--Introduction Thread-- Newbies Please Use This Thread First

[ExoBassTix]

I was kinda off-put by your bad timing of posting about kitchens (even though it serves for great amusement), but I guess I'll welcome you.

Hi. I'm Exo. I'm the guy that blasts your ears with Harsh Noise, or drowns you in Ambiental bliss. :3
I'm the one who knows.

Tell us a little about yourself :)
Who are you? What did you give us the honor of your presence for? What kind of music do you make/like (if any)? Who's your favorite pony? (That last question was for the people; it seems important to have one)

[Acsii]

Hi. I'm Exo. I'm the guy that blasts your ears with Harsh Noise, or drowns you in Ambiental bliss. :3
I'm the one who knows.

and at one point was the only one posting in the 'what are you listening to thread' :P

[ElectronicFlare]

I never really got to introduce myself so here I go.

Age:14

I got into the fandom last year and started actually producing music at around the beginning of January 2013.

Favorite Pony: Rarity

Genres: Hard Dance,Ambient and Drum and Bass

I mostly prefer using FL Studio 11 and I sometimes use Ableton Live 9

I also use Harmor or Massive.

Hope I can get along with all of you.

[Pulse Wave]

And another one joins the herd of musical bronies.

Chances are good that I'm among the top three oldest bronies in this place — I'm 38 years old, and I've been making music for 30 years now, as a hobby all the time. I've never strived to become a professional musician or producer, nor am I now. I'm one of the few experienced keyboardists, I guess, who have never learned to play the piano although I did have instrument lessons.

How do I work, and what do I use? See, on the one hoof, there are those newbies who want to be the next Skrillex and repeat YouTube tutorials on FL Studio and Native Instruments Massive. On the other hoof, there are those professionals and semi-professionals who have pumped lots of €s into their studio complete with a Mac, two screens, monitor speakers, noise-cancelling panels on the walls and all that.

And then there's me who is neither. Instead, I've piled up a rig of hardware synths and samplers and FX and so forth (see my profile for my gear list) in my bedroom in a thin-walled flat where I can't even use speakers (despite having a soprano and a rookie piano player in the same house and having had a horn player next door), so I have to rely on headphones. Some of my synths are more than 20 years old, digital vintage, one could say, but they help me get the sound I'm looking for.

That rig is set up in a way that allows me to play music. I still have to put together sequences for backing, yes, but I'm a player rather than a producer. Nevertheless, there's a not quite young, dual-booting ThinkPad with a professional-grade but discontinued audio interface sitting nearby and connected to the mixer, theoretically allowing me to record my music, but I am able to play music the "old-fashioned" way without a computer.

However, a while after I became a brony (which happened as early as May 2011), I began to develop original song ideas, pony music ideas. These ideas keep growing in numbers, not only in the LilyPond folder on my NAS. They want out, they want to come true, they want me to record them and share them with other bronies.

Other than my chronical lack of time, two little problems keep arising. One is that I've never in my life actually produced, let alone mastered any music. Well, there's always a first time for everything, I know my way around DAWs, and I know when music sounds good and when it doesn't. The use of hardware synths doesn't really make it easier, but that's the path I chose, besides, all that stuff is here already. (Yes, I know that the idea of being able to play it is pretty moot if I don't have any audience in my bedroom, and I can't see any way of yanking all my gear to where an audience would be...)

The other one are my musical preferences which influence me. I am not interested in any music from the 21st century. I already told you that I'm an old fart, but my musical taste is old even for my age, for I have yet to fully embrace the 1990s. Most of the music I listen to ranges from the 60s to the 80s. My influences as a synth player in particular are classic electronic music (which does not necessarily mean Switched-On Bach which, by the way, is technically baroque), synthpop, New Wave, Hi-NRG, Italo disco, a lot of what has been popular throughout the 80s, also the more electronic side of R&B. Let me put it this way: I didn't need Daft Punk to find out about Giorgio Moroder (or Nile Rodgers, for that matter), I was already inspired by him before Random Access Memories. This might be a problem because my musical taste overlaps with almost nopony else's, and even if I do get to make the music I'm thinking of, there will be very, very few bronies — if any — who'd find that kind of music to their liking. Even if the songs in my head hardly sound the same.

I mean, I know that 80% of all pony music are a monoculture of dubstep/brostep, D&B, metal and even more wubz, and many bronies are looking for something different, but the music that wants out of my head is too far out, I guess, for any pony-loving audience.

That said, coming up with lyrics to almost completely composed and arranged songs isn't exactly easy either. And speaking of lyrics, not only is the next place where I can record vocals an hour away from here, but I find my singing voice mediocre at best (then again, that didn't stop Gary Numan, Jona Lewie and Stevie Nicks from pursuing their solo careers in the 80s either), and I have yet to see if my vocal microphone (which is already good for brony standards) sucks as badly as I think.

Despite all this, I'd really like to make these songs real, and at least one or two of them I have to sing myself. I guess I've joined this place as another bit of motivation to finally get them done.

So, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

[CaptainFluffatun]

the music that wants out of my head is too far out, I guess, for any pony-loving audience.

That's very assumptive of you.

[azerty]

[the best damn introduction in all the lands]

I like you a lot already.

And, just as Fluffatun suggested, you'd be awfully surprised by the wide variety of music that does exist in the fandom, and also by the unprecedentedly high number of appreciators of "weird" music. Definitely go for producing whatever you enjoy; inspiration is inspiration, no matter the genre, and chances are there are people out there for whom it's right up their alley.

Glad to have ya on board!

[Acsii]

the music that wants out of my head is too far out, I guess, for any pony-loving audience.

That's very assumptive of you.

Please let it be noise, drone, experimental, or stuff like that :3

[Viricide Filly]

Nothing on MLR can be as far out as http://vortexofcrap.bandcamp.com/

[ExoBassTix]

Hi. I'm Exo. I'm the guy that blasts your ears with Harsh Noise, or drowns you in Ambiental bliss. :3
I'm the one who knows.

and at one point was the only one posting in the 'what are you listening to thread' :P

:3
Well I live to share my force of life: good music.

Genres: Hard Dance,Ambient and Drum and Bass

I can't help but notice you said Hard Dance, which is officially an umbrella term instead of an actual genre.
I know that other artists (Technikal for example) use Hard Dance to describe their music too, but out of curiosity, I'm gonna ask you what you see as Hard Dance.

the music that wants out of my head is too far out, I guess, for any pony-loving audience.

That's very assumptive of you.

I'd have feeled offended if I didn't realize you might not know what you make or that there are people who like everything.
I'm gonna copy Abby for a moment.
Let it be Noise let it be Drone let it be Experimental pleeeeeaaaaaase!

[Pulse Wave]

the music that wants out of my head is too far out, I guess, for any pony-loving audience.

That's very assumptive of you.

Please let it be noise, drone, experimental, or stuff like that :3

Not even close. None of it.

I wasn't all wrong, I guess. Brony music that partly sounds as though it were older than the Atari ST is pretty far out (despite what the Beatle Bronies, Przewalski's Ponies & Co. have done).

[Viricide Filly]

I have music on my computer from 1950s. Argument invalid.

[Stuntddude]

I've been a brony since summer 2011, but only started getting interested in the music scene about a year later, around the time when I started to get serious about composing music. Before that I had been playing piano for near 7 years.

I'm a 15 year old kid from the U.S. midwest, I compose and produce various kinds of electronic music (most of which do not belong to any particular genre), but also some piano solos and, more recently, some solo guitar pieces (although only one is recorded/released). My music is 10% Sytrus, 10% syncopated percussion, 20% reverb, 20% pass filters, 40% 3xosc, and 100% sidechaining. FL Studio is my DAW of choice and Pinkie Pie is best pony. I'd like to compose professionally for soundtracks someday. I'm engaged to downtempo and Cherax Destructor is my glowing lobster idol.

Non-music and non-pony interests include programming, talking about programming, watching people programming, talking about watching people programming (aka livestreams), cats, and some video games. I don't do sports.

I'll probably do as I usually do with forums and just jump into MLR like I've been here all along. I look forward to doing interesting things with all you people I don't really know yet!

[PENG-1]

Came into the fandom about mid-April 2013, just starting to compose music using Abelton, planning to try ambient and have a couple of mashups in the works and that's about it.

[JSynth]

Lyra is best pony.

I fixed a spelling mistake for you (or were you trying to spell Apple Fritter?)

Nah, welcome to the community!
I hope you like Kitchens!

[Sailu]

hey guys i'm Sailu I'm a 24 year old musician i play bass, guitar, drums, piano, and i sing and song write as well lookint to get out there in the world and fandom i have a youtube channel of me playing bass with dubstep and brony dubstep-ish type songs

[TheAirHideous]

Hey guys, I'm TheAirHideous, just another wannabe producer.

Now, they say that you shouldn't say some things, but I'm going to say them anyway. I'm 16, DAW is LMMS and main VST is Synth1. If you haven't already clocked I'm trying to make music with the least amount of expenditure as possible. Most of the stuff that is currently on my Soundcloud and Youtube is genreless and generally not so good, but I do hope to become a producer mainly of house, Melbourne Bounce and anything else that's bouncy (yes, including Scouse House). My main motivation is honestly my love of ponies, my love of dancing and headcanons, which brings me onto rapping, which is also something I do. I have several ideas about songs featuring headcanons, including a 3 part foray into the life of Starswirl the Bearded. As with my production, most of the rap on my SC and Youtube was done with a bad quality mic, however I have bought a new one which is much better. I'm also making a track for Evdog's album New Sincerity, so I hope that you all check that out when it comes out.

Honestly run out of things to say, so I hope to see you all around on the forums.

Stay Hideous!

[Stuntddude]

Hey, ain't nothing wrong with being genreless!

[ExoBassTix]

Hey, ain't nothing wrong with being genreless!

That's how you invent things. ;D

Exactly! Be creative :P

Also Tah (I'm calling you that), you say bouncy? I say Tekstyle

Nah anyways, I hope you enjoy your stay and let us aid you in becoming a producer!

[TheAirHideous]

Thanks you guys, hope to learn a lot from here!

[Kenny Tweek]

Sup y'all, i'm Kenny, the Princess (You must watch South Park to understand that, lol), and i'm new here. (You don't say!)

Favorite ponies: Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Derpy.

Favorite episodes: Season 1 - Sonic Rainboom, season 2 - Return of Harmony, season 3 - Bad Apple and season 4, Pinkie Pride.

I'm not sure what to say, but well... I make rock and rap/hip hop songs, and I listen to A LOT of genres (except for instrumentals, house, trance and that kind of thing, but I do not hate it)

I play guitar, bass, kazzo (lol) and I do digital drums. Oh, and I sing, too. (or at least try)
I use FL Studio to produce, but I'm not so good yet... I'm still learning about it.
Also, i'm always looking for collabs and new stuff to do, so if you want to collab with me, just say, I accept almost anything. :3

How I became a brony (because I can just copy and paste it, i'm writing this in another forum)
I started to watch the show at november/december 2011, but just really joined the fandom at march 2012. My ex-girlfriend once showed me a Youtube Poop about MLP, and as I like to do, I checked the original (the episode Ticket Master), and well... I hated it. Let's say i'm brazilian, and the brazilian dub is awful.
Then she told me she actually enjoyed the show and was watching it and then, it started... I watched in english and the rest is here.

Alright, is that too much information? :v
Sorry about that, then... I'm bored. :v

[TickTock]

Oh god where do I even start...

[TL::DR Life Story]
I'm 23 and from the UK, I started rapping in college a few years ago as an in-joke between me and my rapping friend. What I didn't expect was to get told I might be good at something. The raps I wrote were Grime/Hip-Hop verses that could be performed in cyphers so choruses have never been my strong point. I wanted to get serious and I was convinced to accomplish this I'd need viral success, and that (in my head) meant having equipment I couldn't operate or afford. The initial shock value of the nerdy guy rapping wore off and I became frustrated with music.
When I started watching MLP in December last year. I instantly fell in love with the fan music and immediately began writing music again. Who knew that after 4 years hesitating to perform let alone release a recording, it would be a show about colourful cartoon horses for little girls that completely reinvigorated my passion for music and a few weeks into the fandom my euphoria incarnated itself in this incredibly bad quality freestyle over The Living Tombstone's "Good Ol' Days"

https://soundcloud.com/airwaves-4
(AirWaves was the original name I was going to use, out of respect for established musicians with similar names I'm hoping to have better luck with "Tick Tock")

Wait! Sit back down and hear me out for a second.
The reason I decided to ruin your first impression of me as an artist is to point out a 2 things:
MLP taught me to like yourself for liking what you like, so it would be unfair to misrepresent my first attempt and believe me, I've since completely reworked this song and I'm a lot happier with how it sounds now compared to then.
I performed this on my tattered old headset (the kind of headset where the foam round the mic is gone and one of the headset ears hasn't worked for months) and using a VERY VERY basic knowledge of Audacity, lined the vocals up, I realized how having the vocals too loud with horrible feedback can totally kill the entire song. As of this day, this recording is my total knowledge and experience of music recording and editing
[TL::DR Life Story over]

2 months down the line, my passion for making this music has only become more focused and I'm reaching out to anyone here who's in a similar position to me, just a few questions I want to ask:
Are there any Microphones you would recommend for someone who's starting out? The price doesn't necessarily matter it just needs to be a good value for the price. Solving this issue is easy and means I can focus on the second obstacle:
I can't write my own music right now, it's a dream of mine to collaborate with other brony artists but I need to show you guys that I'm worth your time. Are there any places you can recommend for instrumentals that I could credit and feature on free mixes/E.Ps?

I have so much planned right now and it's a really exciting time, thanks for reading and It's a pleasure to meet you all, expect more soon

TT

[Injustrial]

Hey, man. Welcome to the forum. We have an introduction thread, which can be found here

You could probably just copy paste this topic into there. Welcome aboard, regardless

[CaptainFluffatun]

Yo, welcome to the forum! Went ahead and just merged your topic with this one.

As for mics, it depends on what you want to record. Seeing as you're a rapper, you're going to be wanting a mic that's good for vocals. I myself use an Audio Technica AT2020, thought there are countless others. There's also the time-honored Shure SM58, though I've never used one myself. As for the instrumentals, you can look through websites such as EqBeats and the like for those. If you're just doing a mix of multiple songs, you can just go ahead and credit the artist, but if you plan on making heavy alterations to them, like rapping over them, it's generally good form to ask the original artist first.

[OfficeBats]

I felt like doing this again since I'm no longer using my other account on here.

Anyways,the name's OfficeBats. I ended up finding out about producing and such a 2 years ago and I have been really trying hard to make some dumb stuff. For finding the MLP I ended up learning about it at the same I started learning music production. As of right now I reside in a town about a hour from Chicago.

Aliases and their genres:
OfficeBats: Chill and Ambient
Fernus: Speedcore and Breakcore
Terabyte: Harsh Noise and Experimental
Spaceman_: Hardstyle and sometimes House

Fav Pony: Not sure but to pick from the 6 would be Rarity

So this is really a second introduction btw

DAW: FL Studio 11 and Ableton Live 9

Let's hope I get better with ALL OF YOU

[Callenby]

Welcome, Bats! You have an awful lot of aliases. I hope that's not too much to keep up with.

And welcome to everyone else who I missed since last I posted here!