Same as any other tool, you can't create effectively until you've become comfortable with it.
Literally hundreds or even thousands of ways, physical instrument such as sequencer/sampler, other DAWs. It’s not about learning a commercial app it’s about understanding principles of music production irrelevant of your platform. Just pick one and go: your ears won’t know any difference
Honorable mention: FruityLoops. I remember it from high school, 2006, we've had a hand-me-down 486 with maybe 32mb RAM? The boys made some great loops, I brought a guitar, we ran a freakin live hip hop show, standing ovations, FL delivered.
Learning a bit of ableton is the least hard part of making compelling electronic music. Bitwig is fine as well. There is such a deluge of people eager to teach you via youtube or udemy etc.
You'll have to spend time learning whatever tool you are going to employ. If commercial is the issue... Have a look at SuperCollider. It has a learning curve, new programming language and all that. But the flexibility and actual software architecture is pretty unmatched in its own nieche IMO.
Ableton Live is very intuitive and there is a lite version that is bundled with some interfaces (https://www.ableton.com/en/products/live-lite/features/?pk_v...). It has been years so I don't remember which interface / version I started with but I quickly fell in love and upgraded to the full version. The time I have spent learning it has been fun and worthwhile, so maybe give it a try.
Look up DJ Dave and using Strudel to make music, its fun!
As opposed to what? Spending time learning any of the alternative tools out there? Everything you do is going to have a learning curve, so you might as well start learning the tool that does what you want.
If you don't want to use a computer, you could write and perform exclusively using hardware. Like a modular synthesizer, or a standalone synth, or an Elektron box (Digitakt, Digitone, etc).
Sure, but what will work for you will depend on what you consider "compelling electronic music," it is a big and diverse field and each have different tools which suit them. Without having some idea about your interests and direction in electronic music, you will just get a massive list of random applications which may or may not work for your goals.
puredata or supercollider - although I would honestly recommend Max/MSP over either (but it is commercial). Ableton is great and most DAWs in general are useful and quite similar so the skills are transferable, but they do lend themselves to specific orthodox kinds of composition, dance music and sound collage basically.
Try LMMS, Pure Data, VCV Rack, or SunVox - all powerful free/open-source alternatives that can produce professional-quality electronic music without the Ableton learning curve or cost.
There are open source trackers like Famitracker, and there are kinda-sorta-half-decent open source DAWs now like Ardour and LMMS.
So many to choose from (in alphabetical order)...
- Bytebeat: https://dollchan.net/bytebeat/ (https://greggman.com/downloads/examples/html5bytebeat/html5b... !Warning loud!)
- Cardinal: https://cardinal.kx.studio/live
- Glicol: https://glicol.org
- Kabelsalat: https://kabel.salat.dev
- NoiseCraft: https://noisecraft.app
- Strudel: https://strudel.cc (https://github.com/terryds/awesome-strudel)
- Tidal Cycles: https://tidalcycles.org