In 2019, I took up digital music production as a hobby. While I don’t consider myself a serious musician nor do I have a consistent practice schedule, I just like making music whenever I have nothing else to do. Scroll to the bottom to see my process and software that I use.
My setup
DAW (Digital Audio Workstation): FL Studio 20.
VST (Virtual Studio Technology) Plugins: Entirely Omnisphere and LABS for most tracks, and occasionally Kontakt libraries.
Headphone: Audiotechnica M20X.
Keyboard: Midiplus AKM320 (don’t have it with me anymore, left it at home)
That’s all. I might get an Audio Interface in future to get true sound out of my laptop, but for now this setup is working just fine for me.
How I make music
I’ve never had any formal music education, but I’ve learned everything I know about music production through online tutorials on YouTube. It all started back in seventh grade when I began experimenting with FL Studio 12, which was the software I used before version 20 came out.
At that time, I didn’t know how to play any musical instrument and still don’t today, to be honest. So, I used to create musical compositions by drawing musical notes with my mouse in the software.
In the beginning, my music was really basic, and I had no sense of rhythm or melody, resulting in 10-second clips of nonsense. However, by the time I reached my second year, my tracks had started to improve. They were still very basic, but at least they weren’t out of tune.
Eventually, my father bought me a MIDI keyboard, but I never learned how to play it. Instead, I stuck with my keyboard-mouse combination.
During high school, when the COVID-19 pandemic was ongoing, I had a lot of free time, which allowed me to create most of the tracks I’m proud of today. Although I’ve become somewhat less active in creating music since I started university, I hope to get back to it soon.
Quick update: October 2023 onwards, I’ve kind of dropped this hobby. Academic stuff’s eating up a big chunk of my day, so I’d rather use my free time for cooking and tinkering.
I still build a lot of stuff, but music’s not gonna be one of them anymore.