The Worst Advice For Those New to Making Techno/House

I see this a lot in forums.  Someone in the early stages is like "I'm new what should I do?"

And a common answer is to watch tons of tutorials.  There was a point in time where there was no internet and people just had to start tinkering and figuring stuff out.  Like just tray and do it. No instruction no nothing.

Not all tutorials are bad, I've seen some good ones and paid for others.  My main issue with tutorials is that its easy to go tutorial-ing away down a rabbit hole watching video after video of random techniques.

Any sort of school or professional course has a natural sequence and flow to it.  You know 101, 202, 303 and with free online tutorials there's nothing stopping a beginner from watching advanced stuff they are not ready for yet.

Also there's no quality control. Anyone can upload a video online.

And lastly, most videos just talk about tactics and techniques.  Stuff that's nice to know, may help your workflow a little but at the end of the day they won't make or break your track, won't help you finish a track, and won't help you make your own music sound original and unique.

I know this stuff is interesting to talk about and watch.  It makes the user feel kinda good and productive for watching and it's easy for the creators to make it.  So that's sort of a vicious cycle.

If you truly want to make your own tracks that stand out, forget about free tutorials.  The only free ones you should watch are free versions of paid tutorials in order to try before you buy.  People value what they pay for.  When you pay for something be it software, a premium tutorial, or sample pack you're saying to yourself, I'm plunking down say $30 and I'm going to get the most out of this."

You're also limiting your choices which is huge in this digital world which seems infinite.

People who mindlessly flitter from one free thing to the next seldom finish anything and if they do I doubt it's good.  You don't need a library of 400 tutorials, every sample pack known to man, and a library of thousands of plugins.  The opposite is someone who pays for a handful of tutorials, packs and VSTs.  This person commits to learning things and getting the most out of what they purchased.  They've limited there choices for plugins - they know how to use native plugins and know why they bought a 3rd party one and how to use it.  One only needs a handful of tools for the job.

What you need in the early stages is to learn how to get kick, bass, and drum sounds that fit your genre working together nicely.  This doesn't mean you need to create them, you can do this with 1 quality sample pack.

Layer the kicks if needed and find a bass part that works. This could mean finding a sample and chopping it to your liking.

Way easier said than done of course.  And then you'll need to learn how to process the kick and bass part to glue them together and give the low end extra punch and thickness as needed.

The kick and bass is the foundation of a track and the hardest thing to nail down - you'll also want to be sure your low end sounds translates well from your set up/studio to the car and other sets of speakers.

Working on your low end never ends - however getting the basics right is the first step towards completing your first track.

If you're a beginner this is your starting point - this is the thing to focus on.