KVR Audio

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 10:40 am

stillshaded wrote:DISCLAIMER: written after a several drinks, a fight with gf, and on an iPhone . :/

Reaper? Renoise? Im assuming you folks don't have kids.. ha!

I said FL studio earlier in the thread, if they're on the older side (read longer attention span) Ableton could work nicely.

Thing is, with fl studio, you're going to be like <click click click>.. "hey look! I just made a beat!!" .. Boom, you've got their attention, and after a couple of weeks you can be like "hey check out this crazy sound I can made!!" (you just put some delay on the beat), kid will be like... "woa!! how did u do that!!".. that means you've got their attention for a while. As a teacher, I can say that the best method is to trick them into wanting to learn... not telling them "you need to learn this if you want to make music." Fl studio is good because YOU can get some results quick enough to get them to think: "hey that wasn't so hard.. maybe I could do that!"

With other daws you're going to have to start out.. "So.. there's two kinds of tracks.. audio and midi...."

child interrupts, "what's a track!?"

you think to yourself.. "Jesus that's a good question" and finally mutter: "don't worry about that, you'll understand later"..

child interrupts again: "what's midi!?

etc.

again, you just want to be like... "hey look at this cool beat I made in 45 second"

I agree with this, the immediacy of feedback (ie results) is essential. His earlier point about knowing the age group stands too.

Circumstances also dictate what you can use. If its one kid, your own, you can use your own choice of tool. If its a hands-on, volunteer-led, thing for 20 kids in a classroom full of ancient PCs, budget and other constraints will limit what you can actually get away with, and what they can use themselves. Mate of mine does the latter for film/video editing stuff with underprivileged kids, and sticks to freeware etc for those reasons.

allofdrab · Post by **allofdrab** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 8:14 pm

Ok, more thoughts.
I still stand by my opinion that AudioMulch is worth a shot; if it's in the range of affordability, and you can show them how to use the Metasurface (the BIG + in my opinion).

That said; I've had some other thoughts.
Sawcutter 2 comes to mind.
It was developed by the same guy that made and later opensourced Revitar
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/revitar ... uttermusic
His page is down now, but I suggest the OP may want to try to get in touch with the author.
Here's a YouTube demo to give you an idea of how it functions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE4ODxjCfj4
In my opinion it was pretty brilliant.
Kinda kicking myself for not purchasing it when it was available.
Perfect for kids.

Sawcutter 1 was free.
Sawcutter 2 was not; added more sequence/composition capabilities.

:

dune_rave · Post by **dune_rave** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 8:28 pm

Best DAW to start teaching kids music production?

hm...

There's no best daw for producing tracks,
and there's no best daw for teaching either!

tropicalontour · Post by **tropicalontour** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 8:29 pm

My nine year old daughter learned on Steinberg Sequel 3. That went well and she enjoyed it.

Flandersh · Post by **Flandersh** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 8:32 pm

Magix Music Maker do I know about kids down to 5 years old has made music in, and I've used it once myself.

Other good alternatives are Studio One Free, Tracktion 4 and Stagelight. Even Ejay can make the way, thought it is a bit outdated I think (But that was my start as a kid).

Melodyshine · Post by **Melodyshine** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 8:56 pm

Yes, Magix Music Maker should be the best thing for that purpose.

sellyoursoul · Post by **sellyoursoul** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:02 am

Call me crazy, but Fl Studio seems like the last choice, given how nothing about it's layout is traditional in any sense.

sellyoursoul · Post by **sellyoursoul** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:09 am

I want to agree with the 4-track thing, but not if you're talking cassette. The 424MKII/III machines were pretty cool, but dealing with cassettes in this day? No way. If you're talking about a digital hardware recorder, sure.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:15 am

I have to say Garage Band, because my daughter already taught herself how to use it on her Mac at school. Granted, she's just arranging loops, but its an easy way to start. She asked if we could get a copy at home, and I responded "Why would we get that toy when we already have serious professional tools?". Yeah, I'm a great dad.

lingyai · Post by **lingyai** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:09 pm

deastman wrote:I have to say Garage Band, because my daughter already taught herself how to use it on her Mac at school. Granted, she's just arranging loops, but its an easy way to start.

Or if you're on a PC, Acid Music Studio, or Acoustica's Mixcraft, are both very easy and fun to use

pd · Post by pd » Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:11 pm

A lot of kids want to put stuff on youtube. Therefore, when making your choice think about how it will integrate with video. My daughter (12 years old) is interested in making films so she got Sony Vegas for Christmas. I must spend some time learning how to use it so that I can help her. I am not recommending Sony Vegas yet since I don't actually know it but just mentioning the fact that you must consider how they will interact with other programs and friends.

Unlike what I just did, I think that you should choose something that you know how to operate well so that you don't spend 15 minutes trying to figure out how to do something simple when they need it. Kids loose interest very quickly and are not used to spending time reading through manuals.

TheKid · Post by **TheKid** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 11:57 pm

Mulab, clearly. Very easy to use: drag and drop a vsti from the list and start playing.

RunBeerRun · Post by **RunBeerRun** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 12:09 am

If they're performers, Reaper is easy like Audacity.

1.load track

2.toggle input monitor on track

3.choose audio or midi input

4.choose record audio output

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 12:52 am

Something like FL Studio definitely. Just create a great "toolbox" template for the kids. They start FL Studio and it immediately loads up a template that just works.

Even very young kids can quickly start messing around with a beat in FL Studio. The drum grid has basically two functions. Left mouse button creates a note, right mouse button deletes a note. Simple as that.

They'll be creating stuff within minutes.

Make sure a few of the tracks are set to the piano drum-grid thing, not the piano roll. Then they'll be creating melodies within minutes.

Finally learning the best piano roll on the planet isn't that hard. Same thing, left mouse adds notes, right mouse button deletes them. FL Studio is absolutely brilliant for this.

Only later do they need to learn how to actually add new instruments and stuff (even that is dead easy in FL studio.. simple drag and drop of an attractive icon).

So my vote goes to FL Studio. By far the most immediate DAW ever created. It's also a friggin annoying piece of "¤!%## that kills you if you ever try to do a serious production from start to finish within that horrible program.

Thank God there's Reaper for all the rest.. aka arrangement, mixing and mastering.

Cheers!
bManic

Liero · Post by **Liero** » Mon Jan 28, 2013 1:52 am

RunBeerRun wrote:If they're performers, Reaper is easy like Audacity.

1.load track

2.toggle input monitor on track

3.choose audio or midi input

4.choose record audio output

For kids, that's three steps too many. I have a hard time teaching Reaper to adults. Great software but the exact opposite of intuitive.