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.
Stylophones are novelty toys. Sure you can use them for a specific lofi sound but if you’re looking to produce more “serious” music spend your money elsewhere.
The stylophone is probably not a very good choice if you actually want to make a musical track, it’s quite a bit limited.
Also, please don’t assume that hardware is simpler than plugins. A lot of hardware has plenty of menu diving or arcane shortcuts due to the limited hardware controls, tiny (or absent) screens etc. You should be looking at “one knob per function” devices.
If you just want to explore a bit and make tracks, get a groovebox l. If you are looking to dive into synthesis and a bit of sound design, look at the Arturia Microfreak.
A stylophone is more of a toy than an instrument, really
If you want a small synth that you’ll actually be able to use to make music and learn, I’d say look into the Korg Volca series. They’re only around twice the price of the stylophone, and are much more powerful in terms of what they’re capable of.
There’s about 10 of them now and are very affordable for what they are, which is a combination sequencer and synth. They can also be connected together to sync up, so you could have one doing drums and another doing a bassline or something.
Look into YouTube videos about them and decide which you think would best help you make the kind of music you’re looking to make.
I agree, but I’d also like to mention that it’s absolutely possible to get great mileage out of a “toy” synth, provided you already know what you’re doing.
Get something that has attack, decay, sustain and release and a few different waveforms. Practice with that. Might be more for synth design, so maybe get a sequencer. Have fun!
I would suggest the Korg Volca line over something like these if you want some hands on hardware for an introduction, they will be a lot more versatile. That said, it doesn’t matter what you use to make music as long as you’re expressing yourself and having fun, toy or not. The stylophone was used on lots of commercial recordings most notably by David Bowie.
Get a cheap/pirated DAW with some basic synth plugins. I’d recommend starting with the most basic subtractive synth you can find, plus a sampler, and some basic effects (delay, reverb, distortion, chorus). Limit yourself to that until you understand everything they’re doing.
Basically no.
Pocket synthesizers are good for music writing, but everything that has to do with the production itself an instrument will not help you with.
Certainly if you think you will have fun playing it you can sample it and use it in your songs, but that has almost nothing to do with digital music production.
Pick a tracker like OpenMPT and watch tutorial videos on YouTube.
