Hey for any of you on Facebook, come join the MakeTunes fans page I just made! :) I'm so lonely as the only fan! :D

Go go go! It'll only take a second, you know you want to!

If you're wanting to learn to play the drums, it might seem a bit daunting at first - trying to get some good sounds out of the drum kit you've just sat down at. As with anything music related, practice makes perfect, and so you'll need to be realistic about the time it may take to learn to drum.

However, with the right guidance from an experienced drummer, you're going to be able to pick up some great drumming advice, and start to play more confidently sooner than you would have otherwise!

Here are a series of free online drum lesson videos, which explain each drumming learning stage very clearly.

Drum Lesson Video 01 - The Money Beat

See below for the other 11 free drumming video lessons for beginners!

It's probably one of the most discussed "missing" features of Propellerheads Reason - the inability to record audio tracks within the program.

Well Propellerheads have now announced their new software package, imaginatively called, "Record".

Record allows the user to, well, record audio tracks, and apply a multitude of effects to them, in a software style and layout that should be very familiar to Reason users. I should clarify at this point, that Record is a standalone program, you don't need to be running Reason as well - though it's likely that many people will choose to run both I would imagine.

Propellerheads Record - Introduction Video

Read more below!

Ok, so technically it's not home studio specific, but I'm sure some of you will find this interesting to play around with. It's a simple little online sinewave synthesizer and 16 step sequencer! There goes your day ;)

You can come up with all sorts of tunes by just clicking on various points on the 16 step sequencer, which is always looping. Check it out!

This is so freakin cool, you're gonna love it!

This guy Kutiman took a whole heap of totally different unrelated home musician videos from YouTube, and remixed them into 7 sweet new tunes! WATCH THIS NOW! :D

The mother of all funk chords

Its from ThruYou.com. He's got a whole bunch of other YouTube remixes as well.... I'm off to check them out now!

Ok, wow. He's made remixes in heaps of different genres, all still from totally unrelated home musician videos on YouTube. These are so well done, I hope you all take the time to check them out.
See more below...

http://www.illusive-mind.com/mix/maketunes-mix/

This is my first DJ mix. Have a listen and check out some music by your fellow MakeTuners.

For those of you using Vista on your home studio DAW, it's been a bumpy ride, but many manufacturers finally have Vista driver compatibility issues sorted out it seems.

M-Audio drivers for Vista 64-bit and Vista 64-bit SP1 are now available for almost all the M-Audio products, including the following hardware:

While they're already known for their sound libraries, Prime Loops have now announced their new free music production tutorial sections of their website.

Alright here we go people, it's MakeTunes Electronic Music Contest 2! Who wants to mashup some electronic samples and make something unique to share with us?!

This time our sponsor PrimeLoops has provided us with 10 samples taken from their professional sample pack products, but this time I have selected 5 from Dubstep Producer, and 5 from Breakbeat Electronica.

Once again you're free to mangle, mashup, mix, and generally go to town with these samples in whatever way you see fit - just show us what you can do with them!

Rules:

• Use at least 5 of these samples in your track (you can alter/tweak them to suit).
• Use whatever other instruments, VSTs etc you want.
• You can enter up to 3 tracks in this comp.

Prizes!
This time around PrimeLoops have generously donated 3 prizes! So, first place will win 2 samplepack products (Dubstep Producer & Breakbeat Electronica), and we'll have a runner up prize as well (Minimal Synthesis)!

First place will win:

Runner up will win:

How do you enter this competition?
Download the comp samples below. Make a track which includes several of the samples, and upload it to maketunes. Then copy/paste your new song page link as a comment below to submit your entry!

Get started!
Click here to download the comp samples!

How long do you have?
Competition ends 15th March 2009! Get those home studios cranking people!

UPDATE! Results posted!

See my RESULTS comment way below for all the details :)

This 12 year old kid has some scary talent. Mind you, it does sound as though he's pretty devoted to his calling, as he practices 1-2 hours a day during the school year, and up to 3 hours a day during the holidays. His goal is to become a professional acoustic fingerstyle guitarist, and I'm certain he'll do it. He sounds professional to me already even after his 3 years so far playing the guitar! I'm not surprised he's sponsored by a guitar manufacturer already!

Here is a video of Sungha Jung from South Korea playing "Rylynn", originally by Andy Mckee.

Sungha Jung also composes his own original songs. You can see/hear more of his guitar work at his youtube channel and myspace page.