@Iacchus 401528 wrote:

Yes to making ambient

My main advice to everyone ever is DONT USE REASON! No offence to the Reason fanboys I know why people like it, it was my first sequencer myself, but pretty much everyone outgrows the software fairly quickly, the lack of hardware/vst support is a massive drag and using two sequencers at once with rewire breaks your workflow and is a massive pain in the arse. Also you wont be able to record your guitar into it, it’s a black box and hates the outside world.

Acid pro isnt bad it’s got a bad reputation but Rusko does all his work in acid pro it can do everything the others can too its just best for stuff like mashup

I’ve worked with the all the sequencers over the years and to be honest I think Ableton Live wins hands down. Despite being initially designed for live performance it does everything all the other sequencers do and a lot of things a lot better. It’s built in effects arent as good as they are in say Logic but you can get great VST effects and Ableton is by far the easiest sequencer to manipulate audio in, I can work a lot faster in it and at the end of the day that is what is important when the one thing that makes a track better is time, and lots of it

Also if you’re serious get a hardware synth. Software synths are ok but just dont cut the mustard for professional production they always lack the warm rich sound you get from a real analogue modelling synth. I think dubstep is the only genre where the professionals can get away with software synths (and most dubstep basslines still sound pretty flat to me most of the time), if you’re doing anything trancey you need a synth with big polyphony and it’s own internal processor.

I wouldnt recommend and actual analogue synth (like a moog) they are really only good for making simple but fat noises and they’re a bugger to use, for ambient you’ll be wanting complex pads etc so an analogue modelling synth will be far more useful.

I can recommend u some ok software VSTs tho if u want to learn the ropes before u commit to a buy. Albino 2 and z3ta are ok and easy to get to grips with, you’ll get better noises out of NI Massive and Absynth but they’re harder to get your head round.

And try not to use presets you’ll need to learn to program synths eventually might as well start now 😉

thanks for the info – is any of your stuff available to download/stream? Would be interested to hear it.