Start making electronic music

1. What you need

• A computer. Almost any laptop or desktop made in the last several years can run a DAW (the program you make music in) with a handful of tracks. More RAM and a faster processor mostly let you use more plugins at once; they are not a requirement to begin.
• Audio interface or built-in sound. The computer's built-in audio is enough to start. A separate audio interface (a small box connecting by USB) gives better converters, proper inputs for microphones and instruments, and usually lower and steadier latency through a dedicated driver (ASIO on Windows, Core Audio on macOS, ALSA/JACK/PipeWire on Linux). Buy one when you want to record something, or when latency bothers you.
• Headphones or monitors. Closed-back headphones are the cheapest way to hear bass and detail in an untreated room. Studio monitors need a decent room to be useful. Whatever you use, also check your mix on earbuds, a phone speaker and a car or living-room system.
• MIDI keyboard (optional). Handy for playing in chords and melodies; you can draw notes with the mouse or type them from the computer keyboard in most DAWs.

Latency and buffer size

Audio software works in small blocks of samples called the buffer. The computer needs one buffer to be filled before it can play it, so a larger buffer means a safer, glitch-free sound but a longer delay between pressing a key and hearing it. A smaller buffer is more responsive but asks the processor to keep up, and under load you hear clicks and crackles. The delay of one buffer is simply latency (ms) = buffer samples ÷ sample rate × 1000. Round trip (you play or sing something and hear it back through the computer) is roughly twice that, because the audio passes through an input buffer and an output buffer, plus a few milliseconds of driver and converter overhead that you enter yourself because it differs per device.

Rules of thumb that many people use as starting points: 128 to 512 samples while recording or playing instruments live, 512 to 2048 samples while mixing and mastering when you do not need instant response.

2. What a DAW is, and how to choose

A DAW (digital audio workstation) is the program where you record, sequence MIDI, arrange, mix and export. All of them do the same core job: tracks laid out against a timeline, a piano roll for notes, an audio recorder, a mixer, plugin hosting and export. The differences are workflow, included instruments and price. Pick one, learn it properly, and avoid switching during your first projects; the skills transfer.

Last checked 2026-11-07; confirm on each project's site. Licence terms, editions and platforms change. This is not a ranking and not complete: other DAWs exist, including paid ones.

How to choose. Start from your operating system and your first goal. If you mainly want to program beats and synths with a pattern editor, a loop-oriented or pattern-oriented program may feel quicker. If you want to record live instruments or vocals, a track-based studio layout fits. Try a free or evaluation option for two weeks, finish a small track in it, and only then decide whether anything is missing.

3. Plugin formats by operating system

Plugins are instruments and effects that load inside your DAW. They come in several formats; the format has to be one your DAW can load, and the plugin has to be 64-bit like the DAW itself. Most DAWs use several formats; check your DAW's manual for the exact list.

Folders are the common defaults; a plugin's installer may let you choose another place, and your DAW lets you add extra scan folders. On Linux, many plugins are also available through your distribution's package manager.

How a DAW finds plugins

The DAW scans its plugin folders (and any extra folders you add in its preferences), loads each file briefly to read its name and parameters, and stores a list. Plugins that crash or hang during that scan are usually blacklisted and skipped silently on later scans, which is the usual reason a plugin you just installed is missing.

Troubleshooting checklist

1. Is the format one your DAW supports (for example AU does not exist on Windows or Linux)?
2. Is the plugin 64-bit and is it built for your system (an Apple-silicon Mac needs an Apple-silicon-compatible plugin, or your DAW needs a mode that runs it)?
3. Was it installed to a folder the DAW scans? Look at the DAW's plugin preferences for the folder list, and add the folder if needed.
4. Rescan from the preferences; use the option to rescan failed or blacklisted plugins.
5. Restart the DAW, and on macOS restart after installing AU plugins if it still does not appear.
6. Install the plugin's other parts: some instruments need a separate content or sample library, or a runtime the vendor installs separately.
7. Check the plugin's licence/authorisation step (some need activation before first use).
8. Update the plugin, and the DAW. If a plugin crashes only in one DAW, try another format of the same plugin.
9. If your DAW crashes at startup while scanning, remove the most recently installed plugin and scan again.
10. Try the standalone version to see whether the plugin works at all on your machine.

4. Virtual instruments and effects

Synthesiser types

• Subtractive: start with a harmonically rich oscillator (saw, square) and cut frequencies with a filter. The classic sound for bass, leads and pads, and the easiest to learn (section 5 demonstrates it).
• FM (frequency modulation): one oscillator modulates the pitch of another to create metallic, bell-like and electric-piano sounds. Powerful but less intuitive.
• Wavetable: scans through a table of stored waveshapes, so the timbre can morph over time; very common in modern electronic music.
• Additive: builds a sound by adding many sine waves (harmonics) with individual levels.
• Granular: chops a sample into tiny grains and replays them, for textures, clouds and stretched sounds.

Sample-based instruments

A sampler plays recordings you load; a drum machine triggers one-shot drum samples (or synthesised drums) on a grid; a ROMpler plays a fixed set of built-in samples with limited editing. Orchestral and piano libraries are large multi-sampled instruments, often several gigabytes, played through a sampler plugin. You need enough disk space and a quick drive for the bigger ones.

Free instruments to look up

These exist at the time of writing; verify availability and licence on each project's own site before relying on them.

Essential effects, in plain words

Use the effects that come with your DAW first. The settings below are starting points, not rules; trust your ears and bypass the effect often to check it helps.

5. Synthesis basics: try it

Signal flow in a typical subtractive synth: the oscillator makes a raw tone, the filter shapes it, the amplifier (controlled by an envelope) gives it a volume shape in time, effects colour it, and the master sends it out. An LFO (low frequency oscillator) is a slow wobble that can modulate something such as the filter cutoff or pitch.

Waveforms and the maths

Sine is a pure tone with no overtones. Triangle is soft and hollow. Square is hollow with only odd harmonics. Sawtooth is bright and buzzy with every harmonic. The pitch of a note is its frequency: MIDI note number n has frequency 440 × 2^{(n − 69) ÷ 12} Hz (note 69 is A4, 440 Hz; note 60 is the C near the middle of a piano). Every 12 notes (an octave) doubles the frequency.

An ADSR envelope has four stages: Attack (time to rise from silence to full level), Decay (time to fall to the sustain level), Sustain (the level held while the key is down; a level, not a time) and Release (time to fade to silence after the key is released). In this demo the segments are straight lines, which is the simplest form; real synths often curve them.

6. Your first track in 10 steps

Aim for a rough eight-bar loop first and an arrangement second. Finish small tracks; you learn more from ten finished tracks than from one perfect loop.

Step 1: tempo and key

Choose a tempo from the styles map (section 7); 120 to 128 BPM is a comfortable starting range. Choose a key: a minor key is a common starting choice for electronic music. If unsure, A minor uses only the white keys of a piano.

Step 2: drums

The most common electronic beat is four on the floor: a kick drum on every beat, a clap or snare on beats 2 and 4, and hi-hats between the kicks. Click the grid to edit the pattern. The grid has 16 steps per bar; each step is a sixteenth note and every fourth step (beats 1 to 4) is outlined.

Step 3: bass line

Add a bass instrument (a sine or a filtered saw works well). Play the root note of your key on the downbeat and between the kicks (the off-beats) so kick and bass do not hit at the same moment, or sidechain the bass to the kick (ask the compressor to turn the bass down briefly each time the kick plays). Keep the bass mono and below about 250 Hz simple.

Step 4: chords

Use two to four chords that repeat every bar or every two bars. Use the guitar and piano chord tool to look up notes and fingerings, and the music theory tools for the chords that belong to your key.

Step 5: melody

Make a short motif of three to six notes and repeat it with small changes. Stay inside the scale. The scales and modes tool lists the notes for each scale and mode.

Step 6: arrangement

Turn the loop into a song by adding and removing parts. A common electronic layout, with bar counts as a starting point:

Length at the tempo set in the sequencer: – (4/4). Change the grid tempo above to update.

Step 7: automation

Automation means drawing changes of a control over time: a filter cutoff opening during a build, a volume fade, a reverb send raised before a drop. It is the main way to make a loop evolve.

Step 8: mixing basics

• Gain staging: keep each track's peaks well below the maximum, for example around -12 to -6 dBFS (decibels relative to digital full scale), so effects and the sum of tracks have room. Lower faders rather than turning the master up.
• Headroom: before mastering, aim for the loudest peaks of the full mix at about -6 dBFS (never touching 0 dBFS).
• Panning: kick, bass, snare/clap and lead vocal or lead melody usually stay near the centre; pads, hats and background layers can go left and right.
• EQ carving: give every sound its own region, using the frequency chart in section 10. Cut the low end from sounds that do not need it, and make space for the kick and bass.

Step 9: mastering basics

Mastering is the last polish on the finished stereo mix. Loudness is measured in LUFS (loudness units relative to full scale), a figure designed to follow how loud music sounds to people, averaged over the track. Many streaming services turn louder music down to a target near the mid -10s of LUFS (it differs per service and changes, so check them), which means pushing a track far louder gains nothing and costs dynamics. True peak (dBTP) measures the peaks of the reconstructed waveform, which can be higher than the sample peaks; a ceiling of about -1 dBTP is a common safe choice. Why not over-limit: squeezing more and more out of a limiter flattens the punch, brings distortion, and sounds tired after a minute. A few dB of limiting is usually plenty.

Step 10: exporting

• WAV: uncompressed; use it for the master copy and for sending to others. FLAC: lossless compressed, smaller than WAV, same quality. MP3: lossy and small, fine for sharing a quick preview.
• Sample rate and bit depth: 44100 or 48000 Hz at 16 bit is the usual delivery format; 24 bit is a good choice for files you will keep working on. Export at your project's sample rate unless a service asks for something else.
• Listen to the exported file once before you share it.

7. Electronic music styles map

A neutral overview for orientation. Tempos and sounds below are common tendencies, not rules, and styles overlap constantly.

8. MIDI basics

MIDI is not audio. It is a stream of instructions (which note, how hard, when) that tell an instrument what to play, so you can change the sound later without re-recording.

• Notes: numbered 0 to 127; note 60 is the C near the middle of a piano (called C3 or C4 depending on the program).
• Velocity: how hard a note is struck, 1 to 127; it usually controls volume and often brightness.
• CC (control change): numbered controls from knobs, sliders and pedals, each 0 to 127 (for example CC 1 is the modulation wheel and CC 64 is the sustain pedal). Pitch bend is a separate, finer message.
• Channels: 16 channels per MIDI connection, so one cable can drive several instruments.
• Quantise: snaps recorded notes to the grid. Use it partly (for example 50 to 80 percent strength) to keep some human feel.
• Piano roll: the editor where notes appear as bars, with time across and pitch up the side; velocity usually sits in a lane below.

Controllers: MIDI keyboards, pad grids, knob boxes and fader boxes connect by USB (older gear uses a 5-pin cable) and are normally recognised without drivers. OSC (Open Sound Control) is a different protocol, sent over a network, that carries finer-grained values; some apps and controllers use it and some DAWs can receive it. In your DAW's preferences, enable the device as a MIDI input, then arm a MIDI track to hear it.

9. Learning path, practice routine and legal basics

1. Weeks 1 to 2: learn your DAW's basics: create tracks, load an instrument, draw notes, record, undo, save, export.
2. Weeks 3 to 6: make one eight-bar loop each session, with drums, bass and one chord part. Copy the structure of a track you like (tempo, layers, length) to practise, not the melody.
3. Months 2 to 3: finish complete short tracks; learn one synth well; practise the mixing steps.
4. After that: learn sound design in depth, then mastering, then specialise in a style.

Practice routine (45 to 60 minutes): 5 minutes ear warm-up (identify a few intervals or chords), 10 minutes on a technique (a drum pattern, a bass line, an EQ cut), 25 to 30 minutes on a track, 5 minutes saving, naming and exporting. Short regular sessions beat rare marathons.

Free resources, described generically: your DAW's built-in manual and tutorials; the documentation of any plugin you use; video tutorials from the community; forums and discussion boards for your DAW or style; open-source and community sample packs; local meet-ups or online groups for feedback on tracks.

10. One-page cheat sheet