Best hardware/software for a 9 y.o. to learn on?

[carter5]

My son’s super into his piano lessons and also obsessed with a (fringe, I assume) genre of music creation called Black MIDI.

He wants to start creating tracks digitally. I’m sure black midi is where his mind is at. He has an iPad, and access to my PC and/or a family MacBook Pro omegle xender .

I’m wondering what the right starting setup (computer, instrument/input device, software) would be for a kid who’s young and at the very start of his musical education. Appreciate any guidance I can get! Assume I don’t know anything about this world.

[musikbear]

My son’s super into his piano lessons and also obsessed with a (fringe, I assume) genre of music creation called Black MIDI.

He wants to start creating tracks digitally. I’m sure black midi is where his mind is at. He has an iPad, and access to my PC and/or a family MacBook Pro.

I’m wondering what the right starting setup (computer, instrument/input device, software) would be for a kid who’s young and at the very start of his musical education. Appreciate any guidance I can get! Assume I don’t know anything about this world.

Well here on LMMS forum you will ofcause get the advise to use LMMS : p
But beside the obvious.. the benefit of LMMS is that we have a very vigorous support, and that we are user-driven, so your son wont be left alone, if he needs assistance.
On the downside there are mio of youTube support videos for commercial DAWs like Fl-studio, whereas some thousands for LMMS
I do not know the genre, but we use to say that LMMS can make music in any genre, so he is covered there to.
So beside LMMS what does a new musician need
Good speakers!
Rarely would inbuild speakers in a display be sufficient.
Good does not mean expensive, something in the area of $25 would be more than enough
Keyboard?
Well yes, but perhaps not emediately. When the interest is solid establised, then get a MIDI-keyboard
Often they are sold used because they were bought before establishing that interest : P
Since he already takes lessons and is used to piano sized keys, do get a full-size keyboard
So platform.
LMMS has complete functionality in Windows and Linux
MAC-support is not complete! VST's are not supported without adding a middlelayer
My advise id to use a Windows 10 or 11 PC for LMMS.

[Scoobygt]

Since your son’s super into piano and wants to try his hand at Black MIDI, a basic setup should get him started without a huge investment. My take? Get him a simple MIDI keyboard—something like the Alesis V25. Well, it’s affordable and just enough to keep things interesting for a beginner. Besides, with ArtMaster online music lessons, he could keep learning piano while diving into digital music, which might be pretty helpful.

[newsguy]

As much as I love LMMS and the ethos around it, I learned on Kristal Audio Engine for a short while until I discovered Reaper.fm. Reaper is free to try without limitations. You get all its features for free, and the trial period is quite long. Best thing about Reaper is it is incredibly stable, and works with just about any external virtual instrument you can throw at it. It does not have some of the fun features that LMMS has but you can usually compensate by adding something from sites like plugins4free.com. Reaper's user forum is exceptional. It's active and friendly. LMMS is also stable and comes with a good body of built-in instruments, samples, features and effects and has a nice forum that seems to be growing with every year. LMMS also handles most external virtual instruments (this ability has been growing fast). Reaper only has effects, a sampler, and a sequencer called Megababy (and one incredibly basic native synthesizer which is not good for too much).

I am trying to switch to LMMS full-time, but I still find myself going back to Reaper when things get complicated and I need to fine-tune my work. You can automate almost any parameter in Reaper in any instrument, which is a big plus. But all the instruments must come from beyond Reaper. Reaper's audio recording and editing are simply fantastic. I use it for podcasts. LMMS plays but does not record audio. Generally speaking, Reaper might be better suited for traditional instruments (electric guitar, bass, acoustic piano, drums, etc.) while LMMS might be more inspiring for electronic music.

A young person is usually more flexible and tech-savvy than an older guy like me. So maybe have him try several freebies and see what works for him. We're all different and some people hate Reaper and think it sucks. Others swear by it as if it were God's DAW. Myself, I am happily watching LMMS develop into something great and getting bored of Reaper.

LMMS is developed by musikBear and others for free. This outlook on life and sharing is exceptional and gives LMMS a really happy vibe. That's important too.

Lots of folks use more than one DAW for a song. You can take the best of each and mix it all together into one.

I use a simple CASIO keyboard with MIDI and a pitch wheel because you can draw in modulation with curves (automation). I don't see the need for a mod wheel. Not me. Maybe some do. I guess it would be good for live shows... which again is not me.

As for the PC... I am using a low-level i5 with 16 GB RAM (dual-booted with Windows 10 and Linux) and that is fine for me. I bought this PC used for $60! For a long time, I had an i3 with 8 GB RAM which worked but was slow loading projects. Music production does not take the same kind of processing power that video editing does. So you can get away with a less powerful machine.