Tutorial Level: basic
How do you produce trance/dance music? That’s the question a lot people start with when they get passionate about their favourite dance style. It’s a completely natural process to want to try the hands-on approach to music and it is great fun as well as a perfect channel to express yourself.
So what do you need to make music? Given the progress of technology not much. Let’s start with a list and during the next days I’ll post more material about the actual production process.
Basic Equipment list
- A computer (the more powerful the better, any Core2Duo system will give you a comfortable start)
- An ASIO-compatible soundcard (or ASIO4ALL drivers)
- A Sequencer with VST (virtual studio technology) support (or a self-contained package like Propellerheads Reason)
- Some VST plug-ins:
- There are two main types of VST plug-ins
- Instruments: these are synthesiers or recreation of musical instruments that will allow you to play sounds.
- Effects: these plug-ins don’t produce sounds per sé but they are used to process the signal coming from audio channels or virtual instruments.
The main choice you will have will be what type of sequencer to use - it’s important to say that this a choice largely dependent on personal preference as the level of sofistication of sequencers nowadays is so high that each and every of them will allow you to do more or less the same things. Let’s take a look at a couple of popular options (there are many more but I won’t list them all):
The Pro-line:
Steinberg Cubase: A dynosaur of sequencing and many people’s favourite. This is the one I use (although I haven’t moved to the last version yet!). It has everything you would need from a sequencer and the last version (SX 4.5) has finally introduce native side-chaining (a very in-demand feature). Cubase is quite pricey but fortunately there are versions for all pockets! This is available on both PC and Mac.
Apple’s Logic Audio: together with Cubase Logic is the most popular sequencer but due to Apple buying Emagic (that used to produce the Logic Audio series) it is now only available on Mac. Again, it offers everything you need and it is in a similar price range to Cubase.
Other sequencers:
Fruity Loops: this is a very popular sequencer which doesn’t cost a fortune and fully supports VST plug-ins. It is also responsable for many famous dance releases and can produce professional results on a lower budget than Cubase. It also has a big community of users and it’s a popular choice for people wanting to start and try out sequencing before moving to the high-end systems like Cubase/Logic/Pro-tools etc…
Propellerheads Reason: Reason is a self-contained application - meaning that you will not need (and cannot use) plug-ins but you’ll rather be using its onboard sequencer/effects/synths/instruments. Everything is ready out of the box and it’s also a good solution to get started, the limitation is that you’ll be confined within the built-in instruments & effects without being able to expand. However, it must also be said that you can use Reason as a plug-in for Cubase with a technology called Re-wire. So if you get used to Reason and decide to move to Cubase later on you can still use it as a VST effect/instrument but you’ll have to learn how to use Cubase as well.
VST - Virtual Studio Technology
VST plug-ins have become so sophisticated that nowadays you don’t need hardware to make music anymore. These plug-ins can however still be pricey but fortunately there’s a wide range of high-quality free plug-ins to get you started. In the tutorials on this site I’ll be suggesting the best free plug-ins I stumble upon and will also show how to use them!
Keep following the updates on this site as we go through the process of producing a whole trance track in future articles!
