What WAS your typical setup?

Not what you're using now, but what was your setup and/or workflow years ago?

For me I had many workflows over the years but the one that worked really well but seemed odd was this:

• Load up drum samples in Fruity Loops (you already know what year this is).
• Make a drum loop with the step sequencer.
• Export all tracks as WAV.
• Import files into Cakewalk and loop it.
• Record audio into Cakewalk and do tons of destructive chopping to create my melody.
• Mix.

Sometimes I would also play some synth stuff in Reason and export that into Cakewalk as well. It seems tedious but it worked and it wasn't that bad. I didn't care for Fruity or Reason for bringing it all together so that's why I used Cakewalk.

What about you guys?

I technically started with Magix Music Maker and Audacity. I just recorded from my mother's Triton Le keyboard into Audacity and put together loops I found on Magix. I did try to create a Rap song based off the book Kite Runners in High School. I ended up doing it acapella because they couldn't hear my voice over the beat. I was so disappointed lol. After college, I dabbled a little bit into Cubase and used audio and MIDI with my Alesis SR-16 Drum Machine and Roland JD-Xi synthesizer with a Steinberg Audio Interface. Eventually I would come across FL Studio and I've never looked backed since although I still use Cubase sometimes.

V.J. Retro said:

I technically started with Magix Music Maker and Audacity. I just recorded from my mother's Triton Le keyboard into Audacity and put together loops I found on Magix. I did try to create a Rap song based off the book Kite Runners in High School. I ended up doing it acapella because they couldn't hear my voice over the beat. I was so disappointed lol. After college, I dabbled a little bit into Cubase and used audio and MIDI with my Alesis SR-16 Drum Machine and Roland JD-Xi synthesizer with a Steinberg Audio Interface. Eventually I would come across FL Studio and I've never looked backed since although I still use Cubase sometimes.

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Yo the SR-16 has always been on my wish list for some reason. I really should cop that.

Fade said:

Yo the SR-16 has always been on my wish list for some reason. I really should cop that.

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Aw man. I just sold it a few months ago. If I spent more time on it and didn't buy other gear, I would have kept it for a little while.

V.J. Retro said:

Aw man. I just sold it a few months ago. If I spent more time on it and didn't buy other gear, I would have kept it for a little while.

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It's one of those things where you don't think you need/want it but years later you're wishing you had kept it. I still wish I had my Roland R-70 and Akai S20!

Oh man!!!

My FIRST ever setup (which is a stretch of the term) circa 2001/2002 was:

• Adobe Cool Edit Pro (2.0 I think?)
• Yamaha YES Keyboard
• A clip on Microphone
• French/English dictionary

The YES line stood for (Yamaha Education System) and had a little Tiger Gaming esque screen that showed the sheet music for stock songs (House of the rising sun, greensleeves, and other standards) in an effort to learn piano. It had the standard fare of sounds - as cheesy as the late 90s could be - with an array of "acoustic" instruments, synths and drums.

The clip on microphone came with a "learn french" CD-ROM. In retrospect it was a pretty cool piece of software. The CD-ROM would coach you through french vocabulary and you would use the mic to speak in french words and it would tell you how close your pronunciation was. Pretty advanced for the time!

The "Setup" was the YES keyboard with the Mic clipped to the French/English dictionary, like a mice stand, centred between the built in speakers. I'd record, in real time/no MIDI, drum beats, then chords, melodies, and bass into Cool Edit. Once I figured out how to bounce/merge tracks, my buddies and I would use the same clip on mic to record our lame raps over.

All this was done on a the most generic 2000s, Office Depot style desk that had the built in racks to store CD-ROMS, slide out keyboard tray and my mum's IBM Thinkpad she got from work.

V.J. Retro said:

I technically started with Magix Music Maker and Audacity. I just recorded from my mother's Triton Le keyboard into Audacity and put together loops I found on Magix. I did try to create a Rap song based off the book Kite Runners in High School. I ended up doing it acapella because they couldn't hear my voice over the beat. I was so disappointed lol. After college, I dabbled a little bit into Cubase and used audio and MIDI with my Alesis SR-16 Drum Machine and Roland JD-Xi synthesizer with a Steinberg Audio Interface. Eventually I would come across FL Studio and I've never looked backed since although I still use Cubase sometimes.

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Man, I have no real reason to buy one, but I'd love to have an SR-16

What I've noticed is how creative everyone can be with a minimal or restricted setup. There's guys making beats with an old PC and not even a MIDI keyboard. We're definitely all spoiled today.

I remember on some lite version of cubase, using those earpad type earphones,

I remember producing with one ear pad on, and thinking the pan knob was making the kick more powerful.

When I finally put my other earpiece on, that's how I learnt what panning was.

I started with a Gemini Sampler (8 seconds) (I kinda missed that sampler) and my Akai XR 10 drum machine (I wish I didn't sell it) and I had Magix Music Studio 7 which was trash or I really didn't know what I was doing . I was always plugging and unplugging my gemini sampler to get samples off tape cassettes and vinyl and record it to the magix program thru the headphone jack of the sampler to the back of a 4gb computer in the microphone input that always crash because it was only 4gb. I use to hit that big button to do my own sample loops and to match the drums from my drum machine was a headache because I knew nothing about midi yet

K-waz said:

I started with a Gemini Sampler (8 seconds) (I kinda missed that sampler) and my Akai XR 10 drum machine (I wish I didn't sell it) and I had Magix Music Studio 7 which was trash or I really didn't know what I was doing . I was always plugging and unplugging my gemini sampler to get samples off tape cassettes and vinyl and record it to the magix program thru the headphone jack of the sampler to the back of a 4gb computer in the microphone input that always crash because it was only 4gb. I use to hit that big button to do my own sample loops and to match the drums from my drum machine was a headache because I knew nothing about midi yet View attachment 7199

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A lot of people would shit on Gemini for their products, and even though they weren't great, they were cheap and many of us wouldn't have been able to make beats or DJ. My first mixer was the TECHNO MASTER lol.

Fade said:

Not what you're using now, but what was your setup and/or workflow years ago?

For me I had many workflows over the years but the one that worked really well but seemed odd was this:

• Load up drum samples in Fruity Loops (you already know what year this is).
• Make a drum loop with the step sequencer.
• Export all tracks as WAV.
• Import files into Cakewalk and loop it.
• Record audio into Cakewalk and do tons of destructive chopping to create my melody.
• Mix.

Sometimes I would also play some synth stuff in Reason and export that into Cakewalk as well. It seems tedious but it worked and it wasn't that bad. I didn't care for Fruity or Reason for bringing it all together so that's why I used Cakewalk.

What about you guys?

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I'm pretty sure it's still the same as 7 years ago. I just fuck around with whatever random shit in FL until something funny happens

Armani said:

I'm pretty sure it's still the same as 7 years ago. I just fuck around with whatever random shit in FL until something funny happens

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hell, even my biting habits are the same as then. maybe just more... sophisticated now.

BiggChev said:

Man, I have no real reason to buy one, but I'd love to have an SR-16

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Man. I didn't know the SR-16 was that popular back then.

The first time I ever really made a hip hop beat was in a small project studio around '91 or '92. Past that, I really got going seriously when I copped a Yamaha MU5 in '94, and not long after I grabbed a Novation MM10x controller to use with it running out to my Realistic DJ mixer, then out to a pair of Bose Roommates I had mounted on the wall on the other side of my bedroom. I had sequencers on my Atari ST so that was my whole setup. Every sound came from the MU5's General Midi soundset, drums and all. About a year later and me and my fiancee at the time moved into an apartment and I ended up using her 486 PC and a copy of PowerTracks Pro 3.0, which allowed you to load and trigger samples from your sequences. That shit took me to a whole new level. I eventually got rid of the MU5 for a Boss DS330 module and made beats like that.

I started on a mixer with about 8 seconds of sample time. I would layer samples using a twin cassette deck, I would program the bassline into my zx spectrum and use that as a bass generator. The end result sounded like the snake pit at the very bottom of hell, but I was making beats, I thought they were the bollocks so didn't give a fuck what anybody else thought.

2GooD Productions said:

I started on a mixer with about 8 seconds of sample time. I would layer samples using a twin cassette deck, I would program the bassline into my zx spectrum and use that as a bass generator. The end result sounded like the snake pit at the very bottom of hell, but I was making beats, I thought they were the bollocks so didn't give a fuck what anybody else thought.

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Wow, never thought I'd ever see someone use their Speccy as a bassline generator. Now I feel like I may have missed out in using my 800XL to make music.

konceptG said:

Wow, never thought I'd ever see someone use their Speccy as a bassline generator. Now I feel like I may have missed out in using my 800Xl to make music.

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I soldered in phono outputs so I could use phono leads into the tapedeck. I just wanted to get started making music, and did what I had to with what very little I had.

Like when I first started deejaying, with one proper turntable and a hifi turntable. I could only adjust the speed on one deck so had to do it very slowly so it wasn't obvious when that deck was playing.

Doing things the hard way can be a great learning experience, and when I eventually upgraded to music2000 on the ps1, I was well on my way, lol.

2GooD Productions said:

I soldered in phono outputs so I could use phono leads into the tapedeck. I just wanted to get started making music, and did what I had to with what very little I had.

Like when I first started deejaying, with one proper turntable and a hifi turntable. I could only adjust the speed on one deck so had to do it very slowly so it wasn't obvious when that deck was playing.

Doing things the hard way can be a great learning experience, and when I eventually upgraded to music2000 on the ps1, I was well on my way, lol.

Click to expand...

The first sample I ever used was for a beat I made on the old MU5 and it came from a kung fu flick playing on my VCR. I had the part I wanted to use paused until the beat came to the drop and I unpaused it, then paused it again when it was over.

The whole reason I bought Power Tracks Pro 3.0 was because I could trigger a sample from the sequence. I was running Windows 3.11 on a 486-25MHz processor with 8MB of RAM. I had my tape deck connected to the PC to record the samples into Goldwave, which I then used to edit the samples. PowerTracks Pro only allowed one sample to play at a time, so I would make the beats using sounds from the MU5 or DS330 and trigger samples from PTPro. There were a few times where I'd sample breakbeats and then played melodic stuff on top of it too.

Yeah, having limited stuff forces you to push the boundaries of creativity to make music. I used to crank out beats all the time back then.

konceptG said:

The first sample I ever used was for a beat I made on the old MU5 and it came from a kung fu flick playing on my VCR. I had the part I wanted to use paused until the beat came to the drop and I unpaused it, then paused it again when it was over.

The whole reason I bought Power Tracks Pro 3.0 was because I could trigger a sample from the sequence. I was running Windows 3.11 on a 486-25MHz processor with 8MB of RAM. I had my tape deck connected to the PC to record the samples into Goldwave, which I then used to edit the samples. PowerTracks Pro only allowed one sample to play at a time, so I would make the beats using sounds from the MU5 or DS330 and trigger samples from PTPro. There were a few times where I'd sample breakbeats and then played melodic stuff on top of it too.

Yeah, having limited stuff forces you to push the boundaries of creativity to make music. I used to crank out beats all the time back then.

Click to expand...

I went to college to learn how to program in C, at that time they were transitioning from 386's to 486's. Wolfenstein 3D was the game of the time, we were all using DOS 5.0 and a "windows" style operating system was only on the monochrome mac's. A couple years later Windows replaced DOS, and I hadn't been taught how to make programs for windows, so didn't know what the fuck I was doing on the programming side with windows, only learned that much later in life off my own back.

I think my first ever daw was a really really old version of Cubase, pre Cubase SX. After that I used Reason for many years, along with Acid Pro to sync vocals, used Pro Tools for a bit, then went back to Reason. Quit making music for 7 years, then came back after the heart attack with renewed passion, won battle that 5 years in a row, only losing the first to Deez's Nuts which became a win only because he was found out to be a massive cheater, became a bit of a beast and then regret massively quitting for 7 years. Won FL Studio so used that for quite a while before coming home to Cubase where I have lived ever since. Cubase just does everything I need, except stem ripping, but I have FL Studio for that now.

I used to crank out beats like nobodies business, it was definitely more of a case of quantity over quality, I dread to think how much time I have put into being a better beatmaker than I was before, but you don't rack up your 10,000 hours without putting in the work. @OGBama
I think I may have done so many times over.