I've decided to break this down into sections.

Beginners
1. How to make Industrial music for free.
2. How to make Industrial music for next to nothing.
2A. You're all spoiled.

Advanced
3. Advice for Industrial bands playing out. You must read this.

INTRO
I've been making Industrial music for 11 years now. It has to be the technically hardest genre to learn. It is even harder to find good info on how to make Industrial. I've learned a lot of lessons the hard way. So I've set up this section so that you can learn them the easy way.

Beginners
It is so damn cheap and easy to make Industrial now, that anyone who was doing this 8 years ago is jealous as hell of today's beginner. Today's equipment is so much more powerful and so much cheaper than it used to be. A mono-synth used to cost the same as a car, a sampler used to cost the same as your house.

1. How to make Industrial music for free.

     A. Modtracking
     If you own the computer you're viewing this with, you probably own all the equipment you need to start your industrial band. What you need is a soundcard. Most computers today have one. Get a MOD tracker off the internet for free. I recommend ModPlug tracker for Windows. Check the mod information link for other MOD platforms (mac, amiga unix...) If you're not familiar with the MOD format let me sum up: A MOD tracker is used to compose a musical sequence out of samples you supply (You can get samples off the net). This is great way to learn Industrial composition.

It is quite common that Industrial music is made with nothing more than a sampler and sequencer. Mod Trackers give you both, and they're free. Mod programming is different from traditional midi sequencing, but they're free, they can be used for commercial quality work, they force you to work in a way that lends itself to industrial composition. (linear pattern based sequencing, using samples) You can also send mods you've made to your friends. Usually the file sizes are very small compared to mp3s, and can be played back with programs like winamp etc.

For more information about Mod's click here.

Remember the All Your Base Are Belong to Us (Invasion of the Gabber Robots) by The Laziest Men on Mars craze? Well that song was written solely with ModTracker. Even better for you, is that ModTracker is capable of doing much higher quality work. The samples they used were of low quality, so the result is of low quality. If you use better samples, like the kind you can get of Hammersound for free, you will get pro quality output. Even without high quality sound, this song became a huge hit, and it cost nothing to make. So money is no excuse to not make Industrial anymore, as long as you have a computer with a sound card that's less than 6 years old.

     B. Buzz! (aka Jeskola Buzz)

     Another newer method for making Industrial music for free requires a PC and a freeware software download of a package called Buzz. I don't have any experience with Buzz, but it looks fantastic. Let me quote the person that suggested I add this to the this page:

"It's freeware, but the code to make additional effects/generator plugins was made open source so hundreds off really good addons have shown up, and it can actually make some impressive stuff. And, as mentioned, free, which is kind of the point in this situation I suppose. The homepage for it is www.buzzmachines.com, so go give it a shot and see if you think it's worth adding or anything, I just think it'd be a really good tool to recommend to starting industrial musicians..."

Buzz works a little bit similiar to Modtracking, and different from more expensive Midi sequencing solutions. So the advantage is that it's completely free and powerfull, but the disadvantage is that it won't be compatable with midi works, and you won't be able to open your tracks as midi sequences in midi software packages if you decide to migrate to those platforms later. Of course, you can always keep your old buzz tracks in buzz, and your new Cubase tracks in Cubase. There's nothing saying you can't run both on your PC. Another advantage of Buzz and Modtracking is that it forces you to think of song structure in a different way. That might alter the way you compose into a more traditional linear Industrial song structure. I know that I write differently on a pattern based drum machine than I do on a midi drum track.

Free is GOOD.

We here at the NYIF appreciate free. Why? Because for the most part, Industrial musicians are poor. But that's okay, because a kid with two drumsticks and a flipped over plastic bucket can blow away a guy with a $4000 dollar drum kit hooked into a $10000 music studio because he's got more talent and hard work behind him. The truth is, many great Industrial and Noize musicians have done their best work on equipment that was limited, outdated and cheap.

Of course you can make Industrial music without electronic gear at all as long as you have a way to record it. Nowadays the best way to record music is also with a computer, but any method will do. You can make industrial music with a skipping record and a broken speaker. You can make it with a broken toy or two drumsticks and a pile of junk to bang. The emphasis of these pages however will be towards electronic Industrial, because that's the harder one to make, and the topic I think more people are interested in.

Now that you know how to make it for nothing, how about making it for very little. 2. How to make Industrial music for next to nothing and 2A. You're all spoiled.