Seven years ago, I picked up the guitar, and ever since, I’ve had this dream of creating my own album. Not for fame, but just as a way to express myself and make something that personally satisfies me.

So where to start?

Music Theory

I have a seperate post about Music Theory here.

Choosing a Platform

Most audio work happens on MacOS, but I don’t have any Apple devices. So, it came down to Windows or Linux. Since I mostly use Linux, I decided to give audio engineering here a shot. It might be a bit more complex than Windows, but I had a good experience using Pipewire.

Choosing a DAW

What is a DAW? A Digital Audio Workstation or DAW for short is the main software you’ll need for editing music. After briefly checking out open-source options like LMMS and Ardour, I decided to go with Reaper. It’s not open source, but I liked its licensing and it had all the features I needed. I considered Ableton and FL Studio, but they don’t natively run on Linux.

Plugins

In Linux, I used a tool called Yabridge for plugins. It worked well, though I had some issues with the “Steven Slate Drums” plugin.

Getting Started

Starting out, there were lots of new things for me to learn. Getting familiar with Reaper, mixing, mastering, using EQ, compression, building drum tracks, adjusting tempo, and more. Here are my tips for this stage:

start simple
watch some videos on getting started with your DAW of choice
take it step by step
don’t get lost in the details