Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: gavilatius on May 04, 2010, 09:56:14 pm
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what type of music software do you use because I am testing some out but I cannot find the right one. what should I use? ???
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i think you need more question marks, some people may not understand that you're asking a question
(don't mind me, i'm not being serious)
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i think you need more question marks, some people may not understand that you're asking a question
(don't mind me, i'm not being serious)
:lol: Oh, you!
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what type of music software do you use because I am testing some out but I cannot find the right one. what should I use? ???
You really need to be clear on what it is that you're looking for.
- If you're looking for a simple sequencer with minor modulating capabilities, then Audacity will suffice.
- If you're looking for media playing software, well, I like WinAmp.
- If you're looking for an industry standard for audio sequencing and editing, ProTools, while really nice, is expensive as all Holy Hell.
- If you're looking for links to information on any of the above, use Google. You lazy bastard.
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foobar2000 is a good music player.
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... :nervous: who are you guy's!!!! :eek2:
ok... well I'm searching for a program that I can make music (virtual instruments and fancy sounds etc. because I don't have a traveling orchestra, and I suck at playing the violin) right now I'm using acoustica mixcraft (its great and all, but I'm looking for something a bit more... whats the word... accurate).
what music creation do you guys use? I don't care how expensive it is, I can just place an order through the school (and jump through a few hoops courtesy of the band/digital music class :hopping:) and have it in about 2 weeks.
can you guys help me out (I want to re-orchestrate the songs from starfox for the snes)?
(and a few more question marks to seal the deal) ??????
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I've never actually used it, but it sounds like you want GarageBand.
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but garage band is for mac... is there any way to make it work for the PC?
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get a mac
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I've used both Finalle (http://www.finalemusic.com/) and Noteworthy Composer (http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/).
The first is much more complete than the second one at the cost of much a higher learning curve (and loads and loads of cash). Both are commercial.
If you're looking for free programs, a quick search has revealed MuseScore (http://musescore.org/). Looks interesting.
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I've used both Finalle (http://www.finalemusic.com/) and Noteworthy Composer (http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/).
The first is much more complete than the second one at the cost of much a higher learning curve (and loads and loads of cash). Both are commercial.
If you're looking for free programs, a quick search has revealed MuseScore (http://musescore.org/). Looks interesting.
but which do you like better? (right now money is not a concern, its more see my choices)
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I personally liked Noteworthy Composer better, since what I wanted to do was simple enough. Again, I can't emphasize enough how much more complete Finale is compared to it though. There are demos out for both programs which you can try.
The other program I referred to I didn't try, since I doubt it even existed when I was messing around with the other two.
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If you're using a PC, then MediaMonkey. Best of its kind.
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First off, there's FL Studio, but it's not free. The other alternative I know about is Open ModPlugTracker, which is free, but can be a royal pain to learn.
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I use Cakewalk Sonar and a bunch of VSTs, but, to be honest, it doesn't sound like what you are looking for, I'm more Orchestra/Soundscape oriented, you'd do better with some of the ones suggested above in my opinion.
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First off, there's FL Studio, but it's not free. The other alternative I know about is Open ModPlugTracker, which is free, but can be a royal pain to learn.
I don't know about other 'costly' programs, but FLStudio has a heap of preset instruments and samples, and also has many synthesisers, and you can find free packs like Timmy Techno Ultimate that has 300 synths. Erik McCLure uses it, and so do I, but I haven't produced anything useful with it yet...
FL may take a bit more time to learn, but depending on what standard you wan't to get to, you can get the $99 version or the $299 "producer's edition". Free trail is the producer's edition, you can't save .flp, but you can export your song as wav or mp3. (Leave it running for days at a time and you can create a good song eventually)
ModPlug Tracker can use MIDI and wav samples, and now has VSTi support, but I only know how to use the basic features. I think it's fairly easy to learn the basics, + it's free. I use this too...
And this: MuseScore is also free (I think) and, if you know how to read music, then you're lucky, because you just drag and drop notes onto the staff. (I think it uses wav samples, but has basic instruments included like piano, violin, etc) + it has a tutorial.
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The one thing I've established so far is that Skaven has used ModPlug Tracker before. He's the guy who does music for several PopCap games, but most prominently Bejeweled.
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Even with student discounts, Finale or its competitor Sibelius are fairly expensive (I prefer Finale).
They're designed with the composer in mind, although both feature the Garritan Personal Orchestra.
You can save stuff as audio files, but the focus of both programs is outputting a score and parts.
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Assuming you already have a solid grasp of orchestration (or are just copying the original Star Fox music part for part) and have access to a fast computer (or a few computers if you take the high end route), you'll need 2 things: a sequencer and the actual sample/synth instruments. Good write ups of the most popular sequencers can be found here (really the whole site is a great resource): http://www.tweakheadz.com/Sequencer2.html I use Logic Pro and am very happy with it, though it sounds like you're not thinking of going mac so that rules that out.
As for the instruments, I'd recommend downloading a bunch of free stuff at first and jumping right in on the gruntwork for your arrangements. While you're doing that you can take your time getting a feel for the various commercial options by listening to other people's work and reading up on exactly what you are getting with each library. Some popular options are Garritan Personal Orchestra , East West/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra (I use this), and Vienna Symphonic Library, though with the high end stuff you have to keep in mind that you need a whole lot of computer in order to get the most out of it.
As others have said, notation programs like Sibelius and Finale can also help out if you come from a classical music background--it's a lot easier for me to see what is going on on a C score than in my sequencer's piano roll--but they aren't much good at producing a final recording. Good luck!
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Assuming you already have a solid grasp of orchestration (or are just copying the original Star Fox music part for part) and have access to a fast computer (or a few computers if you take the high end route), you'll need 2 things: a sequencer and the actual sample/synth instruments. Good write ups of the most popular sequencers can be found here (really the whole site is a great resource): http://www.tweakheadz.com/Sequencer2.html I use Logic Pro and am very happy with it, though it sounds like you're not thinking of going mac so that rules that out.
As for the instruments, I'd recommend downloading a bunch of free stuff at first and jumping right in on the gruntwork for your arrangements. While you're doing that you can take your time getting a feel for the various commercial options by listening to other people's work and reading up on exactly what you are getting with each library. Some popular options are Garritan Personal Orchestra , East West/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra (I use this), and Vienna Symphonic Library, though with the high end stuff you have to keep in mind that you need a whole lot of computer in order to get the most out of it.
As others have said, notation programs like Sibelius and Finale can also help out if you come from a classical music background--it's a lot easier for me to see what is going on on a C score than in my sequencer's piano roll--but they aren't much good at producing a final recording. Good luck!
EWQL is very nice, but if you can, pick up the Symphobia Strings pack for Kontakt, there's some wonderful patches in there ;)
I've just installed Omnisphere on my new system, my old one couldn't really handle it, one of the nicest atmospheric and fx synths I've ever used beats Absynth hands down, mainly because everything created on Absynth tends to sound like it was created on Absynth ;)
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get a mac
no need. Just use linux, there's tons of free music synthesizers for it.
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get a mac
no need. Just use linux, there's tons of free music synthesizers for it.
please tell more...
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Of course you want audacious (it's like sound recorder, but WAAAAAAY better), and one i'm interested in is LMMS (linux multimedia studio). There's a lot of sound software for linux (drum machines, music synthesizers, audio editors, etc).
This (http://blog.audiojungle.net/resources/29-music-making-apps-for-linux/) is a fairly recent up to date list of some awesome stuff for linux. And not all of these programs are linux only (and i wouldn't be surprised if some of them weren't free), but the majority of them are linux only. The article has screenshots and a short description of each program. The author chose 29 programs out of 50 to show off (there is more, but showing off 29 in one article is good enougy by me and probably your standards for a look at choice).
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I find it odd that no one has mentioned Reason or Cubase yet. Both fantastic programs (Reason a bit more fantastic) but you need Cubase to use VSTs.
Speaking of which I'm having some technical issues regarding Cubase VSTs and MIDI file drums so if anyone with experience in that could PM me that would be GREATLY appreciated.
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I used Cubase for a while, but found that Sonar was better for VST's to be honest, Cubase seems to start stuttering and clipping a lot earlier in heavy workloads compared to Sonar, and if you are really going to go all out for a commercial product, then Pro-Tools would be an even better choice ;)
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Get a midi to pcm convertor?
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Well my specific situation is this - I have my entire song as MIDI file and most of it needs to be synthesized and produced fully. I can do all of it in Reason except the drums, because I need to use a specific VST drumkit (toontracks drumkit from hell). All I need to do is somehow get this MIDI drum track (exported from Guitar Pro 5) to output the VST drums. In cubase this seems to be incredibly complicated, if at all possible. Ive tried about 10 things that should have worked and none of them did. What program would allow me to make a specific VST drumkit from MIDI the easiest?
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By 'output the VST drums', do you mean output an audio track for that particular VST? So you are saving off a single audio file with just the drums, as played in Cubase, recorded on it?
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For some reason I didn't get the notification that you replied to the thread, Flippy. :doubt:
I -think- you're right about what im trying to say. hahah
Regardless, I solved the issue.
FL studio made it really easy. I just took the drum track and dragged the EZdrummer plugin on top of it. there, done. :)
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Heh, well glad you fixed it. The thing you need to be careful about in Midi with drums is that there is a strange obsession with Channel 10 with a lot of VST's, many of them default to inputting on that particular track, so if you've recorded your drums in Midi channel 4, even if you assign the VST to the track, it still won't make any sound unless you tell the VST to expect input on the right channel :/