What's one tip you wish you knew when you started?

[Krixu]

Title says it all.

[D.K Envelope]

dont f**k your brain without condome

[gaggle of hermits]

you can find answers on forums but half the posters have no idea what they’re doing. working out which half is the tough bit.

[Unaspected]

Get yourself a good monitoring system ASAP.

[elxsound]

you can find answers on forums but half the posters have no idea what they’re doing. working out which half is the tough bit.

This is a valuable lesson!

[elxsound]

No forum is perfect but I can only read a few posts on Reddit before needing to look away. There’s so many things wrong but presented with confidence.

[donkey tugger]

Get yourself a good monitoring system ASAP.

Yes, yes, and yes again. All yer fancy arsed plug-ins are worth nowt if you can't hear properly what the f**k they're doing.

Money well spent.

[elxsound]

Get yourself a good monitoring system ASAP.

Yes, yes, and yes again. All yer fancy arsed plug-ins are worth nowt if you can't hear properly what the f**k they're doing.

Money well spent.

I’ll add one to this… lay off the f**king qtips. I once had impacted ear wax. It was embarrassing as it was gross and I couldn’t hear shit until it was resolved.

Ears and fingers are golden. Treat with care.

[Freaqpeak]

Make lots of songs. Practice, practice, practice. They can suck, you still learn something.

There are no rules. If it feels good, it is good.

Have fun but work hard.

Analyze tracks you love, but dont get stuck in trying to copy someone else.

A "perfect" mix doesnt help a boring/bad track.

A good track doesnt need to be "perfect". People will love it anyways.

Get a mentor which has years of experience.

Make music with other people/friends.

Some people say they can mix in headphones. I for sure cant. Get a accousticly treated room and THEN buy good enough speakers.

[Danno]

Don't be afraid of compression. And don't be afraid to print effects.

[beingmf]

Get yourself a good monitoring system ASAP.

And fix your room acoustics.

[Steve Bolivar]

Roll off the low end of instruments that don't need it.

[arkmabat]

Don't buy so many plugins. DAWs come very well-equipped these days.

[BONES]

The best advice I can think of is that it's not nearly as hard as you think it is or as everyone tries to make it seem. I'm lucky because I started in an era where there was no internet and everything was really expensive, so I started simple - just one shitty synth and a shitty drum machine - and my set up grew with me, so I was learning one new thing at a time.

It was probably four years of just mucking around before I had written anything that looked like a proper song so don't expect too much to start with. Take it easy and start simple. I imagine you'll be overwhelmed by everything that's available in pretty much any DAW so break it down into manageable chunks. Maybe you could do things in roughly this order -

1. Pick a synth, something simple with everything on one page, and learn how to make different kinds of sounds with it - a bass sound, a nice pad, something that sounds like a piano or strings or something. Spend a few days, spend a week if you want to, until you feel like you know what you're doing.

2. Take the bass sound you made and create a bassline with it in your DAW. It could be something simple like AAAAGGGG, or something more complex, but learn how to create the pattern in the piano roll and how to loop it so it plays back continuously. Once you have it looping, you can experiment with variations on the bassline and tweak the instrument settings until you've got something you like.

3. Add a drum instrument and create a drum pattern to go with your bassline.

Once you get to this point, you will basically know enough to write a song. It will just be a matter of practicing enough to get the confidence you need to push on. Effects can come later, once you've got the basics sorted.

You don't need to spend a fortune on anything. There are plenty of great free and low cost software instruments around and you can start with a free version of any of the major DAWs.

Until you get to a point where you can write a proper song that you want to master and play to strangers, it doesn't matter what sort of speakers you are working with. As long as you are familiar with the way they sound you can do good work.

[cryophonik]

you can find answers on forums but half the posters have no idea what they’re doing. working out which half is the tough bit.

There’s a 50% chance that you’re right.

But seriously, on a related note, realize that not everything is based on “need”. When it comes to making music, the absolute necessities are probably far less than people on the internet will have you believe. Learn to separate needs from wants, and also understand that there’s nothing wrong with making decisions based on your wants, as long as you’re responsible with your money.