making music on windows

[Phat_Pat]

so christmas season is coming up and my brother has been getting into making music with his friends in their free time.

i thought it'd be a cool gift to buy him the tools (entree level i ain't made of money) to possibly make music on his windows computer.

does windows have a program similar to garageband? or do you guys have any suggestions....?

 

[Neil321]

Mixcraft claims to be windows answer to garageband ( $64 though ) pretty cheap i think

 

[doubleohseven]

There's also Audacity, and it's free.

 

[Neil321]

There's also Audacity, and it's free.

You learn something new everyday, i always thought Audacity was just for OS X, thanks

 

[doubleohseven]

You learn something new everyday, i always thought Audacity was just for OS X, thanks

Any time.

 

[Stepper]

When you say making music, do you mean producing or vocals?

For producing I would advise Fruityloops to begin with or maybe even Reason depending how serious he is about it

For vocals you could use Cubase or Adobe Audition, both relativly easy to use


Then theres all of the hardware that he made need...again if hes not taking it that serious then theres no need for hardware....obviously a Mic is needed if hes recroding vocals and maybe a lil Midi keyboard if hes producing

I'll give you some sites and reccomendations for hardware, but i'll wait till you reply back before I go off on one lol

 

[ZiggyPastorius]

When you say making music, do you mean producing or vocals?

For producing I would advise Fruityloops to begin with or maybe even Reason depending how serious he is about it

For vocals you could use Cubase or Adobe Audition, both relativly easy to use


Then theres all of the hardware that he made need...again if hes not taking it that serious then theres no need for hardware....obviously a Mic is needed if hes recroding vocals and maybe a lil Midi keyboard if hes producing

I'll give you some sites and reccomendations for hardware, but i'll wait till you reply back before I go off on one lol

+1 on Fruity Loops. I loved that program when I was on Windows. Obviously, I much prefer Logic, but the rhythm input on that program is so much easier than anything else I've ever seen, though a lot of the other stuff is much more complicated...

 

[Phat_Pat]

When you say making music, do you mean producing or vocals?

For producing I would advise Fruityloops to begin with or maybe even Reason depending how serious he is about it

For vocals you could use Cubase or Adobe Audition, both relativly easy to use


Then theres all of the hardware that he made need...again if hes not taking it that serious then theres no need for hardware....obviously a Mic is needed if hes recroding vocals and maybe a lil Midi keyboard if hes producing

I'll give you some sites and reccomendations for hardware, but i'll wait till you reply back before I go off on one lol

i think hes more into vocals. hes been writing them alot so i would probably need to get him a mic and a program that would allow him to mix the vocals with a beat or something of that nature.

however i think this is more of a hobby of his so maybe try one of the simpler apps and if he seems to get more into it buy the next step up? hes only in high school so i don't really wanna drop a professional app in his lap and expect him to devote the time to learn it.

thanks for all your guys help!

 

[Stepper]

In that case I would advise you to get him Adobe Audition or Cubase or Logic, they all more or less work the same, so if he gets the hang of one of them it shouldn't be to difficult to switch to one of the other ones.

A good begginer Mic to get him would be anoything Behringer really....my first mic was a B1 (http://turnkey.co.uk/product.php?itemid=261). Since he's only doing it as a hobby he wouldn't really need a top of the range mic, anything under £150 should be alright.

Then hes gonna need a mixer to plug the mic into, again imo Behringer is the best for good quality cheap mixers, http://turnkey.co.uk/product.php?itemid=352 one of my mates just bought this mixer....cheap and it does the job.

Your also gonna need some audio wires to connect the mixer to the Pc, when you buy everything ask someone that works there and they should be able to help you out. Your gonna need a XLR cable for the mic aswell (Cables shouldn't be more then £30-40) and a stand for the Mic (£20) and a pop shiled (£5)

You might want to get him some Monitors aswell depending on what kinda speakers he's got already. Then again imo Monitors aren't really needed if your only doing it as a hobby

All in all your gonna be spending around £200-£250 getting everything, thats not including the Software though...I get my copies from a....friend...

Hope that helps

Edit - Just realised your from the states so everything should be cheaper I'm guessing lol