How to make music on your computer

In this article I am going to explain step by step, every detail involved in the process that I go through when I make a song on my computer. To start off I would like to say that I am not some super producer, I haven't worked on any significant albums, nor do I claim to have the proper skills to become a professional producer. Also there are a lot of better programs that you can use to produce music on your computer. However many of those other programs will cost a pretty penny more than I am willing to pay considering I am more of a hobbyist than anything else when it comes to making music. With that said, I believe almost anyone can make quality music on their computers with a little bit of effort and time as long as you have some sense of rhythm.

First I'll tell you a little bit about the programs that I use, and that I recommend for all beginners. The first program is called Acid Pro Studios by Sony. As you will find out a little later in the article, this is the program that I use to arrange my music. That is, put all the pieces together to create a finished song. That part of the process can be done in the other programs as well, I find it's easier to do in Acid.

The next program on my list is the FL Studio. Though you can arrange music within this program I feel it is a little more complicated to do in here. This program is one of the two that I use primarily for creating my loops. I will explain more on loops a little later on. FL Studio is my choice for different sounding synths as well as some strings.

Cakewalk Kinetic is my third and final program that I use in my music. Just like FL Studio you can arrange music here but I find it more complicated that Acid. So again this program is one that I use primarily for creating my loops. Kinetic is my choice for quality drum sounds as well as horns, strings and other instruments.

Now let's get down and dirty with the fun stuff. My first step is to create the beat for my song which I will do in Kinetic. Clicking into the interface I'll create a generic beat highlighting every fourth beat. Up at the top of the screen I'll set my beats per minute (bpm) around 110.Next I move over into the window on the right side and select my instrument of choice. I'll listen to each of the individual drum sounds with the generic beat until I find a kick drum sound I like. For now we'll leave that kick drum hitting on every fourth beat. Then I open a new channel and mark half way between, every other kick drum. That's one hit per every two kicks. Back into the instrument window and go through the same process until I find a snare or clap sound that I like. Next I open another channel and mark off every quarter beat. Back to the instrument list to pick out the hi hat sound I like. All of this is done for eight whole beats. Finally I go to file and export each individual channel with the others muted, naming them as; hat, kick, and snare, saving them to your computer someplace I'll find them. Now I have my pieces for the beat of the song.

Now I can close Kinetic and open up my FL Studio. Make sure to set my bpm at 110 as it was in Kinetic. Then on the line labeled kick, I mark off the same beat as I used for my kick drum in the other program. This is just a baseline to know my beat as I work with other instruments. I'll delete the other instrument buttons under the kick pattern. Then going to the list on the left side I will pick an instrument I like. For now I will use the best sounding strings I can find. Add that instrument to the pattern window right under the kick. Now I'll click on the piano roll up in the top right of the screen. Push play so I can hear the basic beat and create a pattern down in the piano roll with my strings. Then I pause the playback and mute that instrument. Back to the left to select another similar sounding set of strings and add that to the pattern window. This pattern I'll change up a little bit from the previous pattern so I can differentiate between the verses and the chorus sections of the song. I repeat that process one more time finding a nice sounding bass guitar type instrument to use as the bassline of my song. Now delete that kick drum, mute all the other instruments. Unmute them one at a time so I can export the three individual instruments labeling them: chorus, verse, and baseline. Once they're saved to my computer I can close my FL Studio.

Now it's time to arrange our song so I'll open up Acid Pro and start new project. In the bottom window, navigate to where my "loops" that i have saved from Kinetic and FL Studio. Add them all creating individual tracks for each sound. Next I'll set my bpm at 110 to match my loops. In the main window I'll draw out my kick drum then copy and paste after itself over and over until my song reaches about three minutes or so. Same process with my snare and then with my hi hat. Might as well do the same with the bass line since it is a generic beat and song.  Then I'll draw out my chorus for a few measures. I'll pick up where chorus ends and draw out my verse loop for a few measures. Alternate back and forth with these two until I reach the end of my song where the percussion all ended. That will pretty much do it for this song with the exception of mixing and mastering, but that's a whole other topic. Click on file and export the song and save it as an mp3. Once this is finished you can open that mp3 and listen to your song, burn it, at it to your website, or whatever you like. Keep in mind this was very basic song production. Once you get a hang of the concept you can experiment with mixing up the patterns in Acid, adding effects, and so on. Have fun with it, I DO!