Music Composition

By composing, do you mean recording?
For sequencing and recording purposes, take a look at
-Sonar
-Cubase

Nah not for recording.

That all depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

For composing, I use (and HEAVILY recommend) Sibelius 3. It's easy as hell to use, and it can do virtually anything you'd conceivably need in a score editing program.

For sequencing/recording, I use Cubase SX. It's a fully-functioning workstation tool (meaning it has recording, editing, mixing, sequencing, and mastering capabilities with both MIDI and audio). It even has a score editor, but it's not that great, and it's easy enough to create a score in Sibelius and save it as a MIDI file which can then just be imported into Cubase with less hassle.

All the music on my website that says "synthesized performance" in the description was created using these tools, if you'd like some examples. Hope that helps.

Hmm, I'm downloading the Sibelius demo to see what's it's like.

Cheers.

Fruity Loops is easy. It doesn't take musical talent to make music with it. I can prove it!

Anyway yeah FL...I also use Reason like this guy.

I absolutly love Reason. I also use Cakewalk for sequencing stuff, and you could probably get away with using that if you have a sound card with a decent wavetable (or use the DirectMusic thingo).

There is a pinned topic on a load of software in the Music and Sound forum.

I have said this before and I'll say it again: do what your wallet tells you - if you can afford a more expensive piece of software, go for it, but the bottom line remains the same:

No matter what kind of software you use, the software does not compose the music - you do

YOU make the music, not the software. Fruity Loops can be thought of as a professional product 80% of the time - in fact, apart from its lack of support for instrument banks, Fruity Loops is much more capable than Reason because of its support for DirectX and VST plugins and its much wider array of built-in filter plugins (effects). The fact that its patterning system is the way it is does, however, imply that it should be use to make certain kinds of music (mainly house, techno, etc) that take advantage of this simple copy-paste technique - I myself have used FL rather successfully to create jazz music by simply recording what I need in real time.

Reason is only good because it supports refills and has a very decent piano roll and drum track editor - as a composition program I wouldn't choose it as the best piece of software in any situation - especially given that it's not intended as a master composition software anyway - instead you should use Rewire to load all of the tracks from your Reason song in another application (such as Cubase) and process them there. That doesn't mean it sucks, of course.

I have virtually no experience with Cubase (I've only got to play around with it for a few minutes), so I can't really can't comment on it objectively, but people say it's really good (mainly thanks to its VST and Rewire sever support), but has a very poor drum track editor. I concur based on my little experience.

As a bottom line: unless you have excess money lying about, try to master Fruity Loops before you move on to more "standard" software. Rather than trying to obtain the best and most expensive titles out there, get decent mastering software first (such as ProTools or iZotope if you only want to master and don't feel the need to take advantage of the countless other applications ProTools has to offer) and you won't really have to be bothered with upgrading your composition software. Just do yourself one favor: get a decent sound card and manually switch to ASIO drivers in FL - otherwise the buffer length/crackle ratio will drive you to an early grave.

[Edited by - Crispy on February 19, 2005 4:25:17 PM]

Quote:

Original post by CrispyNo matter what kind of software you use, the software does not compose the music - you do

Tis true, but when I was trying to use DirectMusic Producer to create guitar tracks... it just doesn't work.
You need to hear what it may sound like, not some kinda... violin sounding thing that's meant to be a guitar.

But... yeah. I'ver downloaded a few demo's and I'll hopefully find something that works.

For anyone who does anything related to sequencing, I strongly recommend looking at Podium. I spent a month hunting for a good package for sequencing, and in that time, I tried all the big and expensive packages like Cubase, FL Studio, SAWStudio, and I tried a lot of dirt cheap, freeware, and open source apps too. This powerful (and cheap) program flogs them all in this area, for what I needed it for anyway.

Quote:

Tis true, but when I was trying to use DirectMusic Producer to create guitar tracks... it just doesn't work. You need to hear what it may sound like, not some kinda... violin sounding thing that's meant to be a guitar.

This is where VST plugins come in. There are thousands of VST plugins out there, and they cover just about everything, from instrument sample packs, to instrument "simulators" (which don't use samples, but actaully calculate the sounds, based on insane stuff, like the type of wood you want the guitar to be made of), to amplifiers, to whatever the hell else you want to run it through. The sequencer you use is just the enviroment you mix and manage everything through. Go out hunting for some good guitar instruments that come in a VST plugin.

Oh yeah and if you're doing darkstep/techstep dnb then check this out ^_^

Good advice, Crispy. Any or all of the programs mentioned in this thread can be a great tool in the hands of someone who knows how to get the most out of it. The natural progression of things is that you get a piece of software to learn on, and when you get comfortable with it, you move to something with more features or versatility (which usually means it's more complicated). If you start out trying to learn Pro Tools or the like, while you'll eventually end up mastering one of the most amazing tools in the industry, the learning curve is so steep that it could potentially be a long time until you're even able to produce anything at all from the program (the Pro Tools manual is a pretty intimidating thing... whole graduate programs are devoted to learning and mastering the platform). I second Crispy's advice of sticking with FL until you're confident enough to take the plunge (both mentally and financially) into something with more heft. And a good sound card is the backbone of any digital composition setup; I recommend M-Audio or Creative Labs, depending on your needs (my PC sports a M-Audio Delta1010LT). Good luck.

Since you mentioned guitars, you may want to take a look at Powertab Editor. It only does guitar (or similar stringed intrument (such as banjo, mandolin, etc) well, and the playback uses midi, so may not be that great, but it is very good at what it's intended for - producing sheet music for guitarists with both tabluture and proper notation. I often use this program with my band.

Also, as a side note, you can find a lot of good tabs for the Powertab Editor at the Powertab Archive.