Decent, Free Synthesis/Sequencing/Sampling Software?

Unless you are a pirate, the only free one worth your time is probably at www.anvilstudio.com

Sadly, it''s a complete pile of crap compared to the ones you have to pay for like Cakewalk, Cubasis, Acid, FruityLoops, etc.

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Original post by ZackParrish
Unless you are a pirate, the only free one worth your time is probably at www.anvilstudio.com

Sadly, it''s a complete pile of crap compared to the ones you have to pay for like Cakewalk, Cubasis, Acid, FruityLoops, etc.

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Ok, assuming I was willing to shell out a minimal amount of money, which one would be the best for around $10-$20.



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Digital Gunfire: Industrial Strength Aural Assault

Good question there. Problem with the best sequencers aside from costing money at all, is they usually run between 200-500 dollars depending on what program it is, as well as who you are buying it from.

Seeing as Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 is now "obsolete" next to Sonar, you could probably find it on a bidding site for around 50-100 dollars, instead of paying 300 for it on cakewalk.com.

There are alot of older versions of software that you can probably find for a really low price, and they''ll do just as good as the newer ones, to an extent. My own recommendation would be to look for the cheapest of the latest versions of Cakewalk or Cubasis.

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Its not quite a sequencer, but you may want to try CSound. Its more of a synthesizer, but if you have good instrument files, then technically you should be able to synthesize an entire song. Look at their website.

The official zorx website

oh jesus, the music forums are bad enough, but you guys.. it''s like once you spend money on something you have to insist it''s the only way otherwise your erection will shrink.

i''ve got a synthesis studio w/ ~$10k of gear sitting in it, ~15 years of experience..

today, i use synthedit/freeware for.. everything.

http://www.synthedit.com

there are tons of free vst format sequencers.. try computer muzys, bidule, buzz, inwire... http://www.kvr-vst.com search function.. in fact you can probably find as many free samplers, sequencers, synths, fx there to keep you busy for years..

and no, just because some idiot charges $300 for their piece of crap it doesn''t mean it sounds better than the free one.

You''re probably paying for ease of use, though. I know I could probably do better as far as value and quality goes (and spend some of it on better hardware too), but Reason is just so much fun!

I love Reason

Heh..

Anyway, before I got Reason, all I had was my Sound Card''s MIDI wavetable synth, and Cakewalk (which came with the card). That kind of counts as free (because you have to buy a sound card anyway, although you may already have one). And that was very very good.

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Free Game: Yet Another Falling Block Game

Before I bought Sonar I was using a freeware sequencer called Massiva which got me by for roughly 3 years! It was awesome for sequencing (actually quicker and easier than Sonar) but had minimal audio capabilities unless you''re into tracking or using smaller samples. There''s probably even a couple of older downloads on my audio page which I did with Massiva. Anyway, I was only using an old version which was updated and now you have to pay for it but I think it was only around $20! And I believe it handles alot of audio duties now with fx and everything. I don''t even know if it or the site still exists but I think it was www.massiva.com
Anyway, it was the best freeware sequencer I could find at the time. And it fit on a floppy disk! I could even email it to you.
Good luck.
Mick.
http://micktaylormuzik.tripod.com (no "www"s!)

I do a lot of my work with Modplug Tracker... as mentioned above, you keep much of the power but lose a lot of user-friendliness with freeware such as MPT! Having said that, I''m not all that interested in modern software, after my massively disappointing experiment with Logic, which gave me 500ms latency on a system that has <10ms latency using Cakewalk 9.

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If you go to Digidesign.com they offer a free almost full-featured version of Pro Tools for download that uses your computer''s sound card. However, Pro Tools was really designed to work with its own proprietary hardware.

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If you go to Digidesign.com they offer a free almost full-featured version of Pro Tools for download

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That only really runs correctly on Win98 or Mac.

I''d suggest taking a look at stuff like Psycle

or ReNoise

Both are more built on tracker based interface, but are quite powerful and can use native plugins and VSTi/VSTs.

They are both FREE.

but if they are free, how can they be good? everybody knows if it''s free, it''s only good if it''s ANVIL™ because only ANVIL™ makes the shit with proper shitness. you need ANVIL™ to tell you what you need, otherwise you are not FREE™

god bless americuh *roll eyes*

Why the attitude, Xoxos? It seems like you''re arguing against nothing here...

Who says you can''t get good free software? Especially if it''s open source.

Kylotan,

what latency are you referring to??

not the software monitoring function that should better be disabled, no?

on my shitty PC logic runs just fine, it''s the best program, regarding so much things, that I ever got my hands on,
and the EQs and FX are just great :D

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Original post by UnshavenBastard
what latency are you referring to??

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I''m referring to the fact that when I recorded one audio track over another, it would start Much later than it should. Not just a few ms out, but between 1/4 to 1/2 a second between me making the sound and it hitting the disk. Not acceptable!

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not the software monitoring function that should better be disabled, no?

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Well, I''ve no idea what could be wrong, but I didn''t have all year to find out. I couldn''t see any options that would instantly fix it after playing around for an hour or two so I went back to Cakewalk 9 which has no noticeable latency even after 8 tracks of audio.



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mmm, i get a ~10ms latency out of logic 4 on a 1.2g athlon if i need it. imo the way to configure a daw is to observe and correlate host/hw compatabilities. don't just buy a fast computer and the s/w you want.. wait until you can find 1/2 dozen examples of people with working systems..

[off-topic content deleted -- Kylotan]

[edited by - Kylotan on January 25, 2004 8:50:54 PM]

I forgot to mention that Modplug Tracker is a decent sampling program if you figure out how everything works.

http://www.modplug.com/

You can get it there if you want to try your hand at it.

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Xoxos, following discussion with other moderators, your account has been banned. There is no place for your continued abusive attitude on this forum.

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