A guide to making a living making music out of your backpack, from anywhere, and everywhere.

Free Creative Commons licensed PDF e-book.

Haven't read it yet, but looks interesting.

http://www.diynow.org/

I've just skimmed through it and seems like a good beginner source. Has a great section on music theory and the software advice is good. The VST Crystal is mentioned which is a good perk.

My only real beef is that he doesn't list free trackers. Cakewalk and fruity loops are fine programs but I think he should have listed some trackers for those who are financially impaired.

And this is just aesthetic opinion but I disagree with his statement that all good songs hit you when you first hear them. Some works take a little while to age over in you brain and you don't really appreciate them until you've listened over and over and examined all the nuisance. A good example for me would be NIN The Fragile. Most of the songs on the album didn't really get to me until I listened to it a few times over and I started to breath in all the added layers Reznor added.

Edit: Ok just played around with Sun Ra, another VST he recommends, and it's just the most fun you can have while you don't know what your doing. It's just...wah wah...wow.....

Outside that though this is a real good source for someone who wants to start out making music.

csound is nice, too, though it definitely has a sharper learning curve than the ones mentioned above.