re: Suggestions for simple music software

Professional here, but I’ve helped friends’ kids get into recording software for the cheapest investment possible. Actually jealous that they get to use so many tools at such a young age. Apologies for the length but I gathered you’re a beginner at recording and I love getting beginners into this stuff. I’ve learned to be thorough so people don’t get scared and give up. Here’s the crash course:

The million dollar question, do you have a Mac or PC? This is all for Mac but it’s similar for Windows. My advice, get a Mac if you don’t have one, it will make your life 100x easier. Since you’re retiring, spend the 800 bucks or so on an older model. You want to make the technical aspect as easy as possible (this goes for people at every experience level) because it will KILL your creativity otherwise.

First thing: your keyboard will be a MIDI controller (I’ll explain). ***WITH MIDI YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO USE STOCK SOUNDS FROM YOUR KEYBOARD*** but you don’t need to. You CAN technically do this but it requires more hands on stuff that I wouldn’t recommend (cables, $100 interface minimum, etc). In fact you won’t want use those sounds. Garage Band has plenty and they’re more modern. All that “MIDI controller” means is it acts like a middle man between you and the computer. You play it and the sound comes from your computer (piano/bass/drums etc). It’s not complicated, so don’t get intimidated. This should be a thing where you don’t think about it and just get right to creating. Not at first, but do it a few times, and it will be, just stick with it for the first few times.

Get a cable to hook up your board to the computer. They are older boards, so you’ll probably need this one. Go to Guitar Center and ask them for a USB MIDI interface. If they want specifics, tell them your board, find out the year it was made (these are usually younger guys and might not know the exact models you’re talking about but all older boards use the same). They’ll know what that means. Be prepared for them to talk to you about nothing for 15 minutes and try to get you to buy a 2 year protection plan (don’t… it’s bullshite… lol). Something like this:

USB/MIDI interface

FYI, the newer boards on the cheap end will be like $80 and they just use a regular printer cable.

Open Garage Band. Make sure the keyboard is connected. If you click a key I think there should be lights blinking with the signal. ***YOU WON’T HEAR A SOUND UNLESS A SAMPLE IS SELECTED*** (next paragraph) You can watch YouTube’s of guys doing this. It’s easy, don’t worry.

Create a new track, select a sample (this just means instrument, piano, bass, drums) they should have all that in there. Watch YouTube how to do this. Type in “How to get started with Garage Band” or “how to select a sample.” That’s it. Mess around with different instruments too, have fun with it. Once you hear sound, you’re ready to go. Hit record. There will be a metronome playing (we call it a click). You can mute it, I recommend keeping it so everything lines up. ***YOU DON’T HAVE TO PLAY STUFF PERFECTLY*** in fact most guys who do this aren’t pianists. With MIDI you can fix timing, notes, change melodies, make stuff louder or software, etc. On that subject, once you have a project done, or a track done, search this on YouTube: “how to quantize MIDI in Garage Band.” This basically will fix any timing issues you have, but there’s more to it than what I should put in the post.

One note that you NEED to know: in your case (not every case), MIDI tracks will be green, AUDIO tracks will be blue. MIDI means the sound comes from the computer (through notes you play on your keyboard). Audio means the track comes from you or a real instrument (i.e., to record the sounds from your keyboard you would need an audio track, don’t mess with those). But, if you want to record vocals, you need an audio track. They should be side by side. It will default to your computer microphone. The Mac built in microphones are actually pretty damn good for what they are.

Use headphones for now.

If you have a PC and need to use a PC: someone said Ableton for Windows. I would recommend against it. Ableton is complicated. I’m a pro in the industry, I’ve used computers on stage with major artists, and I don’t even like using Ableton because it’s a buzz kill for me.

If you do have a PC get the simplest Garage Band equivalent that you can find. Ask Chat GPT and be descriptive of what you wanna do. The setup will be mostly the same.

I love this stuff and love it when people do this as a hobby. It reminds me there is joy in this art form other than just paying bills. Keep me posted.