Once upon a time, to produce music, you needed hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and experience to get into the game.
Today, a complete studio could fit in your pocket.
How?
Think a pair of EarPods with USB-C and an iPhone with GarageBand installed. I created quite a few songs with this setup way back in 2013. In 2025, the only difference is that the devices are more performant.
If you have an instrument, like a guitar or piano, iPhones have much better mics these days than when they first came out. For example, the iPhone 16 Pro has studio-quality mics. You could record yourself playing the guitar, parts of songs, scant ideas, or underlicks.
Then when your ready to produce a full song, all you have to do is import one of those guitar based underlicks into your DAW and build something just as incredible around it.
While we are on the topic of DAWs. What is a DAW? A DAW is a Digital Audio Workstation. It’s where you edit and manipulate pieces of music. From individual MIDI notes to audio files and loops.
For the ideal setup, you need hardware. I recommend your iPhone and GarageBand, an iPhone optimized DAW. It’s basic as all get out, but it will serve the purpose of being a place where you experiment and learn.
If you don’t have an iPhone, a modern iPad that can run GarageBand and/or Logic Pro for iPad is a sweet spot.
GarageBand allows for basic music creation, whereas Logic Pro is a true DAW with many of the same great stock plugins from its desktop counterpart. Logic Pro will allow you to create anything from underlicks to “radio ready” hits.
The skill is the only thing required and the determining factor of the results you get.
If you don’t play an instrument, and you want to make music, I recommend you at least familiarize yourself with the piano layout and how it corresponds to chords and progressions.
If you play an instrument, get familiar with it. Know the difference between playing in one key and another. You might also want to learn about audio recording and editing so you can do things to the basic instrumentation you record into your DAW.
In case you were wondering, most modern iPads have great microphones. You can then use the built-in mics to record your instrument into your DAW of choice.
Now, let’s just say, all you have is a MacBook. Then I would start with GarageBand. Start creating music via chord progressions turned underlicks. When GarageBand doesn’t feel like enough for your growing need, then jump into Logic Pro.
My only warning. Logic Pro isn’t free, costing a one-time $199, for all future updates and improvements.
Logic Pro for iPad is also not free. Costing $4.99 a month or $49 a year, it offers a 30-day trial.
If you go to the Logic Pro website for desktop, you’re able to get a 90-Day trial for that version as well.
No matter the level or price point, you basically have no choice but to take action
But what does that look like?
It’s been about a week since I announced that I might get back into music production.
Since then, that might have become an affirmative.
In the last week, I’ve been reading up on oscillators and sound design basics. However, I’m limited to Logic Pro for iPad on my M1 iPad Pro, because the beta I’m running on my MacBook doesn’t yet support Logic Pro.
I would like to listen to the different waveforms that make up some favorite sounds.
Nevertheless, the mission was to start creating underlicks regularly. So far, I’ve made two.
The first one was okay. I honestly didn’t much like it. However, it proved two things. I know how to create underlicks, and I have control over the process.
Whatever you’re creating, you want to seek control over your process. What is the underlick of your creative endeavor? The singular thing you can do to improve your craft daily.
Right now, for me, that’s getting better at creating underlicks. Creating a store of the good ones so that in the future I can craft full songs.
This whole exercise is there; I hope you realize you can do so much with so little these days.
You don’t need a room full of equipment to create the things in your mind.
Creativity is funny like that. I haven’t written much lately because I’ve been locked in with the music. But I’ve still come up with some short story ideas that have legs and are worth exploring.
So we’ll see.
Until next time…don’t wait, create!
Yes, life can be busy and we can be spread too thin. We still must make the time to be creative. It sounds like you’re doing your best and that is all that matters. You may not be doing music now, but you’re painting, journaling, etc. that’s quite the feat. Keep it up!
I don’t produce music yet but I live on a tight budget and still crave space for creativity. Reading this gave me a boost. I make sure to carve out little pockets of time between work, running errands and making dinner to do my journaling, meditation, yoga and painting. What I’ve learned from your newsletters is you don’t need to wait for the right moment or the perfect tools. We already have everything we need to start right now. Congratulations on your music production Idris Elijah and thank you for another great newsletter!