There’s a few ways to go about learning how to make house music. Some producers come from a background of playing musical instruments and that’s led them to want to write music with those instruments. So how you want to make music also has a bit of an affect on how your initial starting spot will be.
For this article, we are going to be talking about those of us who want to only use our laptops to make music. Everything will be software or digital in the song writing and production process. If you are wanting to write by playing and recording a guitar, that will be a different starting setup.
I’m also going to assume you have a laptop already. If not, I’d highly recommend the latest Macbook Pro laptops. The basic build is so fast and has the best battery life, it’s not even a close race anymore with pc laptops. Even their speakers are surprisingly good, and many top producers like Chris Lake say they use them frequently when producing music. If tight on a budget, save. I wouldn’t put money into a cheaper laptop. But for now, if you have a computer that’s working, use that and make sure you like doing this before buying a whole laptop for it.
Get The Right DAW For You
There are 5 digital audio workstations, or DAWs, or computer software that you make music in, that I’d recommend to anyone wanting to make house music. If you are a student or an educator, make sure to check to see if they have a discount. Take advantage of the free trials and make sure you like the software before you buy it.
Ableton Live
This is the most popular DAW for house music specifically. Most of the tutorials you’ll see from other producers making house music will be on Ableton Live, so I’d recommend this as your DAW of choice. This software is unique in a way that it has 2 different views, Session view and Arrangement view. I know top level producers who start song ideas using session view, and others that use arrangement view. They have their way of getting a groove started and getting into a flow state, and Live is versatile in that aspect. It’s also great if you do end up wanting to get analog gear as this software was designed to perform these electronic synths live. It has a lot of great tools to stretch and glitch out any sound in a very controlled to a very experimental way. Warping in Ableton is unbeatable if you are wanting to do remixes.
Bitwig
A new DAW to the scene. Bitwig was made by a few developers that left Ableton Live. You can even import Ableton Live sessions into Bitwig and it will have all the midi, plugins, automations, everything basically looking the same (see here). I haven’t used this yet, but I’m actually thinking I’ll try it out today and see if I want to buy it because it looks really fun for sound design. I had a roommate who got certified as an educator and loves this DAW, so if you’re at all curious, I’d say it’s definitely worth looking into. Think of this as their improved version of Ableton Live. I love the competition because this is only making Ableton Live work harder to stay ahead, and Bitwig working relentlessly to pass them up with innovation.
FL Studio
This is the most popular DAW for electronic music production in general. It’s a lot more popular in the trap and hip hop world, but there are still a lot of house producers that use FL Studio. It has some unique tools like “Gross Beat” that are really great for beatmaking and coming up with happy accidents. I had a roommate that used this and I’ve spent many hours watching him make beats and then watching Eliminate on YouTube. My roommate’s sessions would be so messy compared to Eliminate’s sessions, but the fact that it all made sense was fascinating. There’s times I envy the chaos of the software, it looks fun to use. Even writing this now, I’m tempted to buy it just to make some beats in there and have some fun with these tools.
Logic Pro
This is a great choice for people who are wanting to write a lot of piano, strings, and a lot more instruments than synthesizers. It has a lot of amazing tools for song writing to help write ideas quickly like “Session Players.” There aren’t as many glitchy, sample stretching, trippy types of tools in this software as there are in the others, but it’s ahead in a lot of other ways. If you are a great song writer with a piano, Logic Pro is amazing at making any idea sound great. The built in reverb, saturation, and compressors are top notch and for a long time I would do my mixing and mastering in Logic Pro because of this. It’s also an app, so it’s a one time purchase and free upgrades. It is only for Mac users though, as it’s developed by Apple.
Cubase
Not as popular, but still revered as a top tier DAW and is used by some of the biggest names like Tiesto and Zedd. Hanz Zimmer even uses it for movie scores, so you know it’s good. I haven’t spent a lot of time watching people use this DAW, which is part of why I’m telling you to use a more popular one like Ableton Live. It will be easier to find tutorials and will require you to export stems anytime you want to collaborate with these more popular DAWs. Not a huge deal though, so if you like the look and feel of Cubase when you try it, then I’d say go for it. That in itself is the most important part of the creative process. The goal is finding the tools that help you be creative the easiest.
Pro Tools
I mention Pro Tools because if you go into a pro studio to record anything, most likely they will be using Pro Tools. It is the industry standard for film and broadcast audio as well. Most of my audio day jobs I’ve used Pro Tools as the DAW, but this DAW is not focused on beat makers. It's not built around MIDI, looping, and creative beatmaking tools like Ableton Live or FL Studio is. If I was to do some vocal editing, I’d happily use Pro Tools to have the “Pencil” and “Tab to Transient” tools. The hotkeys are arranged so nicely as well, which makes it great for sound editing. But for house music, not great honestly. Its time stretch doesn’t even come close to Ableton’s warping.
Other DAWs
You can use other softwares if you’d like, but I’d highly recommend not doing that for house music. Every DAW has EQ, reverb, delay, and other tools that are universal, but they are not all designed the same. Use the tools designed for the work you are trying to do.
Good Pair of Headphones
Headphones are amazing for the fact that you will be hearing music the same every time you listen with them. With speakers, the room or environment you’re in has a big effect on how you hear the sounds coming from the speakers. Plus with headphones, you can work while not disturbing anyone around you. This is a major deal for us house music producers because we have a lot of repetitive bass in our genre, which is annoying for the neighbors. Headphones are cheaper and you will use them throughout your career. So find a pair you love by trying a few different pairs, and then decide on a model. Pay attention to how the bass responds and how harsh or smooth the treble is. I like my music to feel warm and colorful, and there are some headphones that make the listening experience feel too flat and cold which is not fun to listen to in my opinion. I like to enjoy listening to what I’m working on!
I personally love the Sony MDR7506 headphones. You’ll see these a lot in movies or at professional studios. I’ve used these since my first job as an audio engineer in college. My job had tons of the 7509 headphones, which was a bigger over the ear model, but they stopped making those. The 7506 headphones are lighter and on top of the ear model, rather than over the ear like the 7509s. I can wear the 7506 headphones all day and they sound the flattest to me, even though they’re not flat, they just feel flat to me. It could be because of that first job and I just got lots of ear training, but I always remember really loving those compared to others even when I was in college.
I’ve bought a few other pairs over the years, including the AKG K712 mastering headphones, but I came back to the Sony headphones every time.
Pair of Apple Wired Earpods
This is the most widely used pair of headphones. They don’t have as much low end as any of the main headphones you would use, which is great for checking your mids. It’s weird how our ears work, but less sub information makes it easier for us to hear how the mids are sounding in a song. We won’t dive too much into this as this is more important later on, but they’re cheap and worth having a pair to at least check how your music sounds compared to other music on these. It’s nice to switch up between these, my Sony headphones, my laptop speakers, and my studio speakers throughout the day to give my ears a change of listening perspective.
Splice and Similar Sample Libraries
Splice is a great tool and should be utilized, especially in the learning stages. This, along with similar services, is by far the easiest way to start learning what good samples sound like. You can find vocals that already have effects on them, which is really helpful to hear and learn from. You can also pick samples by genres and learn how even though trap, drill, and house music use 808 drums, they aren’t processed or mixed in the same way. They have a different feeling or tone to them, even though it’s coming from the same drum machine. Learning these subtle differences takes time, so having that helpful hand in going to a tech house pack and looking at claps through that pack will give you a much higher success rate on finding a good sounding clap that feels right in the house beat. You may not be able to put your finger on it at first, but this is why it’s helpful. You’ll then be able to analyze the clap and start to hear why it works vs another clap that doesn’t work for that beat.
Virtual Synthesizer
Every DAW you use will have synthesizers already in them to choose from. Some are great, while others are very limited. There is one synth that rules them all as the most versatile and most popular synth by far in electronic music. It's name is... *drum roll*
Serum 2
Serum 2 is by far the most popular synth for dance music because of its ability to create such a wide range of sounds. You can make any kind of sound you can think of using it, including drums. The beautiful part of this widely popular synth is that people can make different sounds with this synth, save it, and then share it to the world. These are called presets.
Splice is a great resource to find these Serum 2 presets and you can find tons of websites and artists offering presets. With Splice, you can get Serum 2 rent-to-own to help save money on the startup cost. There are so many presets for Serum 2, and all of the original Serum presets work with it as well.
In other words, you can find specific Serum 2 preset packs for genres or artists that you love. This is so helpful when you are learning because you can see how these sounds are made, and then you can tweak them to become a more unique sound of your own.
Other Synths
When it comes to shopping for synths, you’ll start to notice a lot of these synths have a lot of character to them or specialize in certain things. You can browse through the other synths on Splice too like Astral, Splice Instrument, and others. U-he synths are also great and Native Instruments have great options. Whenever you find this article, I’d google what the latest cool synths are and see what's on the market as technology is exponentially getting better.
Start Making Beats
I feel like this is the bare minimum, but enough for a seasoned producer to still be able to produce a great sounding track. Third-party plugins are very helpful and will definitely make your music sound better, but you can always hire people to do that part of the process for you by hiring them to mix and master the song.
Once you start improving and finding this is something you want to pursue, then you will start to buy these other things like studio monitors, analog synths, plugins, and other tools that make producing music more enjoyable as well as enhancing your music with richer saturation, reverbs, and quality. It’s fun to be able to do all of this yourself, but like I’m saying at the beginning it’s not necessary nor are you going to be any good at it anyways. It’s going to take a few years to get good at making music, and even then there are a lot of touring artists that always hire out engineers to help them.
So my overall advice is to spend your money on things that will go the furthest at the beginning, and as you develop your skills and passion for this, that's when you should start investing money on plugins or studio furniture you’ve discovered you really want. Rent and hire as much as possible at the beginning to learn. Find a mentor who is making music in the same genre as you, and learn what their must-have tools are.