How to Start Making Electronic Music: Beginner's Guide
If you google “How to make electronic music” the sheer volume of information and opinions out there can be overwhelming. What software should you use? Is your computer powerful enough? Can you make good music in your bedroom? Just a few of the many questions you may be asking yourself when you’re starting to produce your own music.
So to make things a bit more straightforward, here’s our guide to the basics you’ll need to get started.
In this article
- What is needed to create electronic music?
- Is it necessary for a beginner to have great knowledge to create electronic music?
- Where can you learn how to create electronic music?
- How to start making electronic music: Conclusions
What is needed to create electronic music?
Musical Equipment
The first thing to consider when learning how to make your own electronic music, is the gear you will need. Your basic setup could include the following bits of kit;
- Computer - to host your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) and all your samples
- Set of speakers - to monitor the sound in your home studio
- MIDI controller - to give you hands on control of the functions of your DAW
- Sound card - to increase the quality of sound reproduced in your studio, and to give you more options when recording external instruments or vocals.
These would be the core bits of equipment used in studios for electronic music creation, although at a push you could start with just a computer and a decent set of headphones.
Digital audio workstation (DAW)
Arguably the first thing you are going to need when you are learning how to produce electronic music, is a DAW. This is the main bit of software that you will use to make your own EDM music. In a nutshell, your DAW is where you will create sounds through sequencing and recording, and arrange and mix them together to create your final song.
Most have three main sections, an arrange window to position your different sounds, a mixer to balance the levels of your sounds and a track view where you can see what effects and parameters are on each individual track.
There are a few things you may want to consider when choosing which one to use.
Traditionally Ableton Live, Reason, Bitwig, FL have been geared toward Electronic music - with Ableton pretty much being the software of choice if you are looking to perform live. While Logic, Cubase, ProTools, Studio One sit better with Live recordings, but you can pretty much make any type of music using any DAW.
Prices can vary for different DAWs, ranging from free up to hundreds of pounds. That said most DAWs offer basic stripped back versions with limited functions at a budget price. Most DAWs you can get a free trial, which gives you time to try it out for free before deciding what one to buy.
You can check out our wide range of DAW focussed tutorials here.
Samples and plugins
When learning how to produce EDM, the two main sources for creating sounds are samples and plugins. When you’re considering how to start making electronic music, samples and plugins are the best places to begin.
Samples are basically small bits of recorded sound, and can come in all shapes and forms, from drums, bass lines and synths to vocals, found sounds and home recordings. They can be specifically created for a sample pack or chopped out of an existing piece of audio. Any sound you can think of has probably been sampled by someone.
There are plenty of sources for samples online, ranging from totally free through to professionally produced sample packs covering pretty much every genre of music.
Plugins are usually front and centre of any electronic music creation. A plugin is any piece of software that can be used within a track in your DAW. It’s most commonly an instrument such as a synth or sampler or an effect such as EQ, reverb or compressor.
Instrument plugins generate sounds, whereas effects plugins are designed to alter the sound.
Most DAWs come with a host of plugins installed but there is a vast array of third party instruments and effects that can be downloaded and installed independently to give you more variety.
Track structure and composition
Composition and structure are two music production terms that will crop up a lot when you’re starting to learn how to write electronic music. So let’s break them down for you.
Composition is the core building block when starting to produce electronic music. It basically means the creation of all the separate parts that will make up the whole track, effectively the ”writing” of the parts.
When it comes to composition, some producers would say one of the best ways to make electronic music is to learn how music theory works. So to look at concepts like musical keys, chords, melodies and rhythm.
There is a lot to learn here, but a majority of music made for clubs does tend to be quite simple in its composition, so a basic grasp of the main concepts could be all you need to know when learning how to make electronic music. Check out our courses on music theory here.
Once you have composed all the separate parts for your tracks e.g. the drums, bassline, melodies etc, the next part of the process is structuring the final track. The organization of various sections in a song or musical composition is referred to as its structure. A great way to do this is to analyze professionally produced tracks and see how they structured their tracks.
For most EDM tracks the structure does tend to be very similar. So learning these basics from other people’s tunes gives you a head start when learning how to create electronic music, for the first time.
Arrangement
Creating a good arrangement is essential for all of your productions, and in some ways this stage can be one of the most straightforward, when learning how to make an edm song. This is due to the fact that a lot of EDM tracks follow a very similar arrangement, for two simple reasons;
They are able to be easily mixed by DJs - many tracks start and finish with minimal drums, so they can be easily mixed in and out of other tracks. They create the dynamic required for a dancefloor - most EDM tracks will have a number of drops and builds, so to create tension and pay off on the dancefloor. A big drop in the middle comes as a massive release after a big build of tension. This method is tried and tested, and has been working on dancefloors around the world for decades.
Sound design
Mastering sound design is one of the cornerstones of learning how to create EDM. Sound design basically refers to the creation of a sound for a specific purpose. This can be done through using plugin synths, recording audio or manipulating samples from different sources, or a combination of any of the above.
Most of the main DAWs have plugins that can be tweaked and manipulated to give you great sound design in your tracks. Here’s a few of our favorites;
- Ableton Live - Operator & Wavetable
- FL Studio - Harmor & Sytrus
- Logic Pro - Alchemy & ES1
All these plugins will give you a vast range of presets that can be tweaked to produce sounds to suit all genres, or allow you to reset them to a default blank setting, so you can design your own sounds from the ground up.
When we’re talking to artists about making tutorials for our website on how to start making EDM music, effects is one of the key topics that always comes up. Using any DAW’s built in set of effects can really make a difference to any sound design. Effects like reverb, delay and filters are commonplace in almost every EDM tune so getting familiar with how they change the sound of your tracks is essential.
Have a listen to your favorite tracks and see how those producers use these stape effects in their productions.
There’s a ton of amazing sound design courses on our website, created by some of the best sonic designers in the world.
Mixing
When on the path to learn electronic music production, mixing is one of the most important stages. This is when you take all your sounds, and blend them together to make the final track. Mixing is one of the most common subjects in our tutorials, and ever producer has their own unique take on it, but here are a few pointers that pop up regularly in our tutorials;
- Balancing the mix - this is where it all starts. At a basic level, balancing involves using the channel faders to increase or decrease the volume of individual sounds, to create a mix that sounds good.
- Stereo field - you should make use of the pan controls to ensure that your sounds have their own space in the stereo field and are not all sitting on top of each other. This will create much greater clarity in your mixes. Bear in mind that sound in the lower frequencies, such as bass and kicks, should sit in the center of the mix.
- EQ - Using EQ to remove any unwanted frequencies is essential when learning how to make your EDM music sound well mixed. Many EQ plugins will have a visualiser that shows you the frequency range of each sound. You can use this to cut certain frequencies to make sure there aren’t too many sounds occupying the same frequency range. As a good rule of thumb, applying a hi pass filter to any sound that isn’t the bass or kick, will allow the bass and kick to punch through in the mix.
- FX - Subtle use of effects can really help your mix, but try not to over do it. Huge amounts of reverb and delay can really make your mix sound muddy.
- Reference Tracks - One of the tried and tested methods of creating a good mix when you start learning how to make EDM music. Grab a track in the same genre that you are producing, one that you think has a really good mix, and insert it into an audio channel in your DAW. You can then switch between that track and your track, to compare the mix elements.
Look at all our courses on mixing, to get the low down from many of the world’s greatest producers.
Is it necessary for a beginner to have great knowledge to create electronic music?
When starting producing EDM, how to make a great track does require a little bit of knowledge and learning. While it is possible to create a decent track with a handful of simple parts, and some stock plugin presets, the more you know the more tools you will have when you sit down to start making a track.
That said when you first learn how to make electronic music these are the basic bits of knowledge that will take you a long way;
- Sequencing - how to use the MIDI window to sequence any plugin instrument
- Audio recording/editing - how to get external sounds e.g. vocals, into your DAW and how to edit it ready for use
- Effects - what are the functions of the main effects used in EDM e.g. reverbs, delays and EQ
- Arrangement - How the order of the parts of your track should be laid from start to finish.
- Mixing - how to balance the levels so you can get a decent mix of your track.
Where can you learn how to create electronic music?
The best place to go when looking into how to make electronic music, is right here at Sonic Academy, the world’s leading online electronic music academy. You can tune in to over 1,400 hours of step-by-step masterclass tutorials from industry leading A-List Producers & DJs and take your production skills to the next level.
There are tutorials for every level of producers from absolute beginners to seasoned pros, looking at how to start making electronic music in a wide range of genres, and diving into many of the major DAWs being used today, including Ableton Live, Cubase, FL Studio, Logic and Reason. You can check out all our tutorials on how to make EDM music right here.
How to start making electronic music: Conclusions
There are plenty of different avenues to explore when choosing how to start making electronic music. Trying out trial versions of a few different DAWs is a good way to start, as this will give you the chance to get hands-on experience with the software, before choosing which one you want to use.
Another no-brainer when learning how to learn to make electronic music is checking out some of our amazing tutorials, created by expert producers, diving into a wide range of electronic music genres, and using many of the major DAWs.
The main thing though is to have fun while you’re learning, and keep pushing yourself to get better!
