Ive been wanting to dabble with digital music production. All software ive tried has so many menus and buttons and switches I get overwhelmed.

While looking up instruments on amazon I came across these pocket synthesizers called stylophones and similar like theremin that entry for about 40-50$.

These seem like cool little gadgets to toy around with and maybe get a foot in the door to learn how to do digital music production. Does anyone have experience with these things? Are they worth messing with?

I have an old mixer for my condenser microphone that plugs into laptop I think I can plug aux line in from these mini synths to the mixer.

  • gigachad@sh.itjust.works
    14·
    1 day ago

    Came here to say this, get a MIDI keyboard OP. It’s basically your gamepad for digital music production. You mostly have at least 2 octaves of piano keys and a drum pad, also some knobs and sliders you can map. They are very well supported by modern audio production software.

    A very cheap one would be the Akai MPK Mini MK3 for example.

      • Thassodar@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        1 day ago

        My recommendation is the Novation LaunchKey Mini. Very similar to the Akai they recommended but I personally bought one 5 years ago when I started, so I prefer it for that reason.

        Although this could be true with the Akai, I do know the LaunchKey comes with a 90 day trial of Ableton as well, which is the DAW I use to this day. Just my $.02

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 day ago

      I do music production (mostly lo fi rock, no midi) and got curious about those a while back and picked one up. Installed Vital. I’ve never put anything out with it but it’s a ton of fun to play with. You could totally use one to create some great music if you wanted.

      • gigachad@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        1 day ago

        I guess it also depends on what type of musician you are. If you come from traditional instruments and want to record some nice drum patterns or so it’s a really nice tool. Otherwise you have to artificially add some random off timing (like ms) to recreate that natural feeling. I could imagine many people can also be more creative playing on an instrument (which a midi keyboard basically is), getting that haptic feedback instead if just clicking things together.