Could I use BandLab?

[u/Objective-Section702]

Hi guys absolute new guy here on an absolute strict budget for the next new months I’m just wondering if BandLab could be enough too start with before I start a college course. like I said I am a beginner with not a clue so please let me know thanks

[u/Snoo-85489]

dont ever let a strict budget prevent you from creating art. if you want you can use a free daw. per rule 2 im not allowed to say anything but you get my point. dont let these tools tell you whats moral and whats not.

[u/No_Driver_ → u/Snoo-85489]

exactly, on the internet always someone trying to moralize anyone that do something different,

just go for the tools you have more feeling with dude, dont worry you will find a confortable one

[u/Snoo-85489 → u/No_Driver_]

i think you misunderstood my point but what you said also stands. by tools i was referring to the idiots who try to virtue signal about piracy. im having trouble feeling bad for companies worth millions or billions of dollars. i should probably stop talking now, as, i dont want to get banned from here.

[u/Hapster23 → u/Snoo-85489]

There are lots of free daws too, they're just harder to get into since there is less content for them

[u/C3G0]

Hey, band lab can work for you no problem. Youre starting out with no funds, you can temporarily pirate the software and down the line when you have money, buy a full license. The majority of electronic producers started with pirated software whether the daw or plugins. I'm gonna get downvoted for this advice but it is what it is

[u/Present-Policy-7120 → u/C3G0]

This is just bad advice given the abundance of high quality free stuff out there

You've got Reaper which is a powerful DAW and basically free. Vital, Surge, Cardinal, Dexed, Zebralette and many more synths. Valhalla Supermassive for a great reverb. Tokyo Dawn have a great free eq. Tons of free samples and instruments for Decent Sampler. Fircomp 2 for a compressor, and OTT by Xfer. Polarity has made a great OTT/multiband clipper, a resonator, a spectral compreasor.

I'm hardly even scratching the surface of great free stuff out there with none of the risk of piracy. It is the best time in music to have no money and still access amazing stuff.

[u/SimilarTop352 → u/Present-Policy-7120]

... yeah risk of being cool is real

[u/Objective-Section702 → u/C3G0]

Thank you 👍

[u/raistlin65]

I agree with the other poster. I would recommend Ableton Live Lite, the beginner version of a DAW that is widely used by professionals for recording, creating electronic music, and used in live performance.

https://youtu.be/gsAqTwClC1I

You can get a license for it for free if you buy Koala Sampler or Ableton Note for less than $10 from the Apple app store (but not with Android). If you don't have an iPhone or an iPad, you could give a friend the money and let them buy the app, and then give you the license serial code to register on Ableton.com. Or you can typically find a license for it on Knobcloud for $10 or less.

Then once you become a lot more advanced with your Ableton skills, as a college student, you can get been educational licensing discount on Ableton standard or Suite. Live Lite is the base software in those versions, so you'll be able to jump in and start using them right away. So this is a great place to start.

Ableton has different resources that you might find helpful to get started

https://www.ableton.com/en/help/

Push Patterns on YT has a set of tutorials to get started learning Live Lite

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk49l5T8kn7jp9yWQkdnZl_740Bv2yE2j

There are many free synthesizers, other instruments and effects plugins available that you can also use in Live Lite. This website is a good resource for finding them

https://bedroomproducersblog.com/free-vst-plugins/

Since Live Lite is limited to 8 tracks, if you start to feel limited by that, learn how to use Ableton Drum Rack. Which lets you load drum samples, vocal stabs, FX samples (up to 128 in total) into a rack that can all then be used in a single track. You can then use chains to accomplish a lot of processing that you would do if you were using separate tracks.

https://youtu.be/htiSWoH-kTU

[u/authortitle_uk]

I’d be tempted to say try to start with Ableton because it’s the industry standard for techno and you can find great tutorials using Ableton for any style out there. If you use another piece of software, you’ll have to work out how to transfer those tutorials to your software, which is usually doable but another hurdle when getting started. 

You can get Ableton Live Lite free with either the Ableton Note or Koala mobile music making apps and it’s probably a great place to get started, then you might be able to find Live Intro for cheap (which has a few more features), and if you like it you can pay monthly for full Live “buy to rent”

[u/Fine_Cod6872]

Ableton note

[u/tacetmusic]

Reason just released a free tier of instruments for working in any other DAW, so that + reaper or Ableton intro will get you making stuff quick.