Hi all! I've got some new materials to share with you to help with your music-making...

Dollar Store Keyboard Ableton Live Pack

I recently bought a cheap keyboard at a local dollar store. I certainly got what I paid for! However, after sampling the 3 instrument sounds and 3 drum sounds, I managed to build 8 quite nice Instrument Racks, each with 4 Macro Variations. I'm pretty impressed with how good the cheapo keyboard now sounds! I've also created a 12 Macro Audio Effect Rack called Spacey Rhythms. There's a total of 30 presets in the full pack. It really proves that you can make magic with just about any sound!

Download Options:

Free Version: 2 Instrument Racks (8 presets) and Spacey Rhythms Audio Effect Rack.

Toy Synths Ableton Live Pack: Includes all 30 Dollar Store Keyboard presets plus 112 Toy Synth Instrument Racks and 24 Clips of Keyboard Drum Beats: Download:

Music Production Club: Get both the Toy Synths and Dollar Store Keyboard Ableton Live Packs with your membership (membership comes with more than 20 additional downloads!).

Learn more about the Dollar Store Keyboard Ableton Live Pack: https://brianfunk.com/blog/dollar-store

New Episodes of the Music Production Podcast Now Available!

The Music Production Podcast features informal, long-form conversations, with a wide variety of guests, about everything from songwriting, gear, and making music, to the mental and emotional challenges, philosophy, and creativity around producing music.

Tine Schenck on Building Music Communities

Tine Schenck is a composer and trained vocalist. Along with Andrew Magee, Clément Panchout, and Trevor Hamer, she hosts the Music Weeklies Challenge, which gives a community of musicians creative projects each week. Along with a community of musicians around the world, known as Faraway Handshake, Tine released "Pushing Forward," an optimistic song to help bring musicians together during pandemic lockdowns.

Tine and I spoke about the Music Weeklies community and how she managed the Faraway Handshake project. She shared some insights about keeping music personal and intimate while avoiding trends towards the "plastic fantastic."

Listen to Tine Schenck on the Music Production Podcast: https://brianfunk.com/blog/tine-schenck-2

Seeing Your Ideas Through - Lessons from #Jamuary2022

We completed another Jamuary challenge to make music each day during the month of January! There are a lot of important lessons about making music that I've learned along the way. This episode highlights one of the biggest!

Listen to Episode #252: https://brianfunk.com/blog/see-your-ideas-through

MemoryBug on Completing 31 Days of #Jamuary

MemoryBug is a musician and producer from London. He used #Jamuary 2022, which is a challenge to make music every day during the month of January, to hone his music-making techniques. John spoke about how he found creative inspiration in his world each day and applied that to his music.

Listen to MemoryBug on the Music Production Podcast: https://brianfunk.com/blog/MemoryBug

Thanks a lot for reading and supporting my work!

Let me know if you make any music with the Dollar Store Keyboard sounds. Let's make that a dollar well spent!!

Best,

Brian Funk

Free Beach Sounds Ableton Live Pack and Part 3 of Speedrun Challenge!

Part 2 of 3: Official Ableton Discord Speedrun Activity!

Official Ableton Discord Speedrun Activity!

Ableton Certified Trainer Side Brain on the Music Production Podcast

Learning Sound and Synthesis with Sarah Belle Reid

See all posts from Brian Funk