hello I'm am completely new to this and I am picking out gear and software.

there's a ton of articles on this site about what to buy and how to start

do you actually play an instrument already? have you ever written any music or are you starting from scratch?

if you are new to synthesis I would stay away from software with gobs of presets... scrolling thru banks of presets and samples isn't teaching you anything and its a pretty soulless exercise... in your shoes I would take advantage of the plethora of cheap, stable analog synths on the market and buy a used analog unit with a couple oscillators and a basic fixed architecture as well as an inbuilt step sequencer to learn the absolute basics. Korg's volca bass or keys can be had second hand for a little over 100 USD and are good, meat&potatos subtractive mono and poly synths respectively with classic step sequencers to learn on. To learn other types of synthesis you can go with softare. FL studio producer should come with Sytrus which is a fully featured FM synth with matrix routing, extensive envelope generation and 3 subtractive filters that will teach you a lot of concepts if you stay out of the enormous preset bank for anything but deconstructing the sounds for educational purposes. For additive synthesis and wavetable synthesis the reigning kings are NI massive and Xfer Serum respectively, but where wavetable is concerned for me nothing tops the old stuff like the Wave or some of the Ensoniq/Emu 90s units. They have a sound and the limitations even as software emulations help you focus ong etting the right sound. That's neither here nor there, new people should be focusing on getting great at subtractive synthesis and learning to do some basic FM sounds as well as getting good at sample manipulation. Those 3 tasks are a years long journey in and of themselves.

so my shopping list would be:

korg volca keys or bass (I prefer the bass, but I own an old Roland poly synth already)

USB keyboard controller with some knobs

1 or 2 channel audio interface with MIDI in and out

FL Studio or Ableton (you might want to try both as the workflow is very different outside of the ubiquitous piano roll and they excel at different things)

from there, just see how it goes

Hi yepac,

You're starting an exciting journey :) Ok, so you ask some good questions. Jim's recommendations are great, but a lot can change depending on the questions he asked. How new are you to synthesis? It sounds like you're new to computer recording in general, and need to learn your way around a DAW. What DAW to recommend first of all depends on whether you are planning to produce on a Mac or PC!

I suggest this article as required reading to anyone starting out: How To Make Electronic Music.

Don't be put off by the term "electronic music" (notice it's not called how to make EDM haha). Hip hop is essentially electronic music, and all the principles to build out a music production setup are more or less the same between genres (at least at first - your choice of synths and samples is likely to change over time).

In that guide I linked to, it goes over how to pick a "good accessible DAW for beginners" based on your operating system, and also walks you through headphones/speakers, controller, and audio interface.

Regarding which controller to get - I can see how for hip hop production it's tempting to go with something grid-based with pads. My best suggestion would be to go with something that has both keys AND pads, so you get the best of both worlds to start out with. I love the AKAI MPK Mini Mk2 - it's hard to go wrong with that one. I just think a Maschine at first would be a little much.

Trust me, you'll have plenty on your plate to learn to begin with, as a beginner you'll feel anything but limited. Perhaps one thing that could make you feel limited is if your computer or laptop can't handle your DAW and slows down and crashes all the time.

Read over that guide, and come back and post if you have more questions, happy to help!

I would liken using manufacturers presets and soundbanks in electronic music to giving a greeting card.... its expressing yourself with someone else's sentiments. A real convenience on Aunt So-and-so's birthday, but when it comes to making music it defeats the whole point of producing electronically.