[Mobius]

Now that I have an audio card I want to give a try.

I'd like a freeware program, possibly a compromise between simple and professional, to make my first attempts. What do you recommend? 

[Colonol Dekker]

I like the E-Jay series for a quick, reasonably cheap fix. Audacity can be used to cut/splice open source (or music with permission) together too i suppose. FL Studio 8 demo is really powerful too.

[Mobius]

Which one allows to create soundtracks suitable for FS?

[Colonol Dekker]

FL Studio can make any genre of music. Orchestral through to D&B, whereas the EJAY series is a bit more club themed... For that arcadey feel

Try em all

[captain-custard]

audacity is a useful tool you can do a little more than cut and splice with it , its availible for all platforms , heres windows link....http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows

if you want lots of tools then maybe think of an installation of ubuntu studio , all the music tools you can shake a stick at for free......

this can even be installed on a thumb drive or within windows using wubi

[Jeff Vader]

If you actually want to compose your own music, you'll need something more than Audacity. But if you have some music ready, you can open/record it with Audacity and then export it to wav/ogg.

[Mobius]

audacity is a useful tool you can do a little more than cut and splice with it , its availible for all platforms , heres windows link....http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows

That "a little more" doesn't sound(lol) convincing...I'd like to create any kind of sounds...

Try em all

This is a problem. With my slow connection it'll take ages to DL all suggested problems and at least a few centuries to learn how to use them.

That's why I ask for one, decisive "shot" in soundtrack creation.

If you actually want to compose your own music, you'll need something more than Audacity. But if you have some music ready, you can open/record it with Audacity and then export it to wav/ogg.

I want to create sounds from scratch and modify existing ones only on rare occasions.

[Colonol Dekker]

FL Studio is 200meg

[Mobius]

Thanks to blackhole I'm DLing the demo version of FL 8.

[Colonol Dekker]

Yeah he pointed me towards that version, but i already got it the day beforehand
Good soundfont selection in there too

[Mobius]

He gave me some precious hints...I'll let you know...

[Mobius]

Ok, my actual problem is to find a tutorial for FL8...I click on tutorial from the program and I'm lined to a video which takes hours to load(I have a slow connection).

Do you know where I can find other tutorials?

[Colonol Dekker]

I se the Docs that come with it, and youtube

[Mobius]

D'oh, the docs...thanks...