[gavilatius]

get a mac

no need. Just use linux, there's tons of free music synthesizers for it.

please tell more...

[S-99]

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 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).

[Deka1184]

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.

[Flipside]

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

[S-99]

Get a midi to pcm convertor?

[Deka1184]

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?

[Flipside]

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?

[Deka1184]

For some reason I didn't get the notification that you replied to the thread, Flippy. 

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. 

[Flipside]

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 :/