General discussion / The Hardcore Tutorial by Art of Fighters

The Hardcore Tutorial: Part 1 - Getting Started



I often receive emails reagarding tips and advice about music production, how to make effective kicks, sounds and everything concerning Hardcore music. So I’ve decided to start here on traxtorm.com some little tutorials for helping all those who want to jump into the tracks making world.

From now over and with a regural schedule (well, I hope to) I’ll post some guidelines, explaining the bases and the very technical part of music production.

This first lesson will talk about our work tools, the software and hardware we need to start with our job.

First of all we need a computer. The choice can go both to a Pc or a Mac system, depending on which software we want to use (As I will explain later).
Our pc have to be quite fast: it have to process our music in real time without slowing our work. There are thousand of different types, it just depends on how many money we want to spend.
A dual core Intel and 2Gb of ram is the minimum choice. Take a look on internet, you will find a lot of good offers. Don’t spend 3000€ for a computer, it’s not necessary.

After buying a solid pc we need an audio interface, the one that will let us listen our tracks at the maximum quality. Many people thinks that the built-in audio interface is quite enough: the truth is that it sucks, it changes the sound making it worse that it may be.
There are a lot of different choices, ranging from 150€ to over 5000€ for the professional grade interfaces, depending by the quality and quantity of inputs/outputs.
In my opinion the best choice for starters can be a small firewire interface, price around 150/200€. (I got a M-Audio firewire for my liveacts and it rocks)
Other good interface producers may be Motu or RME (prices are a bit higher maybe).

Now that we got the pc and our interface we need something for listening to it. Don’t plug your pc to the hifi, it will be like making tracks into your car!!!
We need some reference loudspeaker, called “monitors”. They are a different kind of loudspeaker, made for reproducing in the cleanest way what you’re playing. I know that you got a kick ass hifi system, but trust me and you will hear the difference!
Genelec, Krk, M-Audio are good choices for monitoring system and they have products for all budgets.

The real hearth of our studio is our software, the thing that let us compose. The main software are Cubase Sx (Both Pc and Mac), Logic Studio (Mac only), Ableton Live (Pc and Mac) and Fruity Loops (Pc only). Every one got his pro and cons but all of them are good tools for composing. It’s just a matter to try them and find out what is better for your needs. I personally use Logic Studio on a Mac, many of the others use Cubase Sx on a Windows pc. Try them all and find out which is your favorite.

The last thing we need is a Midi keyboard that let us play. There are plenty of types, but I think that a non-weighted 49keys is what we’re looking for (except if you’re a little Beethoven

A lot of people write to me asking about samplers, synthetizer mixer and other expensive stuff. In the beginning of your musician career they are useless. You have to start learning things step by step, the things that you have to learn are a lot and paying 10000€ for a stunning studio is useless at the beginning. Later on you will start to discover by your own what you really need to improve your sound and your studio, if your best producer use an Access Virus doesn’t really mean that you have to buy one!

On the next tutorial I will explain how an hardcore tracks works, which are his elements and how to made them.
Here under you will find also some useful links to the software and hardware brands that I’ve talked about.

See ya at the next tutorial!
Cristian

http://www.m-audio.com/ Audio interfaces, midi keyboards and studio monitors

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_index.php Audio interfaces

http://www.apple.com/ Home of the mac pc

http://www.krksys.com/ studio monitors

http://www.genelec.com/ studio monitors

http://www.steinberg.net/ Official Cubase Sx page

http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/ Official Logic Studio page

http://www.ableton.com/ Official Ableton Live page

http://flstudio.image-line.com/ Official Fruity Loop Studio page

http://www.musicstore.de/de_DE/EUR/ Online store

http://www.thomann.de/ Online store
Categories: Studio work