Creating Music Using Your PC? 75
onenil asks: "I'm a guy who has sort of fallen into IT from a young age, but was also quite heavily into music when I was younger. I now want to spark up my interest in music again as I want to broaden my horizons, and I figure the best way to do it is with my PC. I've started looking around for hardware and software, and have come to the conclusion that the best option is to buy a simple MIDI keyboard for music input (which just takes the keys you play and sends em off to the computer, with no in-built synthesizer) and a really kick-ass software package to do all the sound processing. Are there any musicians out there who can shed some light on this area?"
"I've been told by a shop clerk that with a simple Sound Blaster Live s/c, I'll need to buy a package like Reason as it processes all sounds with the CPU, and sends one track to the sound card. Reason retails for around AU$995 (roughly $500 US?). Is this the best way to go? Or should I perhaps look at a more hardware-based solution (some type of synthesizer built-in to a sound card, or perhaps a keyboard that does synth and output). As I'm just starting, out I want something that gives good sound (I don't like the MIDI that comes out of my SBLive), but also doesn't cost too much. It would be great to also build on it when my wants and desires aren't fulfilled by what I have."
Linux is the best way to go in my opinion (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Linux is the best way to go in my opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Buzztracker (Score:2, Interesting)
If you can get SpiralSynth working in Linux (it is an extreme pain... I had it working once; you have to have all the exact same libraries as the developer, and fix a few compilation errors), it's a pretty darn cool synthesizer, as is the Juno 6 from realitymasters.com(?). In Windows, RGC Audio has some cool softsynths.
Re:Linux is the best way to go in my opinion (Score:2)
Under no circumstances try and make music with Linux. It's just not suited to the job. Macs, Windows machines
It's not like anyone tries to make Microsoft webservers is it? Oh, hang on.....
Dave
Re:Linux is the best way to go in my opinion (Score:2)
The news is not all bleak for audio on Linux though; the ALSA sound driver architecture is the relatively recent replacement for OSS, which is better designed, and makes a convincing competitor to sound architectures from other platforms.
In short, mind your superlatives!
Re:Linux is the best way to go in my opinion (Score:1)
Additionally... (Score:4, Informative)
Open Source & Music - Where's the community? (Score:2, Interesting)
But as a software developer, I'm missing the community websites, mailing lists, and general online discussion that I enjoy in other domains. Where do music software developers "hang out" online? (I'm specifically referring to those people developing software tools for musicians, as opposed to those developing file-trading and music-player applications.)
There are plenty of websites about music out there, but 99% appear to be fansites or e-business sites for music industry companies.
From time to time I toss around the idea of putting together a mailing list / website for music technology discussions (maybe slashcode is good for this?). If I did, would anyone use it? Or does something comparable already exist, and I am just missing it?
BTW, the musical community needs OSS badly. Leaving technology standards up to the music industry has left us with crappy, slowly evolving protocols with little innovation. With all due respect, MIDI was great in its day, but it really doesn't meet the tests of time, IMHO. Also, I know that musicXML is on the way, but I'm still skeptical
intune.org (Score:2)
Re:intune.org (Score:1)
Re:Open Source & Music - Where's the community (Score:1)
Re:Additionally... (Score:2)
Re:Have you heard of a website called Google? (Score:1, Troll)
Prosser, bulldozers etc...
Reason is an excellent product (Score:5, Informative)
The price you quoted for Reason sounds rather expensive. I bought my copy for US$270 at my local music store (Guitar Center). I also got a MIDI keyboard and a cheap USB MIDI interface (Midiman Midisport 2x2 [midiman.com]) and a copy of Sound Forge. You should download the latest demo version of Reason [propellerheads.se] and also listen to the example songs.
Forget using the built in sounds on your SoundBlaster. Reason, or any other software synth, is going to blow away those sounds. Plus they can play back samples as well. The synths are really synths, they're just in software instead of hardware. I personally don't see any reason to buy more hardware synths unless you are going to be performing live. One thing you will want to look at when choosing a sounds card is to make sure it has ASIO drivers. If not then the latency on the sound card will be too high. The bottom line on this is that there will be a delay between the time you press a key on your MIDI keyboard and when you hear the sound from the computer.
Re:Reason is an excellent product (Score:2)
ASIO drivers (Score:1)
What you should get... (Score:4, Informative)
2) A pro audio soundcard. Again, depending upon how serious you are...if you just want to dabble until you find out exactly what your style is, your SBLive should be more than sufficient. I can't really recommend a particular unit to you though, because I don't have one myself.
3) Software. These days, the simplest and cheapest solution is to go all software. VST instruments simulate "real" electronic instruments (synths/samplers/etc) much more cheaply than outboard MIDI gear. I very rarely use any of my hardware synths. As for what you should get, it really depends upon what you intend to do. You can get demo versions of many popular packages. At the minimium, I would recommend a sound editor (Sound Forge is good, some people like Cool Edit or WaveLab) and a sequencer that supports audio such as Cubase or Sonar. If you plan to use a lot of samples/loops, I would highly recommend Acid 4, which includes VSTi support and basic MIDI. Softsynths that I like are the Pro-52 and FM7 (both by Native Instruments, I think) and the Junglist (Sonic Syndicate).
If you need more information or detail on anything mentioned above, let me know!
Re:What you should get... (Score:1)
Re:What you should get... (Score:1)
Keyboard optional (Score:2)
Reason? (Score:5, Informative)
If all you're looking to do is some sound tracking and live playing, you'd probably be better off with something like FruityLoops [fruityloops.com]. It's a $99 software package (without all the frills) that does a excellent job as a production tool and a decent job at MIDI.
My setup consists of a bunch of effects modules, some tone modules, a professional-grade sound card, Fruity Loops 3.56, ACID 4, Sound Forge and Cakewalk.
If you're really into the MIDI playing, an actual sequencing package will probably be better. Cakewalk can't be beat for the price. It's also getting better in the digital audio handling, though it's still not up to snuff with Cubase or ProTools for recording.
If you're curious to see the type of sound you can get using the lower-priced solutions like Acid or FruityLoops, check out the FruityLoops forums [e-officedirect.com] or Acid Planet [acidplanet.com]
There's a demo version of FruityLoops available that you can use to play any FLP files from the forums.
Good luck!
if you count it... (Score:1)
Spinning Mp3s - doing some actual cutting and scratching... Cool stuff.
good and free (Score:2)
you can get all of teh goodness here [buzzmachines.com]!
it only runs under windows and anything over p2 should be fine. i just wish it was opensourced so i could run it on my g4 or under linux.
Re:good and free (Score:1)
Just one of the additional bennefits of open souce. Or like Torvalds said,"Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it
Re:good and free (Score:2)
In spite of their obviously different backgrounds -- Buzz comes from the MOD tracker community, whereas CSound comes from the 1960's academic synthesis community -- there has been a surprising amount of convergence between them, to the point that they now can compete for the same niche.
While it may seem obvious... (Score:3, Interesting)
Many people still keep using proprietary MP3 file format, which is unfortunate not because of its lower quality to size ratio, which is hard to hear for an average person, who doesn't even usually hear any difference between 192kbps and 256kbps constant bitrate MP3 files, but because of its legal issues. While Vorbis is technically similar to JPEG graphics format, i.e. it's a "lossy" compression, it is legally similar to PNG, while MP3 is in that analogy similar to GIF, using LZW compression patented by Unisys. See the MP3/MP3PRO Patent and Software Licensing Information [mp3licensing.com] website and search Google for "MP3 patent [google.com]" to find more informations about this issue.
Also, I hope, and I'm sure most of the people here will agree with me, there will be a little "(O) [wikipedia.org]" mark, next to your copyright statement! Good luck! We'll be looking for your links in the Open Music Registry [openmusicregistry.org]!
(And please, don't post this old stupid joke that we should use double OAL logo, "because (o)(o) looks better," because it doesn't. It looks like an immature joke made by a 15-year-old child, while EFF's OAL should be taken seriously if we ever want it to successfully compete with the recording industry at large.)
Re:While it may seem obvious... (Score:1)
Just a note, that patent runs out in a couple months, then GIF will be patent free!
Imagine that, an end to the GIF bitching.
Not if Cher has anything to do with it (Score:2)
Just a note, that patent runs out in a couple months, then GIF will be patent free!
U.S. Patent 4,558,302 encumbers LZW compression until late June 2003. On July 4, I will celebrate not only the independence of the United States from the United Kingdom but also the independence of LZW compression from those who are not willing to license its use in free software [unisys.com].
But we still can't count chickens yet. Congress could pass a Cherilyn Lapierre Patent Term Extension Act. If Sonny could get a copyright extension [pineight.com] onto the books in the USA, certainly Cher could be a spokeswoman for the pharmaceutical industry to demand longer patent terms.
Re:Not if Cher has anything to do with it (Score:2, Insightful)
It is beyond my imagination why on Earth anyone would want to use GIF, now when we have PNG. GIF used to be the best format for some kinds of graphics in the past, but then came JPEG for natural photographic lossy compression (yes, photographic pictures used to be stored as GIF before JPEG) and later came PNG for lossless compression (giving us everything the GIF format has, plus 32-bit RGBA with real alpha channel, better compression, gamma correction, file integrity checks, seven-pass two-dimensional interlacing, et cetera). Now GIF is not even remotely optimal in any niche. Besides, its 8 bits per pixel limit is laughable in the year 2002.
Don't tell me that we need GIF for animated banners, they are useless and still we have MNG for that. (I'm talking about animated raster images, not vector graphics, for which there is SVG, or the proprietary Flash format.)
Or maybe you need the LZW itself? Then why won't you use zlib or libbz2?
If you think that we should use GIF to make a point against software patents then it is already too late. When freely using GIF becomes legal, then it is not civil disobedience any more. If now we all start to use GIF, they win. Why? Because that would mean that it was a good idea to patent LZW, as now when the patent expires, everyone finally benefits having and being able to use the wonderful file format which the GIF is.
The problem with that situation is that GIF was useless long before the patent would expire, therefore giving no contribution whatsoever to the community at large. And remember that this is the whole point of patent law. Patent law is not for inventor's benefit, it is for humanity benefit, while the inventor's temporary monopoly for her invention is merely a trade-off, a compromise needed to achieve the real goal.
When the patent expiration time is to long, humanity don't benefit at all, and this is the real problem with software patents, because with software often a 5-year period is unacceptable. A GIF-related patents expiring in 2002 is like zeppelin patent expiring in 2250. Great, we all can now fly zeppelins! But who cares?
Can anybody actually view MNG images? (Score:1)
Don't tell me that we need GIF for animated banners, they are useless and still we have MNG for that.
Because Microsoft Internet Explorer does not come with a MNG viewer, the vast majority of home users of the World Wide Web cannot see MNG images. And is there any way to convert XCF (GIMP's format) to MNG?
Re:Can anybody actually view MNG images? (Score:1)
See MNG4IE [entropymine.com], an ActiveX control for viewing MNG in Microsoft Internet Explorer by Jason Summers, which installation is a simple matter of clicking the right link. There's also MNG Plug-in [entropymine.com] by Jason Summers. I don't use Microsoft Internet Explorer (I use Mozilla [mozilla.org], which doesn't have such problems), but I know that there are actually many different ways of using MNG in that browser (like using a QuickTime MNG component [tarkvara.org] for example). You can find out more informations on MNG [libpng.org] and libmng [libmng.com] web sites.
Of course, since the libmng license [libmng.com] "specifically permit[s], without fee, and encourage[s] the use of this source code as a component to supporting the MNG and JNG file format in commercial products," there is absolutely no excuse why libmng shouldn't be used natively by Microsoft Internet Explorer. Of course, a detailed specification of the MNG format [libpng.org] is freely available, so anyone can support MNG even without using libmng, which makes it absolutely unacceptable to not support MNG in any modern web browser. If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer I would suggest you sending a feature request, or even a bug report, asking them to add native MNG support.
convert file.xcf file.mng
Use ImageMagick [imagemagick.org], which is, in my opinion, the best "robust collection of tools and libraries (...) to read, write, and manipulate an image in many image formats (over 87 major formats)." You can also write
convert -delay 100 frame*.png anim.mng
and make a MNG animation anim.mng from individual frames frame01.png, frame02.png, etc. That way you don't have to use multilayer file format as your input. ImageMagick is great for such uses.
Re:While it may seem obvious... (Score:2)
I used to live next door to a music major with a dual 700 G4 tower and an 80GB hard drive, he was annoyed that he was constantly running out of room for his compositions...
Re:While it may seem obvious... (Score:1)
Of course, I was talking about the distribution. For storage he should use MIDI for MIDI-only music, while FLAC would be perfect* for anything more than MIDI (i.e. vocal and other sound otherwise impossible to store as MIDI). For MIDI music, MIDI is the best format, because it's quality-independent (like Postscript).
*However FLAC (and any lossless audio compression for that matter) is only good if you need a perfect copy, which can make sense only if your recording and digitalization process (sampling as well as quantization) was perfect. In reality it is rare, even for professional recording studios, to record and digitalize music with lower noise to signal ratio than the error which the high quality Vorbis encoding (usually even -q8) would introduce, never mind that it is rare for homo sapiens to actually hear this error, which, unlike the recording noise, is specifically designed to use known imperfection of human ear.
But, however stupid it may be, this is very common for people to store lossless compression (or even no compression at all, like .wav) of music recorded
in such a way, which has already introduced
much more noise that even
Vorbis at quality setting -q4 would cause.
Remember that even such a high quality as -q9
reduces the file size 4 times,
while I personally haven't found anyone
who could tell -q6 Vorbis
(which was about 14% of the original in size)
from the original, having the most expensive audiophile sound equipment I've ever seen.
This is actually a very interesting experiment. Take some great quality classical music recording and encode it with oggenc -q0, -q1..., -q10. Then, when you have 12 files (11 .ogg and the original .wav), shuffle them
(really shuffle, e.g. using a deck of cards with track numbers written on them)
and randomly burn them on a CD,
after converting them back to uncompressed PCM.
(Remember to use good encoder and decoder,
like the original Xiph.org's Ogg Vorbis software.)
If the recording is short enough,
then encode more versions,
-q0, -q0.5, -q1, -q1.5, etc. -- the more
versions, the better the test result
but more than 20 different versions can be annoying to the person you are testing.
Remember the order and give it to someone who thinks has great ears (and great equipment) to sort in in increasing quality, while being able to listen and change tracks for as long as she wants. Give it to every person who wants to take this test, while shuffling the tracks diffrently for everyone.
Most of people with good equipment will correctly sort everything up to -q4, but very few people will find the -q5 and even less will correctly find -q6. I can guarantee you that -q8, -q9, -q10 and the original will be sorted totally randomly.
But, when you don't shuffle the tracks before you burn them and show the sorted CD to someone to judge, almost everyone will tell you that they hear the quality difference between every track if they know they are sorted. This is because they think they should hear it. It's like a placebo effect and this is why you should always make a blind test, using a shuffled tracks.
So, in other words, "Storage is going to take gigs, and be magnitudes higher quality than anyone could ever hope ogg to be without being similarly sized" (emphasis added) is simply not true. Please don't spread such disinformation. Thank you.
Re:While it may seem obvious... (Score:1)
This is simply not true. Please show me any popular MP3 player, which cannot play Ogg Vorbis today.
Really? Could you back it up with any meaningful data, Mr. Anonymous Coward? (If that is your real name.)
And is it not a great advantage by itself?
Technically it is better. You would know that if you knew both standards internal details. (Or maybe you do know, but you are one of those people who just love starting meaningless discussions on Slashdot?) Please do not spread such a disinformation. It is less popular than MP3, like the JPEG used to be less popular than GIF. But it had nothing to do with the "lower quality of JPEG." Debian GNU/Hurd is also less popular than Microsoft Windows. Do you think it is a reason not to use it ever? Or is it because of the quality of any of those systems? Or maybe some things are just popular, because they are popular?
Some Recommendations: Plugins, drivers (Score:2)
If you get an SB Live! then you'll probably want to get the (free, but not open source) low-latency ASIO drivers from KX Project [kxproject.com] . I get 5ms latency from a $30 sound card, which is amazing.
Also, check out my collection of quality GPL VST plugins: destroyfx.org [destroyfx.org] . (These are mostly plugins for modifying sound in-line, not generating it from midi keypresses.)
One of the best software synths: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're going to pay for software (Score:1)
Professional applications often seem to have a quirky or unusual user interface and it can be hard to assess how easy it will be to use once you have got to grips with it.
Perhaps something to get you started... (Score:5, Informative)
The question is, how involved do you want to get? You can get into the computer/music arena for anywhere from $100 to... really as much as you want to pay. If MIDI-based music is the way you would like to go, you may be able to get away with simple stereo audio i/o. However, you'll probubly eventually want more than one pair of MIDI ports, and you'll want MIDI ports with lower latency than what you'd find on your SB card.
The first choice you need to make is what platform you will run on. The only two real competitors are Mac and PC/Windows. As much as I like Linux, it's just not in the audio arena yet. Of those two, Mac is almost undisputedly more stable/powerful when it comes to audio processing. Unfortunately, Mac's are quite costly. I personally use a PC simply for the cost factor.
Once you've chosen your platform, you need to get the most powerful system you can afford. It really matters here. You get a weak system you'll be very limited. That said, I do quite well on a 1.2Ghz Athlon (overclocked to 1.4) and 768MB PC133 SDRAM. Hard drives are also of concern when it comes to recording (which I assume you'll get into). Basically you want to make sure you have plenty of space and at least 7200rpm. Uncompressed audio can really take up a lot of space. Also of note, unfortunately most PC software is moving towards being 2k/XP only. In the Mac arena things are just starting to shift to OS X. Within the next year all major packages should be available for it, but for now you have some that are, some that aren't.
After the platform and computer are chosen, you need to figure out which software you want. Your key audio package will be your sequencer. This is the program you'll use to make everything happen. You'll record with it, layout with it, and generally even just play through it. There are several that exist: Cubase, Nuendo, Logic Audio (recently bought by Mac, now Mac only), Digital Performer (always has been, always will be Mac only), Cakewalke, and Sonar, to name a few. I personally recommend Cubase [slashdot.org] (Cubasis, the stripped down version, may be a good way to get a start into things). Also, if you're wanting to go with computer based instruments (aka virtual instruments) you'll need some plugins. As far as synths go, Native Instruments [slashdot.org] makes arguably the best to be found anywhere. I'm particularly fond of their FM7, and for raw power (though a lot more work) Reaktor is amazing. Also of note is Rebirth by Propellerheads [slashdot.org], which is particularly handy for breakbeats if that's you're thing. It models two classic analog synths, and two classic drum synths. Finally, if you want to make serious MIDI based music, there is nothing that compares to Gigastudio [slashdot.org] by Tascam. It is by far the most expensive of them all, but well worth it. Technically Gigastudio is a sampler, not a synth. It is capable of playing back complete, believable, symphonies of sound (literally). It also takes massive amounts of CPU/RAM and only runs on PC.
The final aspect to go for is the audio/MIDI hardware itself. The reason this comes last is quite simply because certain hardware works best with certain software. With that in mind it's hard to give recommendations. You will need two pieces of hardware: the audio interface, and the MIDI interface. Audio hardware is a bit less proprietary than MIDI hardware, and you'll probubly be fine if you choose something that has ASIO drivers. I use a MOTU [slashdot.org] 896 Firewire interface that has 8in/8out, 8 mic preamps, and operates at up to 24bit/96kHz. That's probubly a bit overkill for what you want to do. I've also had very good success with Echo [slashdot.org] cards. The Echo Mia may well be the way to go. It's a simple stereo in/out, but will do 24bit/96kHz and has balanced TRS connectors. The Mia usually runs just under $200. Other manufacturers of note are: DigiDesign [slashdot.org] (expensive, very proprietary, but good), RME [slashdot.org], Aardvark [slashdot.org], and M-Audio [slashdot.org].
The MIDI interface gets a bit touchier. I had to try a couple before I got one that really worked for me. They tend to also be more proprietary towards your sequencing software. I use a Stienberg Midex 8, which works beautifully with Nuendo and Cubase because they're both made by Steinberg, however, I wouldn't recommend it if you're not running Nuendo, Cubase or one of the other Steinberg software packages. Basically everyone uses there own protocol for MIDI, and uses a protocol called LTC for a fallback. Almost everything can use LTC, but LTC doesn't perform nearly as well as whatever proprietary protocol your software might use. Most companies that make sequencers also sell MIDI interfaces, and generally you want the one that matches your software. If you simply want one that will kindof work for everything, but not work great with anything, Midiman of Maudio makes the Midisport series that are fairly decent all around, but only use the LTC protocol. Of course, there are all shapes and sizes of MIDI interfaces, I would recommend getting one that has at least 2 in/out ports. It may be worth it to even go up to 8. On a side note, STAY AWAY from Edirol MIDI interfaces. I've had three of them go through my hands, and none of them worked.
Ok, now we have our computer, our software, and our audio/midi hardware... time to get a MIDI controler of some sort. This is where you just need to go to a few music stores and find what you want. There are a few things you want to make sure you have, but beyond that it's just all about what you like. You want to make sure you have pitch/mod control of some sort. You also want to make sure that you have a velocity sensitive controller (i.e. It sends out MIDI signals saying how hard the keys were hit/let off). You also probubly want something that works as a sustain pedal (especially if you intend to do anything that is to sound like a piano). I personally recommend getting something that has a small subset of built-in sounds. Even though they're a bit more expensive, it just augments your possibilities that much more. Everything else in the MIDI controller is more or less up to what feels good to you.
I know this ran on a bit, and is kindof haphazardly thrown together, but hopefully it can give some starting points. If you'd like to see what I have, it can be found here [slashdot.org], but it probubly won't stand up to too awfully many hits. As a final note, a great resource for information on audio in general (including computer audio) is Harmony Central [slashdot.org].
Re:Perhaps something to get you started... (Score:1)
Reason + sound card. (Score:4, Informative)
For hardware, you don't need a very fast machine. A 600ish MHz PC will do fine. The sound card does most of the work. A pro sound card with ASIO drivers and a breakout box is important. I have experience with the Delta44 from M-Audio, a lower end option (about $250 US)for these features. The ASIO drivers allow the card to use it's DSP for sound synth, so the CPU can handle other tasks. The breakout box does the digital to analog conversion outside of the computers case, to lessen noise and interference. It also lets you use 1/4 inch phono jacks.
Software choices largly depend on what you want to create. I think Reason by PropellerHead Software is awesome for electronica, and very capable for more analog sounding stuff. It intergrates well with Cakewalk. Acid is great for loop/sample based stuff.
As for midi keyboards, Roland makes a really cheap and capable unit, the PC-160, that is fine if you're a one finger player and just need a way to get notes into a sequencer. Keyboardists will want something bigger, though.
With the hardware mentioned above, you can throw around 20+ tracks, all with hardware DSP effects, and not see the CPU load go above about 20-30%. Lots of room.
To really get great results you'll need to spend more money, of course. Quality studio monitors are very usefull, but not cheap. Good microphones for input. Headphones. Good cables. A mixing board, etc. All of this stuff can wait untill you get some royalties.
Last but not least, I would recomend educating yourself about some of the tech aspects of digital music creation. Digital cross-talk, aliasing etc, are hard to pin down if you don't know what causes them.
ASIO ?? (Score:1)
What does ASIO have to do with audio? [asio.gov.au]
/me ducks
Facts... (Score:1)
First of all, ASIO will not enable you to use any DSP on the sound card. ASIO will simply allow you to get very low latency, by using small buffer sizes.
The smaller the buffer size, the bigger the overhead. Thus, you will actually need MORE processing power with ASIO, not less. Of course, ASIO is still essential - you can't do realtime processing with WaveOut, and DirectSound although faster than WaveOut isn't fast enough.
M Audio's Delta 44 is an excellent audio interface, but it has NO synthesis, DSP effects or anything of the sort. It's basically just an A/D and D/a converter, and a really good one too. (I have one in this machine, listening to it right now.)
As for processing power, the more the better. A 600mhz processor will not get you very far - a few realtime effects and you're at full load.
Also, for low latencies, it really helps having a dual processor system - will make skips/stutters a lot less likely when you're working on multiple programs. ASIO with small buffers is much more sensitive to this problem than WaveOut is.
I personally recommend Dual Athlon MP - plenty of power to spare for most things.
Re:Facts... (Score:2)
I still would argue that you don't need tons of prossesing power to get good results though. A dual Athalon sounds like a bit of overkill. Of course audiophiles _are_ prone to overkill. $200 dollar a foot speaker cables, anyone? Extensive multitasking is of course another story.
Since I'm replying to my own post, I'd like to add that the original poster should just get a good audio package with software synth, like Reason. It'll sound far better than the MIDI on your sound card, and you can start exploring from there. It's not about the equipment, after all.
Herbie Hancock. (Score:4, Interesting)
The introdution of MIDI can largly be credited to Herbie Hancock, the jazz musician. He was the one who kept bugging manufatures to make synths connectable, and had input into technical design issues. A nice example of creativity pushing technology.
GigaSampler (Score:1)
Re:GigaSampler hi buttfucking asshole tsarkon (Score:2)
You sir, who are too corwardly to post your brainless flames from your account and instead hide behind the veil of anonymity, should put up or shut up.
Writing music is dangerous (Score:1, Troll)
I now want to spark up my interest in music again as I want to broaden my horizons, and I figure the best way to do it is with my PC.
If you reproduce a copyrighted musical work on your computer without authorization, you commit the crime of copyright infringement.
If, when writing a song, you unconsciously copy from an existing copyrighted musical work [vwh.net], you commit copyright infringement.
If, when writing a song, you create a melody similar to that of an existing copyrighted musical work, even by coincidence [everything2.com], a music publisher with billions of dollars in the bank may take legal action against you. If you have no money with which to hire legal counsel to defend you against an allegation of copyright infringement, you're in deep doo-doo.
I'd suggest staying the heck away from music unless you plan only to cover classical pieces first published before January 1, 1923.
Troll? (Score:1)
Re:Writing music is dangerous (Score:1)
If you are just having a bit of fun writing music at home, then sample anything and everything you like. As long as you don't go making millions of dollars (which is unlikely for a few years yet) from other people's samples / tunes, you have nothing to worry about. You might want to exercise a bit of caution if you get as far as releasing any of your music online - if you have very obvious samples and your tune is popular, you could possibly be forced to pull it.
Still, it's lunacy for an amateur computer musician to be worrying about copyright infringement, and scare-mongering like this only helps to further propagate the FUD that the music industry want to force down our throats to stamp out creativity and ensure they maintain control of the market.
The number one rule with sampling is to sample anything and everything (copywrong or not) - just make sure that you mangle it up enough that it's completely unrecognisable, so that it truly is your own work whatever the source material is.
Re:Writing music is dangerous (Score:1)
While this may be true, it's extremely unlikely unless you get your music released.
What's the point of creating if one publishes absolutely nothing?
Prior to having your music released, it would nearly always be necessary to get any samples cleared
Where did I say anything about samples? The "My Sweet Lord" case wasn't about sampling (copying the sound recording) at all; it was about copying the underlying musical work.
(meaning that you check with the copyright holder and pay an appropriate royalty fee for use of their work).
There are 6,259,378,087 potential copyright owners. Because checking with all of them is prohibitively expensive, how does a songwriter know with which people to check?
You might want to exercise a bit of caution if you get as far as releasing any of your music online
If I didn't use any samples other than samples I created myself or licensed, but I did use a underlying musical work which I don't know if I own or not, then how do I exercise caution given only the content of the underlying musical work?
scare-mongering like this only helps to further propagate the FUD
It's impossible to creating an antidote for FUD without having samples of the FUD.
Re:Writing music is dangerous (Score:1)
This has to be the most stupidest comment ever made. So, anyone who wants to make music should fear the legal wraths unless they want to replicate classical pieces.
You must work for the Recording/Pulishing Industry. Or worse, you might be a laywer.
What do YOU suggest? (Score:1)
This has to be the most stupidest comment ever made.
Then how else do you suggest that a songwriter avoid accidentally infringing the copyright on any of the millions of published musical works?
You must work for the Recording/Pulishing Industry.
No I don't. I'm just a would-be songwriter, but I stopped writing music after having done some research on music plagiarism cases. It turns out that if a song written by Alice is "substantially similar" to a song by Bob that Alice has heard even once, then Alice infringes Bob's copyright.
If you can help me figure out how to avoid musical plagiarism, please do so.
Re:What do YOU suggest? (Score:1)
I think you're stretching the exceptional cases and applying it to all music. All I'm saying is that if you are true to your intent and want to create music you should go ahead and do so, and don't worry who sued who over how many similar notes copied. I can see you being paranoid if your starting point was based on some existing work. I just don't think you should tell people to stay away from making music just because of some law suite paranoia. That would make for a very horrible world indeed.
Mohsen
How to Make Music (Score:3, Funny)
cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp
After all, it's better than most of the shit I hear on the radio every day.
Re:How to Make Music (Score:1)
Re:How to Make Music (Score:1)
If you actually know how to play... (Score:4, Informative)
While soft-synths sound cool in theory, they suck to work with. You can't actually "play" a soft-synth (at least not in my experience). With music coming out of the speakers half a second later than you pressed the corresponding key, it's impossible to keep in sync (or even play correctly).
A separate decent midi-keyboard and sound module/sound-card will often cost you 1 1/2 times as much as if the midi-keyboard came with sounds, but you may still prefer it, if you plan to add more gear later on (and never need to carry your gear to play somewhere else).
Most sound-sources are crap. You might as well live with it, and get a cheap one. Note that GM sucks most of all, but the price increase for getting decent stuff is much to high for the amateur like me (or you, I guess), and besides, it makes it simpler to use with standard software. $300 should be about the right price-range to start with (maybe less if it's a sound-card). Remember to go for quality (as in playability, realism) in sounds, and not quantity (you will never need those helicopter/gunshot/sitar/el-guitar patches anyway). Be aware of excessive reverb, which can often make something sound good at first, but sucks later on. If you like experimenting with the sounds themselves, buy a used old synth, such as a DX7 (which should be extremely cheap nowadays, and also has pretty decent keys:-), or confine your experiments to the soft-synths (but they are harder to work with, since the real-time use just sucks. There is definitely a big plus to have knobs you can actually touch instead of using a mouse).
In general, used stuff is good, you may find it in your local store (sometimes the store has a department for used stuff, sometimes they have a bulletin board), or in a magazine. But never buy used stuff unless you've seen it and tried it first (it might be very heavily used, and unless you know what to buy, it is a good idea to see if it fits your need)
Being a hacker type myself, I find it far to easy to be carried away by all the technology instead of making actual music. Electronic instruments often lack the same dynamics and expressitivity as a real one, and it's important to practice the real thing once in a while.
One of the great things about software, however, is the amount of educational software out there. I like using Band-In-A-Box as a great source of ideas. And also a decent air-training program, such as EarMaster Pro (there are lots of others). As for sequencers, any brand-name will do, they are much the same anyway (as with word-processors, etc...)
Re:If you actually know how to play... (Score:3, Informative)
I must disagree though with the claim that sequencers are interchangable, commodity software. As the centerpiece of the composing and editing environment, it is very important to choose one which has a feature set and interface which matches your needs. While many features overlap between the competing professional packages (Cakewalk, Cubase, Logic, Performer, Vision, and even ProTools), each one does things slightly differently and has different strengths.
#1 priority: fun (Score:1, Insightful)
This is assuming you're using software that can accept messages from the midi bus.
but your primary goal? buy something that you'd want to play. go to your local music hardware store, spend a few hours, and the synth that you keep going back to because its fun should be the one you should get.
you don't keep doing anything if its not fun.
I use Cakewalk (Score:1)
reference sites (Score:1)
www.prorec.com (good articles and great discussion area)
www.digifreq.com (good discussion boards and also ran by Scott Garrigus who has written some good audio/computer recording books)
Welcome to a new layer of hell
James
hmm.... (Score:1)
pro-tools free version (Score:2)
There is one other device that is just fun. I don't know who makes it (steinberg?) but I have the demo at home. Its a roland drum machine emulator. The wierd thing is that they didn't make the interface intutive for computer users, they made it just like the actual device. Its interesting to try and use a knob with a mouse and see the effort required to program one of those drum machines. The sounds are 80's fat though.
midi synthisis and computers. (Score:1)