Many people are interested in creating music, but don't know how to get started. Whether you want to use electro samples to created loop based tracks, or attach them to virtual instrument to use them for midi sequencing-you have a lot of options. This article will discuss them, where you can find electro samples, and what software you can use.
Before you start looking at software, you need to figure out what equipment you'll be using. Do you want a midi controller? Do you want to record vocals, or other instruments, and how good is your computer/sound card? You can't go wrong with buying an AISO audio interface that is USB 2.0 or up. A very popular one that is highly compatible with most software is the MBox, and many home studios use them. They also generally come with Cubase LE, which can do quite a lot.
There are lots of options out there for the beginner, but unfortunately for PC based users-there are virtually no free options. Mac users get garage band, and you should take advantage of it, unless you want to pay for something more professorial. Most software have free demo versions available on their official sites. This will make finding the right one through trial and error less painful.
One of the most popular and easiest to use is Fruity Loops. With this you can downloading electro samples, synth samples, and even use sound fonts to create your music without any external hardware. The crux of this software is its pattern sequence editor interface. This makes creating beats a very easy to follow visual experience. It also has a piano roll, and pretty much everything you need to pump out a track in any genre. Although, I would not recommend it for recording and mixing real instruments; there is better software for that.
For looped base music, a really affordable option is Sonic Foundries Acid DJ. While older versions than 3.0 are very dated, they all come with discs containing tons of royalty free samples to use in your creations.
If you want to use more of your own gear and record live sounds, then your main sluggers for PC are Cubase, Pro Tools, Mixcraft, and Reaper. Pro Tools is industry standard right now, but all of these range in price while offering the same basic features: digital multi track recording, built in mixing effects, support for nearly all VSTs, and comprehensive easy to use midi based step sequencers; make sure your system's specs are up to the minimum recommend requirements.
