LUCY Academy
Foundations: write and finish a song · Lesson 4 of 7
Your first DAW session: blank project to finished idea
24 minFoundationalFree
The blank project is where most beginners lose an afternoon. This lesson is a working order of operations that gets you to an arranged idea, plus the file discipline that means you can still open the session in two years. It's DAW-agnostic on purpose — if you want a hands-on electronic-production primer, Ableton's free Learning Music covers that ground well and we're not going to duplicate it.
What you’ll be able to do
- Set up a session you can reopen and understand later
- Get from empty project to arranged idea without stalling
- Keep files and versions organised from the first session
- Know which DAW decisions genuinely don't matter yet
Inside this lesson
- 1Watch first: getting the DAW set up at all
- 2The DAW question, answered
- 3An order of operations that doesn't stall
- 4File discipline from session one
- 5Careful with what you drag in
In the app
Take this lesson in the LUCY app
Open it in LUCY and the lesson rewrites itself around the music you make, reads itself aloud while you work, and answers questions about your own releases. Free with your account.
- Rewritten around your genre and where you're at
- A coach that can see the releases in your account
- Narrated — put it on while you work
- A badge for the track when you finish it
Start this lessonFree with your LUCY account · opens the app if you have it
Don’t have it yet?