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I would say that if you want to commit, you need to spend some money on gear so you don't just quit in a couple of months (nothing keeps you motivated like knowing you will have just wasted a couple hundred dollars if you give up).

Here is the minimum professional-quality kit you need (these are brands that I've seen being used by the Chemical Brothers, Orbital, and others) to buy in order to start playing around with enough equipment to keep you learning for at least a couple of years:

• 110$ MIDI Keyboard + Controller - Novation LaunchKey Mini
  
• 100$ DAW Software - Ableton Live Intro (FL Studio is also good, but the basic version costs 200$)
  
• Free Subtractive Synth VST - Tyrell N6
  
• Free Effects package VSTs - Melda Plugins
  
• 60$ Monitor headphones - AKG K240
  
• 270$ Total, for a high-quality basic kit.
  
  Ableton Live Intro is a fantastic DAW to learn: It has enough features to give you a year or two of productive learning before you might want to upgrade to the standard version. 16 tracks is enough to make a lot of good music.
  
  And don't be fooled by the price of the Tyrell N6: It's a full-featured professional synthesizer that's in the same league as the Minimoog, Prophet 5, and the Jupiter 8. It can make all of the same sounds of any of those synths, and you could spend a few months mastering its use.
  
  Once you get the hang of using those for a few months, you might want to upgrade your audio output quality, and also start recording real-life sounds, such as vocals and musical instruments. In that case you'll need an audio interface and a microphone:
  
  
• 200$ Audio Interface + Microphone - Focusrite Scarlett Solo bundle
  
  And one thing to keep in the back of your mind: Professional music production is complicated There's a lot more to it than hitting record and playing some nice notes. Here is a list of all the different skills that are required to become a great musician. If you want to make and sell music, you'll need to either get good at, or get someone to help you with, the following:
  
  
• Instrument playing (keyboard, guitar, drums, flute, etc)
  
• Rhythm (beat, timing, syncopation, etc)
  
• Music Theory (chords/scales, melody/harmony, etc)
  
• Arrangement (song structure creation, progression, tension/release)
  
• Effects (ambience, reverb, compression, filters, guitar pedals, etc)
  
• Mixing (EQ, compression, pan, volume)
  
• Mastering/Recording (EQ, compression, limiting, tape transport/splicing [analogue], or copy/paste and file management [digital])
  
• Releasing (album compilation, performance, DJing, music distribution, etc)
  
  You could honestly spend at least a few months learning each of those skills. And the following two skills are necessary for some types of music:
  
  
• Instrument/effect construction, modification, customization, VST programming
  
• Writing lyrics
  
• Singing
  
  Good luck! And may the god of music be with you!

Sounds like you really only need 1 input then, however I recommend an interface with 2 to give you options (can keep one channel set up for mic inputs, the 2nd for instruments etc like bass/guitar, or for multi-tracking a guitar, piano or drum kit using 2 mics.

Most cheaper interfaces connect to your computer via USB (some are even powered by the USB), these are reliable and totally acceptable for most use cases. Newer more expensive interfaces are mostly using Thunderbolt now. You will most likely never notice the difference between the two formats audio wise.

As far as I know pretty much any interface you buy now is compatible with all mainstream DAWs. Some will have added features for specific software (e.g. the new apogee element series has added features for Logic Pro x) but all should have basic functionality - you may just need to download the specific drivers for your software from the manufacturers site.

Budget dependent, I would recommend something like this:
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (2nd Gen) USB Audio Interface with Pro Tools | First https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E6T56EA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_G-6hDbES606HE

Very solid and stable, decent mic preamps for the price. It’s USB powered and also gives you 2 mic inputs. I’ve used this to track vocals for some major label projects I’ve worked on. Easy setup, plug in via USB, download and install the drivers and make sure the audio on your DAW is set to input/output through the interface. Then make sure the audio channel you are recording to has the correct input (matching the physical interface) and you’re set. Also - make sure you aren’t clipping (recording levels are going past 0db). This causes distortion, and most interfaces will have a ‘clip’ light that turns red if your gain is set too high for the loudness of the source you are recording. Just turn the gain down until the light no longer hits red at all.

If you aren’t recording the drums, bass and keys live then you can do it all with midi/plugins. You may want to use a midi controller (a cheap USB 25-key keyboard would do the trick)

Hello

When you have things going on in your life it's hard to pursue your creativeness and craft your ideas. This book here has a lot of ideas that help you look at things another way and it's an easy read, look through the chapters there is a few things that can help you. It's called 74 creative music strategies for Electronic Music Producers. You don't need to produce electronic music to read it. It covers stuff that is just about music too. I read a couple chapters over the week on my phone on the way to university or if I'm on the train.

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Music-Strategies-Electronic-Producers-ebook/dp/B00WHXYZG8

(you can get it on kindle and there is an app for PC and Mac that you can get off Amazon)

Edit: There is a lot of information posted below which is helpful I forgot to mention that sometimes change is good I like to break the loop. The best way for me to produce is spend a session just making ideas; maybe just create a loop in the DAW sequencer or use Live View (if you use ableton) and build up ideas upon each other maybe another session you can focus on editing and resist the urge to create and see what you can salvage from your creative session. Set limits for yourself a long the way as well, maybe have a time limit or only use one synth or restrict yourself to 2 or 3 samples. That book covers a lot of this stuff I've mentioned; I've only read a few pages and it's already helped me.


Hope everything is well!

It's not as easy like a direct answer, but you can look for books like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Here-There-Everywhere-Recording-Beatles/dp/1592402690
In this case, the sound engineer of many The Beatles recordings narrates all the process. For example, sometimes he explains how many hours took to record a song, how many people worked on it, what equipment they used... Maybe you can extract a lot of data.
Oh, and the book is amazing hehe.
Hope it helps and excuse my english.

I really enjoyed Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies....

This is a great book. I got the kindle version to save some money:

​

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Music-Strategies-Electronic-Producers-ebook/dp/B00WHXYZG8/ref=sr_1_22?keywords=creating+music+book&qid=1568657323&sr=8-22

If you've got the money and space buying a midi drum kit will help loads. You get to learn the drums and use a great midi controller at the same time. 👌

This is probably the cheapest mesh kit available (I've heard the rubber ones aren't worth buying)

Alesis Turbo Mesh Kit

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07HYTRL7D/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_r2-xDbJRP6KK4

thanks for the quick answer!

I think i'll go for the 25 keys one because i do not need a big keyboard. Thanks a lot btw it seems perfect!


EDIT:
What do you think about this one?
https://www.amazon.com/Akai-Professional-MPK-Performance-Ready-8-Assignable/dp/B00IJ6QAO2/ref=sr_1_4?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1543602444&sr=1-4&keywords=midi%2Bkeyboard&th=1

I really appreciate all the tips, I recent bought a blue yeti blackout mic and was looking into getting this keyboard ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IJ6QAO2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_sQ8ODb1MB4DPK )
Or something like it thank again for taking your time to write all that, really helps!

These correct? Sony MDR7506 Professional Large Diaphragm Headphone https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000AJIF4E/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_RzRKDbT1NE7K3

Also thank you! I definitely like them so far and they are about $50 cheaper than some other models I’ve looked at.

The Audio engineering sub has a very good ‘fundamentals’ page here.

Some of the following books are about specific aspects of sound design, some focus on acoustics, some on the technical aspects of engineering and some on psychoacoustics. They are all really good references.

Designing Sound. Andy Farnell

Master Handbook of Acoustics. F.Alton Everest

Audio-Vision Sound on Screen. Michel Chion

The Sound Studio - Alec Nisbett

Spectromorphology - Explaining Sound Shapes. Dennis Smalley

An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing. Brian Moore

Sound System Engineering. Davis/Patronis.Jr/Brown

Master Handbook of Acoustics. F.Alton Everest

I have the Sennheiser HD280s , they have a good flat response that helps me fine tune the levels.

*Pulls up PDF of book, flips to table of contents. *

​

Yeah, just by looking at the section headings and subjects, this is all about live sound reinforcement. Not really that useful for DAW music production. Unless you're aiming to be a FOH engineer.

​

You want a good book for learning about music technology, recording, and FX? The book Modern Recording Techniques may be more in the alley of what you're looking for. I'm sure you can find a PDF of it online, but its one of the few books I recommend actually purchasing.

Audio interfaces such as this one allow you to record guitar through a direct line input, which you can route through your effects pedal(s) first, and/or put through amp simulation plugins after recording.

Typically professional studios will mic up a guitar amplifier for a better sound (for electric guitar at least). In this case the guitar, and thus the sound of you strumming, shouldn't be anywhere near the mic during recording!

This book is short and to the point: https://www.amazon.com/Music-Sight-Singing-Robert-Ottman/dp/0205760082/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?keywords=sight+singing+ottman&qid=1573010981&sprefix=sight+singing+ott&sr=8-5

This is a standard College theory textbook.
https://www.amazon.com/Tonal-Harmony-Stefan-Kostka/dp/125944709X

Keep in mind that learning theory should be paired with sight singing (vocalizing the rhythms and melodoes). I'd recommend learning basic piano as well.

You should read this book by Ray Badness. It helps tremendously, regardless of genre.
(if you DM me, i may or may not know someone with a .pdf copy ;)

https://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544

Here's one for under $100 with good reviews.

Rule 1: do whatever sounds right

Rule 2: do it many times, do it a lot and often

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Also, I would recommend "the art of mixing" or similar, e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Mixing-Recording-Engineering-Production/dp/1931140456/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1543348812&sr=8-2&keywords=the+art+of+mixing .

I got a lot out of "Processing Creativity" by Jesse Canon

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https://www.amazon.com/Processing-Creativity-Tools-Practices-Habits/dp/0988561336

https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Dance-Music-Production/dp/0956446035

I would use AKAI Professional MPK MINI

https://www.amazon.com/Akai-Professional-MPK-Performance-Ready-8-Assignable/dp/B00IJ6QAO2/ref=sr_1_4?gclid=CjwKCAjwnf7qBRAtEiwAseBO_B7HQKq9tTO5BmJEojndidb0R-8A0qKgToekR4Cd81CIcv8alZ3UqhoCYfgQAvD_BwE&hvadid=178369142525&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9004258&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=16641734927672052803&hvtargid=kwd-21568298532&hydadcr=29433_10207590&keywords=mpk+mini&qid=1566581299&s=gateway&sr=8-4

I havent read that and cant recommend it. I'm talking about this one by sample magic

Says house, is full of basic dance music skills, genre blahblah

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secrets-House-Music-Production/dp/0956446000&ved=2ahUKEwiy1Mrgg9zjAhVOQEEAHSHQCVMQFjALegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw0aS45rqN_S_ECB4lSZiEXm