I know there are some musically inclined people here, and I'm wondering if any of you have knowledge to share. I played percussion in middle school (stopped in High School), so I have some very basic musical knowledge but nothing special. Lately, I've been messing around with the http://flstudio.image-line.com/ 10 demo with limited results. It seems that info related to making music like this is very scarce and hard to find. So far I've been following along http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPxIk-nJvT0 tutorials and guides I can, but I still kind of feel like I'm missing something. They are informative, and do help me to learn the program, but I think maybe I'm missing more general music knowledge. I really just feel like I'm stumbling in the dark right now, with no idea how to proceed.

Basically, I'm wondering what the general steps to learn how to make music are. Does it really matter what program I start with? Are there any good, free, sources for any relevant information? Any subjects I might need to learn about? If it isn't obvious, I don't know much about this art form. Is this something that would be best to learn through a class? I plan to attend community college this fall, and taking some music related classes are something I'm considering.

I'd really appreciate any input on the subject as this is a hobby that really appeals to me. :thanks:

This is a great online course (and it's free). It helped me out years ago when I was studying Contemprorary Music at SCU:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/77-Principles-of-Orchestration-On-line

Northern Sounds is also a great forum to get advice and feedback from industry proffessionals such as myself

What sort of music are you interested in making? FL Studio is a good bit of software if you're a beginner just getting into music production. It's especially good for making electronic music, but if you're looking to make classical music involving scoring and large sample libraries you'd be better off with more complex software more suited to the task.

I've been making electronic music since my early teens in the 1980s and began using a Roland SH101, Boss Dr Rhythm drum machine, Casio CZ5000 synth and a 4 track recorder. I've never had any formal music training. All I did was experiment, press buttons, tweak parameters, basically just learning what it all did and how to make it sound good. You can teach someone the mechanics and procedures of producing music, but the actual creativeness and invention has to come from you, there is no FAQ for that.

If you have any specific questions I'll try my best to answer them. In the meantime you could look at the http://www.futureproducers.com/forums/, http://www.idmforums.com/ and to a lesser extent http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/.

I probably should have mentioned I'm interesting in making electronic music rather than orchestral or something different. These links all look very helpful, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a ton! I might post back after I have some time to go through all of this and try it out.