Fellow TranceAddicts,
I have been curious of many different ideas and topics for quite some time...but I have never asked...

For starters, how are vinyls made? If most white label mixes are made on computer programs, how are they recorded onto vinyl's for turntable use?

Secondly, how does the producer of a white label receive compensation without a record label...if the producer compiles a track and sends it to a world class DJ, and this track receives wide airtime, where is he/she rewarded (even monetarily)?

In producing music...what component is generally constructed first...the lyrics for the vocals or the actual instrumental rhythms...Do producers write the song first and fit the melody to the vocals, or the other way around?

And finally what are MIDI files? Is is a certain format for a computer application?

Thank you very much in advance for your time and answers...this helps me a great deal, b/c I am an aspiring producer...I have thousands of melodies, ideas, lyrics, beats, rhythms, instruments, etc in my imagination and I would like to re-create them to share with the world...please reply to answer these questions of mine...

Jasen van Kampen

I can't help you except for the MIDI part.

Just imagine you have a keyboard. Almost any keyboard has a MIDI output. So, you take a program that can read midi input from that output (usually you have to buy a midi cable, and connect the output from your keyboard to the input on your midi port on pc). What MIDI is, well it's a data format thingy. It doesn't send out SOUND, but notes. At least that's what I've thought about it for the 5 years I've been using it So MIDI doesn't send the actual WAVE files to the pc, but it sends out the notes, and then this MIDI file can be used, as the sheetnotes for a sample, which will play itself on the notes that you gave in through midi.

well the question on what comes first is like saying the chicken or the egg thing. it just depends on your taste for me that I don't have too much lyrics just words or phrases the music comes first and then the "lyrics" it al dependes on how you work and your tastes

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[SIZE=1][FONT=century gothic][COLOR=royalblue][I] Thank you very much for your comments! I was excited to read them!...I was still wondering however if the vinyl production question could be answered by someone out there...

Well, in any event, I have a few more questions...I recently have been shopping around for music production programs, and I was curious of recommended applications. I have been looking into Fruity Loops, CakeWalk, Acid, and a few others, but I am unsure of the differentiations of each. Which programs are more widely used by world class producers? I am interesting in sampling warm sounding instruments for uplifting and progressive trance track production...Which program offers the most complete instrumental collection?

Where do plugins for various programs come from? Are they written and sold to the public, or are these instrument plugins somewhat "underground"? Where would one go to obtain additions to their programs? Are they expensive?

And my final question for this post...what else is needed for an amateur production studio? A mixer and a computer with a production program...or is there more? Special keypads? Amplifiers? Turntables? Synthesizer? I don't even know where to start...someone please help!

I have so many questions (as you can probably tell by my posts) and I am in search of direction to start working on my ambitions and dreams of sharing my musical knowledge, talent and creative ideas with the rest of the world through the most powerful form of communication....MUSIC!

I am in great anticipation of your replies, and ahead of time...THANKS!

Dude just go to www.Google.com and search on every topic you want to know more about. You'll do much better in the long run if you prove your committment by putting in the long hours of reading and experimenting that it takes to do these kinds of things.

Search for "Fruityloops" (which i think is just www.fruityloops.com, but you also want everyone's opinion, articles, etc so search anyways), "Cubase", "Reason", "Logic Audio", "Native Instruments", go to www.futureproducers.com, I mean the list goes on and on. In fact, browse through alllllll the topics that have every been talked about in trance addict. I bet almost any question you can ask, has been asked already many times, and you can look over all those conversations immediately, and gain that knowledge without having to wait for responses.

To be totally objective on the producing software, I would recomend downloading the programs you read that interested you I have FL (fruity loops studio) but thats because an aquaintance (sp?) told me he used it. Turns out ppl here in Guatemala use other programs instead of FL studio (this doesn't mean Fl studio isn't good by the way their url is www.flstudio.com ) and from the little that I've read some ppl trash it I personally like it. for starters i would recomend you to explore the demos and then make a choice. the most important thing is creativity and the will to do it, if you don't have that then you're dead. And yeah also take a good search at google.com for personal research, and in some ways its faster and you learn extra things that you wanted to know also.... keep on going man have allot of patience and you will prevail

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i also recommend fruity because IMO it is real easy to use and i learned most of what i know from tweaking around and looking at examples

another good choice is reason. I personally haven't used it myself, but from what I know, it is around the same league is fruity

Also, probably not as important now, but maybe later are other programs other than sequencers such as wave editors and mastering programs which you'll find very useful and helpful. For wave editors, try soundforge or cool edit pro and for mastering, try T-racks

One final thing I advise you on is get some musical knowledge. Learn some basic music theory, harmony and chordal progressions. The reason I say this is while a lot of producers that I hear have a lot of talent at producing, a lot of them have trouble with constructing melodies and basslines. But with proper musical knowledge, it will help you a lot.

One way to help you understand music better is to learn a bit of guitar and piano. Guitar will help you learn chords better and if you learn some songs on the guitar you can see what chords other people use and why these chords make everything sound so good (ie. a good chordal progression uses more than I IV V and VI) Piano is necessary to learn especially if you plan to implement a MIDI setup to your studio

hope that helps some bit

my advice for your first 2 questions are don't worry about it for now. just concentrate on improving your skill as a producer. I encourage you to post in the amateur producer section in this forum and you'll get useful feedback.

Good luck producing in the future... I should stop blabbing on, I got classes to go to

midi = musical instrument digital interface

get some REALY nice flat speakers if you want to produce

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