Starting off in production?

Ableton is great for a starter inspring producers,

I found the FL Studio too alienated for my taste, and it dont give me a full fredoom

The following is my process. I think music theory is the most important to have under your belt

1. Song Writing – Major parts
2. Sound Design
3. Arrangement
4. Mixing

Ableton will probably be a good bet. You can find some great tutorials on youtube about all the 4 points. I’m a classically trained pianist. Been playing since ’87. I’m a guitar instructor, been playing that since ’92. I have musical theory up the wazoo, and I’ll tell you this…songwriting is NOT easy.

Start off with a simple chord progression. Know the difference between a major chord and minor chords. Make sure your melody lines/pads/bass all harmonize with that chord progression. Use the chord tones to achieve this. Get all your parts recorded in MIDI

Sound design takes me the longest. Use some presets to get you started and look up some videos about synthesis. Get to the basics, like strip down to 1 oscillator and choose the “right” waveform for the job. I usually go with a square wave when dialing in a bass sound, saw wave for a lead, sine wave for a pad. It’s really up to you what kind of waveform to use that sounds good for those parts. Make a 4 or 8 par loop of each sound and part. Don’t take too long in this stage.

Once you have your sounds and parts, it’s like you have a pallet of colors and you’re about to start painting. This is the arrangement phase. Copy and paste all the parts in 4 bar sections until you have a HUGE chunk of regions. Then start muting the 4 bar sections your not going to need for the intro of the song, then add in layers as you feel they should be added. Remove layers and wait to do build, and breakdowns with FX last. Once you’ve got your basic structure for the whole track. Go back and see where you want to add an extra “this or that.” Don’t spend too much time doing this.

Next is the mix phase, where you’ll have to EQ every layer, do the stereo imagine, and get ready for final mixdown/bounce to send off for mastering. You could master yourself, but people with a lot more experience can do a much better job for not too much $$.

To answer your question on how long it can take. I’ve made a full prog house track in less than 1 week. That’s with a 40 hour day job, 5 music lessons, a kid, a fiance, 3 dogs, and a house to take care of. Other tracks have taken months. One thing that really speaks to me is to not spend soooo much time trying to get that perfect sound, or make that amazing build. Just make it and tweak it a little. GET IT DONE. Then move onto the next one. All the criticism and tricks you learn along the way, you will use for your next track. Don’t get stuck trying to make the music you hear inside your head. It will take you years, and you may have not completed anything.

Good luck! I love making music, and it’s a labor of love.

Does the above apply to creating remixes?  That’s something that I’d like to start doing in a hurry.

Your first step should be to learn about music theory and song structure, or no matter what tool you use you will fail to make anything a label would seriously consider.

Making real good songs that win the favour of labels includes a lot of preparation before you start out on the tools and to make that preps you need to know what you do.

Of course brainstorming with the tools is also important, but you save that brainstorming stuff to then create a song out of it and not just “play the instruments” and a song will magically appear…