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Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

124 points akktor | 7 comments | 09 Jun 25 12:41 UTC | HN request time: 1.585s | source | bottom

This question's for all those cool projects or skills you're secretly fascinated by, but haven't quite jumped into. Maybe you feel like you just don't have the right "brain" for it, or you're not smart enough to figure it out, or even worse, you simply have no clue how or where to even start.

The idea here is to shine a light on these hidden interests and the little (or big!) mental blocks that come with them. If you're already rocking in those specific areas – or you've been there and figured out how to get past similar hurdles – please chime in! Share some helpful resources, dish out general advice, or just give a nudge of encouragement on how to take that intimidating first step.

Let's help each other get unstuck!

1. pigcat ◴[10 Jun 25 19:31 UTC] No.44240501[source]▶
Making electronic music. Any recommendations for where to start?
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2. Kon5ole ◴[10 Jun 25 19:35 UTC] No.44240548[source]▶
https://learningmusic.ableton.com/
3. clumpthump ◴[10 Jun 25 19:36 UTC] No.44240562[source]▶
I've been having a lot of fun getting started with Max/MSP following Cipriani & Giri's "Electronic Music And Sound Design" books. Max is a paid program though; Pure Data is similar but open source.
4. quintes ◴[10 Jun 25 19:39 UTC] No.44240592[source]▶
Ah caught me! You need a Mac and GarageBand. I was always in the too expensive not gonna buy one but it changed my home use a lot.

GarageBand is easy. I’m gonna upgrade to logic at some point but that’s a start.

And good studio monitors or studio headphones. Can’t mix on regular headphones. I’ve got some m-audio pretty good.

Then you play. I don’t have many followers or fans but I’m doing it for me.

Here’s a track https://open.spotify.com/track/5o0xa7x1Q3bokEwFOEnXBQ?si=QZc...

It’s lofi/ electronica.

Best of luck

5. ofalkaed ◴[10 Jun 25 19:46 UTC] No.44240681[source]▶
I would buy a synth and learn it as you would any other instrument, something on the simpler side and not a work station or the like so you can focus on it more as an instrument. Modern technology makes it all to easy to just have an entire electronic music studio which is a great deal to learn and few are going to ever learn any of it well if they start with a full studio. Build out from there, once you are getting the hang of the synth install a DAW or something to record with on your computer and start learning that, record an entire album worth of songs with just that one synth. I always liked using SoX as a multitrack recorder, ecasound was nice as well, kept things more about making music instead of being an engineer.

Back when I was more active with electronic music I would do an entire album worth of tracks with each new synth I got, software or hardware, good way to learn a synth.

6. fb03 ◴[10 Jun 25 22:15 UTC] No.44242076[source]▶
My time to shine! I'm a computer programmer but I've been making music digitally for about 15 years now

The software you want is called a DAW - Digital Audio Workstation. There are 300 DAWs, you need to find the one that fits your 'style' or 'workflow'. There are a multitude of paradigms, as making music is not a single technique.

Once you find your DAW, my recommendation is to just make lots of music. Make the music you imagine in your head. Make the tracks that don't exist but you wish they did. Your first 100-200-300 tracks will all be extremely crappy in hindsight, but when you finish them you'll think they are, at the time, a magnum opus each. Keep iterating that process over and over and after many years, you'll start making something that you'll feel semi-proud enough to be able to show your friends!

This is a track I've done 11 years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlkoEI4Sq7w&list=PL2xsoYcYFo...

and this is a newer track, released "only" 8 years ago:

https://soundcloud.com/flipbit03/twothousandseventeen-feat-m...

so you can definitely notice the difference of what 3 years of music making look like in terms of progress

GOOD LUCK!

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7. noisy_boy ◴[11 Jun 25 16:27 UTC] No.44249235[source]▶
Your enthusiasm is shining through. For someone wanting to do exactly what you said "just make lots of music. Make the music you imagine in your head." and faced with the issue of "There are 300 DAWs, you need to find the one that fits your 'style' or 'workflow'.", how do I choose? I am not a music maker, I have never made music - I would like to though. I don't even have a style or workflow. I don't know how to start.