I'm someone who wants to get into getting into making whole pieces of music but have no idea how to start

Synthesizer V Studio
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Hi, I’m someone who just joined and I’m wondering if anyone here who takes care of entire songs and uses vocals made from SynthV can give me some advice.

I’m interested in producing/composing my own music but I have no background in piano, music theory or any instrument or anything related to music. I am someone who is intrigued by vocal synthesizers and how people can make their own pop and electronic music just by themselves, and it’s something that I honestly want to get into.

I have no idea how these kinds of producers manage to do everything themselves since the idea of doing lyrics, getting them from SynthV, making the instrumental, mixing and mastering seems really difficult but I really think it’s something I’m willing to learn.

I think I would really like to use Kasane Teto specifically for my vocals (nor do I think I really have a singing voice). I don’t even know how to sing or have a vocalist at my disposal so it’s the best choice for me, but I’m just not sure if I would have to learn the basics of how vocals work, even if I know what vibrato looks since I know how it is shown in vocal synthesizers like SynthV and how some of the features of SynthV work.

I would really appreciate if someone could give me advice. I have no idea if I should just jump into SynthV and try to make a melody, or if I should try to learn a piano and gain therapy knowledge. Or maybe I should consult a teacher of some sort. Any advice would be appreciated. Also, if anyone has any SVPs that have some singing techniques that might be useful to be taught, that would be a huge help.

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I think you need some basic grasp of music theory to get anywhere with SynthV so I will suggest starting with a music notation program such as MuseScore, it is free, includes some fantastic instruments and has an excellent community that freely shares music scores that you can download, play just like an mp3 and, most useful, you can alter any way you like.
Expect to find loads of notation you don’t understand - music is a complete language in itself, but you can soon pick up enough to get going.
Some people never learn to read sheet music, instead they write songs without knowing any theory, just pick up an instrument and learn what does and doesn’t sound right and memorise the tune but I think SynthV will be a huge challenge to use like that, some basic theory of what note you want and where it lives on a keyboard will be required.
Most importantly — enjoy the challenge - we all start with zero knowledge!

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I agree with @Mechie - You need to be able to put some idea of chords and melodies together, then Synth V becomes an extension to playing keyboards.

Trying to work backwards from Synth V is like trying to build a house with the roof first.

You can also do a lot with samples, joining them together to form sequences of tunes and putting drum loops behind them, but really in your case Synth V should be the last element you put in place.

MuseScore is a good recommendation - also you can play around with https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ or https://www.musicca.com/

Hope that helps you get started on your journey :smiley:

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There are many YouTube sites that you may find helpful.

For example: this, this, and this.

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This is a bit like saying that you want to be able to create comics - write the stories, draw the artwork, do the coloring, and publish the results. There are a lot of skills involved, and each step is a study in itself.

There are a lot of different approaches. Being able to read and write in music notation is needed. This is something you’ll need if you use a notation program like MuseScore to create music.

SynthV doesn’t uses “proper” music notation, but instead uses piano roll notation. This is a common format that you’ll need to be familiar with. It’s not “proper” notation, in the sense that you can use it to create music, but it’s not a format that you can hand to another musician and have them play, or print it out and play from.

But that means if you want to use SynthV, you’ll need to learn that as well.

Being able to play an instrument yourself is helpful, but not entirely necessary. If you can play piano or guitar, that means that you are able to write music without needing to have have a computer perform it for you. Obviously, you’ll also be able to compose your music away from the computer as well.

Learning music theory is helpful, because it creates a context for understanding the mechanics of music. It won’t teach you how to write music, but it will teach you general rules of why things work, and allow you to see the underlying structures.

Most people learn by imitation. Find a song that you like, and learn to duplicate it. After you’re copied a number of songs, you’ll understand the materials that they are built from - the harmony, melody, bass line, beats - and be ready to start creating your bad imitations. Eventually, you start finding your own voice and those imitations become originals.

Here are two books I highly recommend. They aren’t contemporary, but I think they provide a solid foundation:

  • How To Play the Piano Despite Years of Lessons by Ward Cannel and Fred Marx. It won’t teach you how to play the piano, but it will explain the basics of music theory: what chords are, how chord progressions work, and how melody and harmony interact.
  • Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting is a book on songwriting by Jimmy Webb. It does an excellent job taking you through the process of songwriting.

There are many books and videos available on music notation, and I’d recommend looking for yourself to find something in a style that appeals to you. The topic is pretty dry, as it covers a lot of “mechanical” stuff. No matter if you’re working with traditional music notation of piano roll, you’re still dealing with representing musical in terms of duration and pitch. It’s no fun at all, but not terribly difficult. It’s akin to learning to read the written version of a language you’re been speaking all your life.

As far as building music from scratch, there are a lot of tools available. As others have mentioned, you can create music using music notation programs. There are pre-recorded loops you can use to build drum, bass and guitar lines. It’s easy to get lost in the technology.

Another factor to consider is technology like Suno, which allows people to have AI create fully formed songs for them. The problem with these tools is they’re a bit like having someone drive for you instead of learning to drive yourself. They’ll both get you to the same destination, but the important question is how important is it to you that you do this yourself?

The path to being a songwriter is a long and difficult one, but very rewarding. I’d recommend starting by reading through some books like the ones I’ve mentioned, so you can get a feel of what the journey is going to look like.

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Maybe it is something that may work for you, maybe not at all, but I can share my own path.

I am a computer engineer with no music background other than the basics I learned in music classes in high school 30 years ago. I do listen to music a lot though.

I have been working for a while now writing a story, and a few months ago I had the idea to try making a theme song for my story. What initially started out as a single song ended up being an entire project with the lyrics for 22 songs written so far.

Since I am no composer and I don’t have the knowledge or experience for that part, I used Suno (generative AI) to bring my lyrics to life. With persistance, sometimes generating dozens upon dozens of takes for each song until I got THE one that I just want to listen in a loop all day long, I got pretty good results.

Now, while the Suno songs do sound very good in their own right, I am considering them as prototypes for the final songs. There are technical reasons (some glitches here and there, voice consistency across the songs and some tweaks to the vocals) as well as wanting a final track that, while composed by AI, is not in itself AI-generated.

My next step is then to split the stems (separate vocals from instrument), use the vocals stems in Synth V to convert to a voice track using the voice-to-MIDi feature. This gives me a good starting point for the synth V vocal track, but still requies work to sound right. Once I am satisfied with the vocals track, I mix it back with the instrumental stem in my DAW. For that step, I use some plugins on the vocal track for voice shaping / post processing. A user here metionned a plugin called “Vocal Menace” which combines compressor, limiter, equalizer, reverb, delay and drive all in one easy to use plugin, and this is what I use now, combined with a voice multiplier and a final equalizer.

This is the step I am at now, learning on the fly how to use Synth V and a DAW.

Then, my plan is to re-build the instrument tracks using virtual instruments in my DAW, so that the end result is a human-made cover of my suno-generated prototype. I will have to learn on the fly how to do that. I found one software that would be a huge help in this process: RipX. It can analyse the song and decompose it into layers for voice and several instruments (piano, guitar, bass, strings, percussions, etc) and places all the individual notes on a piano roll. From there, you can see the tempo, the keys, guitar chords (for guitar tracks it gives you a neat drawing on top showing the guitar chords with wich fret to use for each string). It can also export these layers to MIDI. Great tool for transcribing the Suno-generated song.

Among the notions I’ve had to learn so far, there was the basics of using a DAW, of using Synthesizer V, but also how to post-process the Synthesizer V vocal track in my DAW (voice shaping, mixing) so you might want to look into that.
Just as a real singer’s recording, the vocal track generated by Synth V might not sound at its best in your song without proper voice shaping and post-processing, this can realy enhance how your voice track sounds.

As for how to learn these things, I am a self learning quick study, so I jump right in, and whenever I hit something that I don’t know how to do, I look it up. For this, Google, YouTube and ChatGPT are good friends.

This is my path, and for me using Suno is a good choice, because otherwise my project would never have seen the light. For me it opened a door that was previously locked. It might be a good choice for you, or not at all, depending on your willingness and opennes to use a tool like Suno vs composing your songs yourself.

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Totally agree with you on this. This goes along with one point I mentionned - using a tool like Suno vs self doing it.

In my case, I am a full-time worker and father of three kids, two of them having special needs, and a wife with a disability. Unfortunately, while it would have been more fun, I do not have the luxury of time to learn the entire driving myself, there is more to learn than I can afford. The longest and hardest for me would be to learn to compose, so I hit a compromise: I write my lyrics, let Suno compose the song prototype, and then I build the final song based on that prototype.
This works for me and I am satisfied with it, but it is not the same for everyone. Some will stick entirely with Suno, not even bothering to build a non-AI cover version of the song, while others would have nothing to do at all with generative AI, as well as everything in-between.

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Hi there,

For me, if you are as new to music as you say, I wouldn’t buy any software and I certainly wouldn’t use AI to create tunes - if you go down that route you’ll never learn.
If you really want to be good and write music you should decide which instrument you want use to do it. Piano, guitar whatever and go and get some lessons from a real human face to face. Learn songs by your favourite artists, look how they’ve used the chords to shape their tunes and practice ,practice, practice.
Play some gigs if you can once you feel confident enough. Don’t worry if it doesn’t go well at first - my first gig at the age of 14 we were laughed off stage but I ended up in my early twenties playing gigs nearly every night.
I’m in my 60s now and I make music for the same reason I did at 14 - it’s fun and I love it. BUT it only gives back what you put in.
I wish you every success.

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Learn to play an instrument. It is easy, you are never too old, I started from zero, like you are now, when I was 30. And I tell you, it is easier than it seems, but you need to want tonput the effort and deal with the fustration when it comes. If you really have it in you, is the best you can do. Learn an instrument

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Hmmm. It’s easy BUT only if you’re committed. If you want to be a musician/ songwriter you have to put in the hours. Using AI to write tunes is equivalent to microwave meals - you’ll eat but you’ll never be a chef.
Synth v (and other software) is a great servant it should never be your master.

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Have I overlooked something or has really nobody given you the advice yet to enter a choir? If you want to make music with vocals you got to sing yourself. You can decide to take singing lessons later when you feel your voice is developing. You learn what it means to express yourself in a choir even when others are singing the same notes as you. When you’ve developed a feeling for what it means to make music - sense for intonation, for harmony, con- and dissonances, for meter and tempo - you can start learning an instrument much easier. And you don’t have to pay anything for being in a choir. (I hope in your country, too.)

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Welcome!

Can you hear a tune and sing it back or can you hum along to one of your favourite tunes? Then you have a starting point from which to jump off from. There are a lot of arranger keyboards on the market that offer you different sounds and accompaniments to get a feel for how drums, bass and piano / instruments (strings, guitars, etc) fit together into a particular style. Do you know someone who has one and have you just sat and tried out a few of the beats? Some offer simple chord progressions so you can hear how music changes over time to keep interest. While you’re listening to the various styles you could try to sing or pick out an interesting tune on the keyboard to go over the top - et voilà! Your first composition.

Your inner musical ear will be your best guide… to develop it you will need to listen to what others do. On the arranger keyboard you can sit and hear different styles, how different chords sound after each other what will appeal to you and what won’t and then what tune you can sing / pick out over the top. This is the quickest way I can think of to get started composing your own fully arranged ‘epics’. Once you’re happy with your composition then you can play the tune into Synthesizer V and type in words you think will fit your tune and let the fun begin.

To Start You will need

  • Computer, DAW, Synthesizer V
  • Arranger Keyboard can be second-hand watch a few YouTube demos
  • Microphone to sing your own melodies
  • Time to play and have fun!

Later down the line as you progress, you will become familiar with your chosen subject and want to read and learn greater things. For now, simple steps that give the greatest feed back might be encouraging enough for you???

Whatever you decide to do, make sure it’s fun - then you’ll want to keep progressing!

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@felixm I hope you are heartened by the many supportive replies to your question :smiley:

There are many of us on this forum that have been writing, recording and producing music for decades. For us Synth V is simply one more instrument - it isn’t a solution in itself, and if you are looking for an AI ‘shortcut’ then SV certainly won’t do it for you.

Work through the many excellent suggestions put forward by forum members, and in particular as @Slipkid says remember “It’s easy BUT only if you’re committed. If you want to be a musician/ songwriter you have to put in the hours.”

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It’s a great idea - learning and socialising at the same time. Wouldn’t work for me though. The reason I got into SV is I am what you could call ‘vocally challenged’:blush:

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Maybe you should learn more about music before using something like Synth V? On the other hand, if you can afford it and are willing to invest time into learning maybe it will be a useful part of your music education! Most importantly, have fun!

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As others have said, studying a bit of theory is a great way to get to understand what you are doing. There are plenty of courses out there, but some are better than others. I can thoroughly recommend the courses from ThinkSpace, which are not only very good to give you the theory and practical details you need, they are also fun to do.

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:slight_smile: We have a proverb in Germany: “For every pot there is a lid that fits.” There are so many different choirs, I’m sure you - and felixm - could find one that suits your needs.