I started learning with eJay: Techno Edition. It was good to get a feel for song compostion and construction. After awhile with that I started doing some of my own sounds in ReBirth, and imported them to eJay.

I finally got reason, and then just played around with it until I figured out how everything worked. I then purchased some gear to supplement my reason compositions. Learning hardware was pretty easy because reason works almost the same way.

Along the way I did alot of reading on the internet also (this forum included) and picked up other things like mastering.

University courses:
Sound recording and PA
Electroacoustic composition
Classical harmony theory
Jazz arrangement theory
years of drum, guitar and piano lessons

All helped.

There was a thread in the music section called "Trance Dead In The Water", about the fact that so many producers are copying each other and repeating themselves...well no kidding, so many of them have such a shallow understanding of music that they end up in a rut, since they don't know anything beyond the little 'tips and tricks'.

I remember starting out with a little casio keyoard, can't eaven remember it's name, i don't have it anymore.. It was about 12 years ago.. I didn't eaven listen to trance yet.. It was mainly dance music for me. I moved on to trance as it become more popular. Me and a friend of my put a small basement studio together, it was a great hobby and brought us lot's of fun on daily basis.. In about 4 years we both quired a number of synth and outboard gear. I don't eaven wont to remember all the money that went into buying it, But It was all well spent. My first real keyboard was an roland s-10 sampler, really cheasy compared to what we have today, but It was amazing back than. At list compared to my cheasy $200 dollar casio that looked like it was from space, and had like only 3 usable sounds out of 100..
I bought an atari, after seeing it run cubase. I thought it was amazing that you could connect all thease synths to the little atari and make anything you wont.. I am not sure what cubase version i started out with but it was on one floppy, so compare that to todays sx. hehe and not to mention, what was pc? there was like nothing for pc at that time that i knew of for making music. It was like Atari and apple computers only. Right now when i think about it, one thing that really makes me wonder, the technology moved forward so much, and we got thease super powerfull computers. Yet that little atari could run midi in all those synths i had without any problem. And there was a time when cubase just a cuple years ago had some hard time with midi timing.. Think they should get that right by now hehe.
A liitle atari could run a whole bunch of synths. : )
Back than you had to have a lot of gear since there was no vst synths, and when hard disc recording stuff came out it was expansive as hell. I must say that i have alvays used cubase , because i didn't feel like learning everything from scratch, especialy everytime a new software comes out. I am not saying i am close minded, Cause i tried all the software, I use to use frooty loops for quick beat ideas after it came out, and i eaven have reason right now. But i am an Sx 2.1user right now and i am happy. The software is still simmilar to what it was 10 years ago and i guess i got so use to it i just don't need a change.. Some of the synths and drum machines that i owned were, tb 303, tr 909,k2000r, k2000, roland sh101 x 2, Korg prophecy, juno 106 x 2, Jupiter, roland D-70, Roland s-10, Dr 660, Mini Moog, Tr 808 and there was much more, outboard gear, mixer, and A huge hydro bill at the end of the month, basically my whole part time job was keeping this hobby alive, as i was still in school... Now i can say I am left with nice memories, of owning some synth and gear that's considered classics, and that basically changed the way music was made. Right now i only have a fast computer running sx and whole bunch of software synths, and one Yamaha cs6 with the an1x plug in board.. and waiting on a viruc c.. I don't need more.. It's basically enought to make anything i desire, and it takes not eaven a 1/8th of space that i needed before to accomodate all the gear. The hydro bill is small as well hehe.I noticed that what i miss is back than when i got into the basement and turned all the stuff on it looked like i was in a space ship with all the synth having the lights on. And the smell of synths is what i miss as well.The whole room had this aroma that alvays is stuck in my head when i think about my old studio. Those days are over for me.. Right now music making is so much simpler and everyone can go out and get a computer and start making music. What i find quite annoying is some people that start out, they don't do any research, and they come to thease board and ask reall simple questions, about midi for example. Is it that hard to do some reading before you start something now as a hobby or if you wont to get into something profesionally, I bet 90% of all the newbie questions have been already answered by peple on thease boards already : ) Try hooking up 12-14 synths, with all the outboard effects and you got yourself about 100+ cables to connect, and all the synth setting up for diefferent midi chanels, That use to be crazy... And You had to know your midi. And Now I read people who make stuff in some of the software have no idea whet midi is. It's funny... and sad.. Anyways, have fun Producing all!

most of it comes from experience and knowledge of music. most of my mates sit on my computer and go "teach me how to make music then..." and i just look at them blankly. u have to know what is a chord and what note is gonna go with what. most importantly if your trying to stick to a certain style of music, you need to know the basic structure of that style. u need to listen to music and memorise what changes are happening where, and use that knowledge in your own ideas. most of it are just ideas that end up working. some wont, and some will.

Good luck

Hey DJDIRTY thx for a great post

Were all those synths midi-capable? Or were they all refitted (like the 303 and Prophet)?

HeY!

Well all of those synths I owned were fitted with midi except TR 808, That was kind of ackward, but I was mainly sampling the 808 using the akai sampler, and sometimes using the ensonic eps 16..

reading lots of tutorials and reading this forum... has helped me immensely

if you want a good music theory course, try "gradus ad parnassum" or, its with its english title "study of counterpoint."
It is rather old, but it will give you great help in developing an original stlye. Even better would be to take a few years of classical piano.

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check my music out at www.besonic.com/djascent
the more you listen, the higher i go on the charts.

i read a lot in forum or ask some people how things work!
but í try to learn from myself as much as possible! so i don´t get to much influence by others in my style! but on the otherhand i think it also important to listen to your favourite tracks, to get an impression of how a song works...
but i definately have a lot to learn, yet!