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Music Composition
Henroid
Mexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
Mexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
For a while I'd been considering getting into music composition with my PC (starting with remixes of game music, if only to build up a sort of foundation / familiarity with how it is all done). My big problem is that I'm rather clueless as to the software I can get to persue this. I don't know anyone who uses any music composition programs, and I realize I can Google this up probably to find out names. However, I suppose I'd like feedback or suggestions on what to get. Which is why I'm here (what other forum on the net can I trust?).
Some names I dug up were Fruity Loops, Cubase, Sonar, and Logic (an Apple product, and buying an Apple laptop has been a plan of mine for a good while). Has anyone worked with any of these? Or perhaps another program? I can find tutorials on my own, so I'm not necessarily asking for that much.
Some names I dug up were Fruity Loops, Cubase, Sonar, and Logic (an Apple product, and buying an Apple laptop has been a plan of mine for a good while). Has anyone worked with any of these? Or perhaps another program? I can find tutorials on my own, so I'm not necessarily asking for that much.
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I used NoteWorthy Composer for a few years, back when composition was just an extra hobby that I had.
Once I started getting serious, I had to make the choice between Finale and Sibelius.
(Sibelius: http://www.sibelius.com/home/index_flash.html
Finale: http://www.finalemusic.com/finale/home.aspx )
These may not be what you're looking for though, since you mention remixes. Audacity is a free music editing software, and ProTools is what the professional studios use for mixing and sequencing, and is also what composers use for Electro-acoustic music, as well as Musique Concrete and Electronique.
I have never heard of any of those apps... but then again I kind of have to stay current on the industry standard... which doesn't sound like what you'd need.
If you're just thinking of remixes, Audacity is what I'd recommend, I used it until I got Protools, and while it's got its problems... it's actually quite good for the price of free.
If you're thinking of notation for like... non-electronic music, then get something like Finale NotePad unless you need professional quality, I know a lot of people who use that non-professionally, and they like it.
If you're doing classical composition, you'll probably want a sheet music program: Finale and Sibellius are the two key players - both, I believe, have limited free versions in addition to the expensive full versions. If you're interested in electronic-ey music, check out programs like FruityLoops that are more focused on doing synth and MIDI work. If you're doing more of the songwriter thing or are just most interested in recording tracks and mixing them, there's everything from the free-but-utilitarian Audacity to the expensive-but-industry-standard ProTools (Logic falls under this category - most composers tend to prefer Logic to ProTools for its larger focus on MIDI and such). If you are getting a Mac, the included GarageBand is a great entry-level program.
One more vote for Sibelius (personally, I find Finale somewhat restricting) as a notation program. I find Audacity (free) very good for audio editing (it also supports VST effects plugins). And NoteWorthy Composer (mentioned above - it's rather cheap, compared to Sibelius) is a good, solid and effective notation program, although it misses some features that are necessitated by certain types of music, especially classical.
NoteWorthy can actually be used rather efficiently (more so than Sibelius and Finale in my experience) because of the number of keyboard shortcuts to various functions. Although I know that Sibelius Software actually sells keyboards built especially for use with Sibelius with labeled functions, etc.
If you use Linux, though, you might be interested in Rosegarden - to nick a phrase from Wikipedia, it's a "digital audio workstation". It has a sequencer and notation editor. It can definitely work with MIDI and I assume from what I read that it can also be used with audio files. I don't know of a Windows or OSX port, though.
(If you're interested in MusicXML, which is an interchangeable score format, you can export scores to MusicXML with Rosegarden - Sibelius and Finale can also use MusicXML, although may need the Dolet plug-ins.)
You may be interested in finding a MOD tracker or sequencer.
A really good place to start looking for audio software (particularly the type you're looking for) is The Sonic Spot - I haven't found a place quite like it and I've relied on it for a few years now. Really, really good. Hope it helps.
It's good to hear there are free versions of these programs up for grabs. I suppose I'll have to dink around with that for a couple of these. Is MIDI generally how most of these work though?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Its a sheet music type compositional program by the way, and in my opinion many times easier to learn than Finale (though if you do manage to learn finale well it would probably benefit you more in the end)
Both programs can do the same thing, they just go about it in different ways. Honestly, the program to use is the one that you've been trained on (or trained yourself on.) In doing large format works, Finale seems to be less of a memory hog. Sibelius always tends to really get laggy if I go over 300 measures or 30 instruments.