what is the bare minimum for producing good music?

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i've been hearing alot about midi keyboard, high quality headphones, and a bunch of other equipment. but is it necessary? i kind of blew a good amount of my funds to build this desktop.

Nothing is 'necessary' to produce music on your computer except some software and any old speaker/headphones. As far as upgrade paths: if you're into writing music a midi keyboard would be your next step, if you're into mixing/mastering a good pair of monitor speakers would be next.

heh already had to buy monitor speakers because my monitor had no built in speakers

Nowadays it is fairly simple to build a decent home studio for low costs. If you own a Mac, you already have Garageband pre-installed or it is available in the App Store for free. This is a great tool for everyone who wants to compose and record music. You only need a preamp (the focusrite scarlett solo for $99 would be a great start), a microphone, headphones, and then you're good to go.

i have a custom built desktop with lssm installed

Should also be working fine. Do you have any sources for decent VST-plugins? You should find some by using google. If not, then i can give you some recommendations!

Yeah, that's where music production gets expensive. 100$ for a plugin here 50$ there, it adds up at the end of the day. Me personally, I use Fabfilter Q2 equalizer and C2 compressor, The Glue compressor, Sparkverb reverb, izotope nectar for my crappy vocals, and izotope ozone for my mastering and that's pretty much it. Less is more imho.

i didn't touch lssm yet. (been busy with other programs like drawing, modeling etc.) recommendations are welcomed, but not necessary.

That's if you get everything legitimately.

The ideal budget setup will depend very much on what type of music you're intending to produce. If you're going to record natural sources (like acoustic instruments, amps, voice, etc.) then you'll need a totally different set of tools than if you are going to write electronic music. So if you could answer a few questions I would be happy to give you recommendations on what types of gear you would need. My qualifications, if needed, is I'm a Recording Arts graduate, previous head engineer at the longest-running private recording studio in Atlantic Canada, and have been recording music for 20 years now.

1. What equipment do you have right now?
2. What types of things would you like to record? (drums, voice, choirs, etc..)
3. What type of music do you produce?
4. What is your budget?
5. What audio recording tools are you familiar with and comfortable using? (DAWs, outboard gear, microphones, preamps, compression, equalizers, time-based effects, etc.)
6. What is your level of experience in recording music?
7. What is your level of experience in producing/mixing recorded music?
8. What do you consider "good music"? Is it the aesthetic/production quality of the recording, the emotional content of the recording, or the structure of the song itself? ie. what is your end-goal when you say you want to produce "good music"?
9. If you plan on recording instruments, what instruments can you play well?

The keyboard doesn't really need to be quality, as you throw it trough software anyway.
The headphones help a lot to determine how it will sound to listeners, but if you are producing for larger events, this is less relevant because nuance get removed by high volume anyway.
The software, well, that is a question of what you want in soundssets, but i'd deem this the most important out of the three.
A medium-quality for all of the requirements is good enough, and easily affordable.

The most important is your own creativity and time.

This is my system
Computer: Early 2013 15" MacBook Pro w/ retina
DAW: Logic Pro X
Headphones: Audio Technica M-40x
Instruments: Korg Legacy Digital (M1 & WaveStation), Roland JV-2080
Interface: MOTU 828Mk3 Hybrid
Microphone: Late 90's Neumann U87
MIDI keyboard: Behringer UMX61
Plug-Ins: Lexicon MPX Native Reverb, Relab LX480, Stillwell Bombardier, Stillwell Vibe EQ, Valhalla Shimmer and VintageVerb

I'm sorry, but I disagree with most of what you wrote. Here's my take on why.

- Your MIDI keyboard's quality goes much deeper than just its built-in sounds. Cheaper keyboards might not have the connectivity you need (only USB or only MIDI-out) but most importantly cheap keyboards have lousy feel and no key weight, which makes them less expressive to play, easier to break, and not a good investment as you'll likely need to replace it as you upgrade your gear. Buy nice or buy twice.

- Headphones are unbelievably important if you are using them for production. The old saying is "you can't mix what you can't hear". Check out the frequency response chart for a cheap set of headphones and you'll notice that they are not appropriate at all for music production as they are not accurately representing what you're recording. I'm not a big fan of mixing through headphones for reasons it isn't relevant to get in to here, but cheap headphones are going to make your life SO much harder. Lastly, mix mistakes, poor use of compression, etc. will be amplified by a PA system, not the other way around; mix with headphones with poor low-end-response and you might be surprised at what is coming out of the subwoofer at the venue.

- Choice of DAW software is practically irrelevant these days. I have produced records using Pro Tools TDM systems, Pro Tools LE systems, Logic, Cubase, Reaper, Garageband, and Digital performer and I can tell you that for a beginner, every single one of them will do what you need. So save your money and use Garageband or perhaps Reaper. Invest in the important stuff first like a good front end, good monitoring, and eventually room treatments as you get more serious.

You're dead-on about the importance of creativity and time, though. Super important!

i have a pair of $5 earphones, guess that won't cut it. also, and this will be a stupid question, but is there a difference between a midi keyboard and a synthesizer? i've seen synthesizers with and without a keyboard and i'm not sure what to get.

Midi keyboards = don't generate sound
keyless synths = sound modules.

The two brands I recommend are Arturia and Native Instruments. I have an old Behringer UMX61 but it's getting long in the tooth and will be replacing it with a Kontrol S61

i just have a simple casio keyboard with plastic keys, and i play it through a midi conversion program located on my soundcard.

get a midi enabled sound card so it doesn't have to reference every note in a software file.


so the bare minimum?

bass, drums (rhythm), and a layer of accompaniment and a lead track.

you can easily automate a drum track if it is not designed to take centre stage in the songs progression

it is good to try to formulate your own songs by thinking about musical compositions during your time away from the equipment and then translating your ideas on the equipment.

if you have no capacity for composing, then you are consigned to having to play very well to perform cover versions of other songs. you have to appeal to those who know the original song and can recognize immediately that you are playing it.

i use many techniques to refine my music.

it is manuscripted as i play it with a program, and when i read the notes while listening to the playback, i know exactly what notes do not fit, so i remove them and insert an equivalent silence to cover the compression due to the removal.

i use multiple layering and am careful not to over iterate any track with decoration.
sometimes, if i want to play a particularly difficult quick tempo'd track, i will record it at half speed (with midi, tempo changes do not affect pitch or timbre)

here is an example of something i played on a cheap plastic keyed synth that i thought of (it is quite simple as you will find if you analyze it)

i must implore you however to press "stop" at the end or else you will get an endless influx of other songs which i am not wanting to illustrate with this post.

http://www.soundclick.com/html5/v3/play ... 10733&q=hi