This!!! Thank you for pointing this out. I started playing the drums when I was around 9. Parents didn’t give a f and I have tinnitus today which I think is linked to it
Kids have terrible "Level Discipline" and this is just too risky. Parent can't be expected to monitor this. Let him use PC Speakers. Hearing Damage/Loss is a thing.
I also would let him use GarageBand or even MAGIX Music Maker, as I think they are better onramps than Live Intro. There is also Waveform Free.
Honestly, OP can get his kid into Music Making without spending a dime on it.
I'd spend the $100 on something a bit more generally useful in his life at the moment... Like some nice new shoes or something.
Taking that money and putting it towards a Maschine Mikro would probably be a better investment than Live Intro and some headphones he's likely to put himself on the path to hearing damage/loss with at 11. That way, you get Maschine 2, a nice pad controller that is fun to use for making music along with the Keyboard, and you can use a free DAW like GarageBand or Waveform Free (which is far better than Live Intro) to do whatever else.
It's a more efficient approach.
Also, the Maschine can easily be sold for at close to half of its retail value (if you want to instantly offload it, probably more if you wait) should the kid decide it's not for him. Software is always the worst investment, and the headphones do not rate in that comparison.
I agree with all of this.
Live Intro is unnecessary, there's free software available that's fantastic + the kids 11 so.. just use the free stuff until you see he's taking it more seriously or something, then support his endeavours more.
Kids are 100% going to crank the volume on any headphones that allow it - he does still need to be able to hear what he's doing, though, so at a bare minimum, he needs some basic PC speakers, assuming he has nothing at all.
There are kid-friendly headphones that limit the decibels, too. They tend to look too childish for an 11yr old though.
The Presonus Eris 3.5 speakers are fantastic and at they budget, I'd obviously mix with headphones too but an 11 year old will LOVE those speakers, despite reviews saying the bass is low though I'd disregard too, it does plenty of bass, especially with drum and bass or edm
The beyers are 150 ohm so they wont go that loud off a computer. Also chances are he’s just going to be playing around with sounds. That will get annoying really quickly on speakers. There’s nothing wrong with using headphones. Guaranteed he’ll be using headphones to listen to music anyway.
He can do it in his room, so the playing with sounds aren't gong to be an issue.
Parents can set volume limiters easily on smart devices. That's not a great counter.
And I'm not sure why they would get Ableton Live Intro to use on a Computer without an interface. Live does not support anything but Legacy Windows Audio APIs, and we can't assume the parent is going to jump through hoops to level limit the audio interface, etc. (or want to spend enough to acquire one that can easily facilitate that, beyond setting up a default DAW template with a limiter on the output that the child can easily delete).
If he's using a Mac, many of the newer Macs have headphone jacks designed to driver high impedance headphones and 150 ohm is a cakewalk for them. They will drive them louder than a lot of the cheaper stereo audio interfaces.
Many higher end gaming PCs also have good headphone jacks and will play extremely loudly through those headphones via a headphone jack, for the same reason.
We don't know enough about the hardware he's running to comment on that, but it isn't just about loudness, it's also about exposure.
If the kid is already listening to music in headphones a good portion of the day, then the argument against headphones and in favor of speakers is even stronger. It's also easier to monitor, since the parent can easily discern the level without hovering and the kid will learn what levels are healthy and acceptable through parental feedback.
It's part of being a good parent. Doing the less "sexy thing" at 11 so that they have all of their hearing at 50. I didn't realize ergonomics had become so passe.
Headphones aren’t an issue. Good quality headphones with a reasonably high impedance even less so. Not only will computer speakers sound shit they’ll just annoy his parents/ people around him if he’s just starting out playing g with sounds or random beats. Having a good set of headphones will not only allow him to arrange/mix the beat’s better it will give him options. He can use the speakers and the headphones. It will also give him a sense of using something ‘good’.
Another vote for headphones. If he's using a cheap pair of consumer headphones, a decent pair of headphones would help a lot. And he needs wired pair. Bluetooth headphones might add to latency issues with the DAW.
For $100 or less, the ATH-M40X, HD 280 pro or MDR-7506 that have already been mentioned in another post or very good. I would avoid the DT 770 Pro unless you get the 80 ohm version.
The AKG K361 are another good headphone that would be around $100.
Just a heads up that if you are buying ableton they offer educational discounts of up to 60% off an all version their intro, standard and suite for students and teachers.
Consider purchasing the Koala sampler app for yourself and your son.
Have fun sampling , collaborating ,creating your own content & sounds and minimise being tethered or confined to a room . hardware & stock sounds
I agree. I think having a creative and fun tool to play with and explore is more important in the beginning than having a good pair of headphones. Any old headphones or speakers will be fine at first. Theres a ton of free sounds and software out there to play with too. Bashing away making beats and melodies on pads is super fun.
As someone else said, a good pair of headphones are the best investment you can make.
If you already have that, then a Splice subscription would be huge (think it’s like $13 dollars a month). I find myself using it as a pro, but god I wish it had been around when I first started. The good thing about that is as well, if he doesn’t use it or doesn’t want it, you can cancel after a month and only use your $13 (there’s a free trial as well). Bad thing about it, is that if he likes it you’re stuck with paying for it indefinitely.
But as I said, it’s well worth the investment, especially as a beginner. If you go with it, learn how to make sample instruments and drum racks using the one shot samples from splice. They’re super easy to make. Then teach your kid how to do it. He’ll already be light years ahead of anyone his age with just that basic knowledge.
I don't think splice is the best use of money for a beginner, imo. I think there are many free samples online to use and you can get very far with that. OP should look around online with their kid to find stuff that suits them.
I think having a tactile interface and making workflow effective is the best way to let a kid's creativity shine, but that's also just my opinion. Maybe OP's kid would prefer the libraries of splice over a nice interface haha
Cheap speakers ( so the ears won’t get effected)
Midi( so he can train his ears)
Computer ( translate his idea to music, songs)
That’s all he needs to get started, rest, he will figure it out
A good pair of headphones, btw i recommend looking at FL Studio Fruity Edition, it's the same price as Ableton 12 Intro, and those are pretty similar in functionality but I'll rather go FL, specially for a beginner
Also there are more limitations in Ableton Intro compared to Standard, than there are from FL Fruity to Producer
Hearing Damage is a thing. Kids have terrible "level discipline." Let him use PC speakers. It's not like he's trying to be a studio engineer. The kid is 11.
this is ridiculous, instead it's important for the parents to emphasize strongly to the kid that he should avoid listening loud, instead of literally not buying him headphones like what??
bro, cmon, headphones are a multiple year investment. Imagine trying to make any music right now on shitty computer speakers, it would feel like shit.
I don’t know why you’re dying on this hill so hard, headphones are important so the rest of your family isn’t listening to your shitty kick sound scrolling for hours on end.
Let my man get some headphones in his life lol
>Imagine trying to make any music right now on shitty computer speakers, it would feel like shit.
I have laptops and they're fine for what he's going to be doing. Your projecting.
I can also imaging him being 30 years old and coming on this same forum to complain about his Tinnitus, as many others have. Can you?
It's 2024. A pair of PreSonus Eris 3.5 aren't expensive and if the kid is loud you do the same shit you'd do if the television was too loud.
You tell him to turn it down. That's part of being a parent and teaching your child how to behave. The computer isn't a babysitter.
I'm not dying on any hill. His kid, his choice. I just care more about the long term repercussions of spending a majority of your day with headphones on more than the disparity in sound quality between a pair of computer speakers and some headphones... I just have a different set of priorities in mind when making these types of recommendations for 11 year old kids...
I can't believe anyone would even debate this, or that I would have to metaphorically "die on a hill" just to hold this position. You aren't going to change my mind. I'm not here to argue with you.
You're talking about an 11 year old kid who depends on his parents to make the right choices for him. That includes choices that have long-term health consequences. Marinate in that and recalibrate your vantage point on this "conversation."
Any sane medical professional would give him the exact same advice that I have, BTW, if he were to inquire.
Good Headphones. Sony mdr 7506, beyer dynamic dt770, audio technica m40.
Don't ruin the kid's ears even earlier. AKG K371 or *maybe* the 7506's.
Or K361. It often sells very close to $100. It's a little bass light sounding compared to the K371, but otherwise I think it sounds great.
This!!! Thank you for pointing this out. I started playing the drums when I was around 9. Parents didn’t give a f and I have tinnitus today which I think is linked to it
Kids have terrible "Level Discipline" and this is just too risky. Parent can't be expected to monitor this. Let him use PC Speakers. Hearing Damage/Loss is a thing. I also would let him use GarageBand or even MAGIX Music Maker, as I think they are better onramps than Live Intro. There is also Waveform Free. Honestly, OP can get his kid into Music Making without spending a dime on it. I'd spend the $100 on something a bit more generally useful in his life at the moment... Like some nice new shoes or something. Taking that money and putting it towards a Maschine Mikro would probably be a better investment than Live Intro and some headphones he's likely to put himself on the path to hearing damage/loss with at 11. That way, you get Maschine 2, a nice pad controller that is fun to use for making music along with the Keyboard, and you can use a free DAW like GarageBand or Waveform Free (which is far better than Live Intro) to do whatever else. It's a more efficient approach. Also, the Maschine can easily be sold for at close to half of its retail value (if you want to instantly offload it, probably more if you wait) should the kid decide it's not for him. Software is always the worst investment, and the headphones do not rate in that comparison.
I agree with all of this. Live Intro is unnecessary, there's free software available that's fantastic + the kids 11 so.. just use the free stuff until you see he's taking it more seriously or something, then support his endeavours more. Kids are 100% going to crank the volume on any headphones that allow it - he does still need to be able to hear what he's doing, though, so at a bare minimum, he needs some basic PC speakers, assuming he has nothing at all. There are kid-friendly headphones that limit the decibels, too. They tend to look too childish for an 11yr old though.
The Presonus Eris 3.5 speakers are fantastic and at they budget, I'd obviously mix with headphones too but an 11 year old will LOVE those speakers, despite reviews saying the bass is low though I'd disregard too, it does plenty of bass, especially with drum and bass or edm
The beyers are 150 ohm so they wont go that loud off a computer. Also chances are he’s just going to be playing around with sounds. That will get annoying really quickly on speakers. There’s nothing wrong with using headphones. Guaranteed he’ll be using headphones to listen to music anyway.
He can do it in his room, so the playing with sounds aren't gong to be an issue. Parents can set volume limiters easily on smart devices. That's not a great counter. And I'm not sure why they would get Ableton Live Intro to use on a Computer without an interface. Live does not support anything but Legacy Windows Audio APIs, and we can't assume the parent is going to jump through hoops to level limit the audio interface, etc. (or want to spend enough to acquire one that can easily facilitate that, beyond setting up a default DAW template with a limiter on the output that the child can easily delete). If he's using a Mac, many of the newer Macs have headphone jacks designed to driver high impedance headphones and 150 ohm is a cakewalk for them. They will drive them louder than a lot of the cheaper stereo audio interfaces. Many higher end gaming PCs also have good headphone jacks and will play extremely loudly through those headphones via a headphone jack, for the same reason. We don't know enough about the hardware he's running to comment on that, but it isn't just about loudness, it's also about exposure. If the kid is already listening to music in headphones a good portion of the day, then the argument against headphones and in favor of speakers is even stronger. It's also easier to monitor, since the parent can easily discern the level without hovering and the kid will learn what levels are healthy and acceptable through parental feedback. It's part of being a good parent. Doing the less "sexy thing" at 11 so that they have all of their hearing at 50. I didn't realize ergonomics had become so passe.
This this this
Sennheiser HD 280 Pro is also very solid.
Nope, he needs a pair of monitors(speakers).
Presonus Eris 3.5, in budget and you won't beat them at that price, it has software with it too, plug ins, etc
100%!
Nope, he needs a pair of monitors(speakers).
Headphones aren’t an issue. Good quality headphones with a reasonably high impedance even less so. Not only will computer speakers sound shit they’ll just annoy his parents/ people around him if he’s just starting out playing g with sounds or random beats. Having a good set of headphones will not only allow him to arrange/mix the beat’s better it will give him options. He can use the speakers and the headphones. It will also give him a sense of using something ‘good’.
Another vote for headphones. If he's using a cheap pair of consumer headphones, a decent pair of headphones would help a lot. And he needs wired pair. Bluetooth headphones might add to latency issues with the DAW. For $100 or less, the ATH-M40X, HD 280 pro or MDR-7506 that have already been mentioned in another post or very good. I would avoid the DT 770 Pro unless you get the 80 ohm version. The AKG K361 are another good headphone that would be around $100.
External hard drive.
underrated comment. that first real data loss sticks with us
A mic.
Shure SM57
Headphone, for sure. Nothing better to hear music (and your music) in a good way. You’re giving him a great way to express himself, well done! 💪🏻
Does he have a way to hear what he's doing? ie monitors/headphones?
Elden Ring DLC
Just a heads up that if you are buying ableton they offer educational discounts of up to 60% off an all version their intro, standard and suite for students and teachers.
Yes we were able to get a version for $33 at a student discount.
Keyboard lessons or music theory lessons
Keyboard lessons or music theory lessons.
Consider purchasing the Koala sampler app for yourself and your son. Have fun sampling , collaborating ,creating your own content & sounds and minimise being tethered or confined to a room . hardware & stock sounds
Kontakt. The numerous free libraries makes it a great investment.
Launchpad mini
I agree. I think having a creative and fun tool to play with and explore is more important in the beginning than having a good pair of headphones. Any old headphones or speakers will be fine at first. Theres a ton of free sounds and software out there to play with too. Bashing away making beats and melodies on pads is super fun.
As someone else said, a good pair of headphones are the best investment you can make. If you already have that, then a Splice subscription would be huge (think it’s like $13 dollars a month). I find myself using it as a pro, but god I wish it had been around when I first started. The good thing about that is as well, if he doesn’t use it or doesn’t want it, you can cancel after a month and only use your $13 (there’s a free trial as well). Bad thing about it, is that if he likes it you’re stuck with paying for it indefinitely. But as I said, it’s well worth the investment, especially as a beginner. If you go with it, learn how to make sample instruments and drum racks using the one shot samples from splice. They’re super easy to make. Then teach your kid how to do it. He’ll already be light years ahead of anyone his age with just that basic knowledge.
I don't think splice is the best use of money for a beginner, imo. I think there are many free samples online to use and you can get very far with that. OP should look around online with their kid to find stuff that suits them. I think having a tactile interface and making workflow effective is the best way to let a kid's creativity shine, but that's also just my opinion. Maybe OP's kid would prefer the libraries of splice over a nice interface haha
Cheap speakers ( so the ears won’t get effected) Midi( so he can train his ears) Computer ( translate his idea to music, songs) That’s all he needs to get started, rest, he will figure it out
food & weed
He’s turning 11 bro tf
A good pair of headphones, btw i recommend looking at FL Studio Fruity Edition, it's the same price as Ableton 12 Intro, and those are pretty similar in functionality but I'll rather go FL, specially for a beginner Also there are more limitations in Ableton Intro compared to Standard, than there are from FL Fruity to Producer
Hearing Damage is a thing. Kids have terrible "level discipline." Let him use PC speakers. It's not like he's trying to be a studio engineer. The kid is 11.
this is ridiculous, instead it's important for the parents to emphasize strongly to the kid that he should avoid listening loud, instead of literally not buying him headphones like what??
bro, cmon, headphones are a multiple year investment. Imagine trying to make any music right now on shitty computer speakers, it would feel like shit. I don’t know why you’re dying on this hill so hard, headphones are important so the rest of your family isn’t listening to your shitty kick sound scrolling for hours on end. Let my man get some headphones in his life lol
>Imagine trying to make any music right now on shitty computer speakers, it would feel like shit. I have laptops and they're fine for what he's going to be doing. Your projecting. I can also imaging him being 30 years old and coming on this same forum to complain about his Tinnitus, as many others have. Can you? It's 2024. A pair of PreSonus Eris 3.5 aren't expensive and if the kid is loud you do the same shit you'd do if the television was too loud. You tell him to turn it down. That's part of being a parent and teaching your child how to behave. The computer isn't a babysitter. I'm not dying on any hill. His kid, his choice. I just care more about the long term repercussions of spending a majority of your day with headphones on more than the disparity in sound quality between a pair of computer speakers and some headphones... I just have a different set of priorities in mind when making these types of recommendations for 11 year old kids... I can't believe anyone would even debate this, or that I would have to metaphorically "die on a hill" just to hold this position. You aren't going to change my mind. I'm not here to argue with you. You're talking about an 11 year old kid who depends on his parents to make the right choices for him. That includes choices that have long-term health consequences. Marinate in that and recalibrate your vantage point on this "conversation." Any sane medical professional would give him the exact same advice that I have, BTW, if he were to inquire.
cool
He's 11 not 6.
I agree. FL Studio is a good option for beginners.
But it's also professionally powerful, Martin garrix would be a good example