Some Stuff for Your Digital Instrumental Needs [DAW, VST, And Mastering]

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Expus

Teto's Territory
Hia! It's only like my fifth day on this forum and I've literally done nothing to contribute. I really hope this hasn't been done before, but anyways I'm gonna do it. I'm more of an EDM producer myself, though I'm a total amateur, but I might as well share some of my information. To be honest, I feel an instrumental is one of the things that makes a song even better. I won't be talking much about UTAU and VOCALOID production here, but more about creating the instrumental for your next original. Most of this is just common knowledge, but yeah. First things first, let's talk DAWs.

DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations)
Most of you should know about DAWs anyways, but in case you don't, there's this. Alright, in my opinion, if you're making your instrumental electronically, you're going to need a daw. It's one of the most important things. The DAW is typically where you're going to sequence and put together everything, from every instrumental track to the final vocals

LMMS [Free - Mac, Windows]
LMMS is typically used for electronic music strictly, as it comes with a large variety of synths and it has a pretty big learning curve. Look up some tutorials online and they can show you how to get a good instrumental going in LMMS :wink:

Ohm Studio [Free for the free version - Mac, Windows]
Alright, this one is a pretty good DAW with not /too/ much of a learning curve. However, it relies on real time collaboration. From what I've seen, the free version doesn't have many built in synths, so you'll need to rely on VST Plugins for your synths.

GarageBand [Free - Mac, iOS]
This one isn't too bad. I own it, because I'm a strict mac user, however I don't use it much. It comes with a variety of built in instruments that are pretty high quality, but pretty much sample based, so not much customization, but it supports VST plugins so...

FL Studio [$99.00 to $910.00 -Windows, iOS, Android, also a Mac beta]
This is probably the most famous DAW out there, a good amount of you probably use it, mainly because FL is a wicked good DAW, though I haven't used it much, it's the standard for a lot of producers, amateur and highly professional. There are so many tutorials for FL Studio that it's really hard for you not to get a grip of it. A lot of very talented producers use this as their main DAW (Porter Robinson, DJ-Jo, etc)

Propellerhead Reason [$399 - Windows, Mac]
Okay, I've never used this DAW before, but I've heard lots of good things about it. Not much for descriptions on this one.

Logic Pro [$199 - Mac]
This is my overall favorite DAW, mainly because it's the main one I use. I really love this DAW, it comes with a huge variety of built in synths and instruments, and it's exs24 sampler. It has a great interface, though it's very prone to crashes.

Virtual Instrument Plugins (VST, AU)
Sometimes to get the sound you want in your instrumental, you need some outside synths and plugins. Here's my favorite.

Native Instruments Kontakt [Free to $199]
This is more of a sampler/sample player. When you want the sound of a real instrument, but can't record it/own one, get Kontakt or another sample player and some soundfonts. Of course, you can buy premium sample banks with Kontakt as well.

Native Instruments Massive [$99]
I love this synth. With a passion. It's used for mainly electronic sounds, though typically used in drops and types of sounds like that, massive can make great melodic leads and supersaws.

Sonic Academy ANA [$50]
This synth is really good, great for supersaws and trance leads and plucks. Really good for instrumentals. If you want a good synth for the more "Pop" style instrumentals for this price, get ANA.

ReFx Nexus [$250 - $2,500]
This synth is amazing. All I can say about it is WANTWANTWANTWANTWANTBUTCANTAFFORD. So many people use this and you can get such great sounds out of it, it's pretty much a producers wet dream for creating a variety of genres. Amazing synth.

Mastering
To make the final outcome and master of the song, you need something to, well, master it in order to give you a fuller and better mix/song.

Free Ones
There's too many free things for mastering, so I'll just link you here for it.

iZotope Ozone [$249 - $999, though you can get Ozone 5 for cheaper prices]
This is the standard for mastering, and I love it. Ozone 6 is beautiful and create some amazing masters when used right. Also can be used as a standalone application with Ozone 6.

Overall
Alright, I'm sorry I'm not to well at explaining things, but I at least wanted to do something to try and help. That's pretty much it. Sorry for the poor post lmao.
Have a great day, people ouo
 

irei1as

Teto's Territory
Let me recommend REAPER ( http://www.reaper.fm/ for Windows and Mac -and unofficially Linux+Wine-).
The reduced licence is kind of cheap for $60. But I won't deny FL is better for beats and that stuff.

I like LMMS but it crashes a lot. I wish it worked better with all the DSK VSTi.
 
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Expus

Teto's Territory
Thread starter
Let me recommend REAPER ( http://www.reaper.fm/ for Windows and Mac -and unofficially Linux+Wine-).
The reduced licence is kind of cheap for $60. But I won't deny FL is better for beats and that stuff.

I like LMMS but it crashes a lot. I wish it worked better with all the DSK VSTi.
Oop! How could I forget REAPER! Sorry, I'll add it when I get home. LMMS is good, but yeah, it isn't too stable in most cases, I put it there because it can still produce some good stuff. Thanks for reminding me about reaper!