Hey,
Do you know any music production courses for complete beginners?
Something like B2B for bass ( B2B has set the bar quite high ).
I know there are tons of YT videos, but as with learning bass/guitar it is very easy to get overwhelmed and sucked into watching hours of unstructured videos.
Any suggestions are welcome 
Some of the better plugin vendors have production instructional articles on their sites. iZotope’s are pretty good.
These are of course product tailored, but the iZotope plugins are very very good as well.
I found the best starting point is to settle on a DAW, then do a tutorial on that DAW and gain a good foundation of how it is used.
Then you can go pretty much anywhere for mixing type courses, of course ones that use your DAW of choice are a lot more straight forward but not really necessary.
The thing is though if you are only mixing in bass or bass/guitar to a backing track most courses will be way more than you need.
If the above is what you are looking for, then I would suggest starting here (its free!).
Cover’s multiple DAWs and multiple ways of adding bass to a backing track and also video. The instructors are amazing 
and the content is focused on recording yourself and bass. It all applies to guitar too.
If you are looking to go further I suggest picking a DAW and learning it first, then go deeper.
I took an excellent course on Abelton on Udemy that taught me a lot about music production in general as well.
There are a lot of courses on many topics available at Groove 3. One option would be to get a 30 day all-access pass to have a browse around at what’s available.
Do you have any link to that?
I’ve just found this while googling around:
https://www.14daymusicproducer.com/
No idea if this is good or not, but it kind of reminds me ( judging only based what I can read on their page ) the Beginner to Badass approach.
Man, I don’t know. I wouldn’t trust “production courses” shorter than a quarter of a year. Otherwise, it’s most of the time a tutor trying to pass down his own biases and processes as the only right way.
A short introduction to music theory and basic elements + physics class on Fourier transformation is IMHO much more useful than learning “produce” in one particular way.
Nonetheless, the YT channel In The Mix is … Michael is something like Bob Ross of musical production.
In The Mix is good.
Venus Theory’s channel is good for synths.
https://www.udemy.com/course/ableton-live-11-masterclass/
Note - this is for Abelton only, very focused on how it works and how to do things in it (you learn about the things via this way).
Totally agree!
I was looking for something locally and quickly learned to really get into this you do need to put in a LOT of time (and $$$) to do it right.
I really don’t think you will want to go this deep @jacq - unless you are looking for a new hobby.
I would really start with the BassBuzz course.
You may not need anything more detailed.
Don’t underestimate the cost. The fact that DAWs are so cheap and good is like the “the first one is free!” of music production. GAS for plugins is real, and there’s a lot of great mixing and mastering tools out there, and really amazing software instruments.
That said, it’s worthwhile and immensely rewarding. I spend a lot more time on it than bass these days.
I would only seriously get in to it if you plan to be mixing and mastering multiple instruments, software synths, and vocal tracks though - like @John_E said, for bass covers where it’s just you playing over a backing track, you won’t need it.
I was rather thinking about building some drum loops, recording some guitar (electric and acoustic), some bass… then maybe adding some other electronic instruments using a midi keyboard.
Having said all that, I have never used any DAW, nor recorded anything
Hence my ask about introductory courses for noobs.
Learning from Youtube is, as we all know very well, a massive rabbit hole.
I’ll never do that professionally, so I don’t mind if I learn something one way or the other as long as it works. This is just for me to experience the fun and joy of creating something by myself. It may be the case that it is completely not for me.
I hear you. I work very hard to tame my GAS as much as I can
Gotcha!
I would start with picking a DAW & learning about it.
Then add bass (Bass Buzz course), you will gain a lot of insights here.
The midi etc I would say to find something specific for your DAW of choice, will make things much simpler as each has their quirks on midi programming etc.
If you want the easiest time regarding finding things tailored for your DAW I would say just shell out for Ableton.
Lots of other good choices though. I like Reaper a lot myself. Logic is a great choice for macs. A lot of people like Bitwig these days. Many other choices.
You can do a whole lot in the free Abelton, no?
Not too sure where MIDI is limited as I don’t use it much, but the free version is very robust.
I’ve been thinking about Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol A25
According to the specs, it should work with many different DAWs:
- Full integration with MASCHINE, Logic Pro X, GarageBand, and Ableton Live, Cubase, and Nuendo.
Plus loads of NI software which I don’t understand 
They say that it comes with ABLETON LIVE 11 LITE.
Not sure how limiting it is, but my guess is that it should be fine for a beginner. No?
LITE does a ton, I used it for a long time before upgrading and I probably didn’t have to.
most plugins work with all DAWs btw.
Thanks.
Btw, I just started watching this. This is defo a very good starting point. I love it @John_E !
I would decide on DAW through a bit of research first and then buy a controller according to the choice. Komplete is really good if you want to be in NI Komplete ecosystem. (But not so stunning as a general-purpose controller) But if you decide to go with Ableton? Novation Launchkeys are above anything else when it comes to Ableton. On the other hand? For people who use Bitwig, Studio One, etc. . Arturia keyboards with their DAW-neutral philosophy with a ton of sounds of Analog Lab are probably the best buy for non-Ableton, non-Komplete use.
Agree completely. Almost any hardware will work with most DAWs.
Live Lite is a good start but you’ll be very limited by having only eight tracks. The full version also comes with more instruments/effects/etc. Still, for something that comes for free with like half the gear out there, Live Lite isn’t bad by any stretch.
yeah and no … and that’s the main reason I recommend before any DAW-specific content watch a couple of videos on old-school studio production. Every DAW is just a recreation of your famous Abbey Road or Hansa. Audio and midi tracks are the live room behind the sheet of glass. Every DAW has mixer and effect parts. Which are nothing more than a digital reproduction of an old-school recording console and rack of outboard gear.
As soon as you will get how “recording studios” work, you will be able to identify particular equivalents in every DAW and use them as such - so you end up summing like in the ages of four tracks when you recorded 3 mics on drums and then down-mix it to summing bus track and you had whole drums that took 3 tracks in one. And you can carry on forever like that, in theory.
If I would about learn music production nowadays, I would learn how sound works from the physical perspective (Which gives you everything you need to know about mixing.) and spend some time watching tutorials on studio recording/production. (This gives you the ability to adapt to any DAW in a couple of hours through concept application.)
You can, it’s true, but this kind of limitation is still a PITA. Yes, people used to put up with it, but it was a major advance to no longer need to.