free, good-quality music maker

[Mage]

What are some good, free programs for creating music? I mean like mp3 quality, not midi quality.. I'd play the piano or something, but I don't know how to I can read music, so don't exclude ones that you actually need to know how to read music in order to use! Thanks!

 

[kylestarbucks]

uhh...maybe Audacity? its like a photoshop for music making or watever...

 

[Minkoff]

uhh...maybe Audacity? its like a photoshop for music making or watever...

this isn't really what audacity is for at all

 

[GreenBanana]

So...the question remains. What IS a good, EASY-to use, quality music-making program, that allows users a wide variety?

Skale is a bad choice. Download it and enjoy figuring out how to try making a note.

 

[sarana]

It's not the best music making program ever, it won't give great quality, but it's very easy to get acceptable results : Ejay Dance. It's a shareware, but I only have links to the french version.

 

[chuchan]

I use Cakewalk, though it isnt free.... i think you could get a free trial of it off somewhere...just not sure

 

[Danton Lavergne]

The best, easiest music maker, is Tabit. Not only can you make rock stuff, but orchestral as well.

 

[Ynlraey]

Did you try presto?

 

[Anonymous]

The best, easiest music maker, is Tabit. Not only can you make rock stuff, but orchestral as well.

two things of relative importance

1) any midi sequencer ever made can do this, and many can do it better
2) it is midi (op wanted mp3s or equivalent, not sure about the bumper)
3) it requires the ability to read guitar tablature (not hard)
4) guitar pro is so much better

actually that's four but whatever.

Did you try presto?

presto is a GOD AWFUL PIECE OF FILTH for anything other than doing a silly remix of a preexisting midi i cannot stress this enough. it was the first sequencer i ever used and i will never be able to remove its stench. it is awful.

@chuchan: cakewalk (3?) is excellent i love you.

OP & anyone else who asks this question in the future: it all depends on what you need. "easy-to-use" is highly subjective - i, for instance, find guitar tablature and piano rolls to be ridiculously simple, whereas others might feel confused and afraid of anything but standard music notation. personal preference is also very important - some people swear by FL Studio, for instance, while others shun it as a little kid music making program.

here is interesting list of cool software

midi sequencers
Anvil Studio - powerful, relatively simple to use once you get the hang of it. it has standard music notation views for MUSIC EXPERTZ and a piano roll view for us simpletons. amusingly i have two very old and terrible songs that i made on their sample song page that i forgot i submitted there until today.

Noteworthy Composer - i personally hate this with all of my heart but only because i am one of those silly people who fears things she does not understand. it is very good for piano, i will give it that much. i know many people who swear by it and while i don't LIKE IT myself i will acknowledge it as rather powerful.

Guitar Pro - my weapon of choice, though i hate GP5 and strongly prefer GP4. it is a VERY powerful sequencer with very easy-to-use effects and a simple, tab-based interface. it is also available for OSX. a bad thing however is that, as it is natively a french program, occasionally shit will break and flood you with french error messages. if you know french that is cool. i personally tend to translate them as personal compliments.


digital audio workstations (mp3 makers)
FL Studio - everyone recommends this. it's a love/hate program - it either clicks with you as something incredible, or it doesn't and you hate it because it's a clunky piece of shit that doesn't work half the time. it is very powerful, though it lacks standard notation input. it has a piano roll, though.

Cubase - never used it, don't know anything about it. industry standard or some shit. probably expensive as all hell too.

SONAR - never used this either, don't know anything about it. pretty popular. probably expensive too. it's a cakewalk product though (i think it supplanted pro audio 9, which was a really nice program), so it's probably very good.

Renoise - excellent program. useless if you're afraid of tracker interfaces/afraid to learn new things/don't like trackers. i don't use it often but it is a very good program.

i'll pester rexxz later to get in here and pad this shit with a PROFESSIONAL POINT OF VIEW or whatever (i like him he has a cool beard).

google is very much your friend when it comes to stuff like this. even searching for FREE MIDI SEQUENCER or FREE DAW or FREE VSTI HOST will usually yield something worthwhile. free stuff is incredibly important in the world of music; music is pretty much the most expensive field you can enter. if you're cheap/on a tight budget, chances are that unless you find MAD GOOD DEALS on ebay/trading forums, you're probably not going to be able to get the cool sounds that you hear in movie soundtracks, commercial jingles, etc.

VSTis can easily run from $5 to $500, with eastwest's offerings often running closer to $1000 (they make really good stuff). hardware synths can cost over $5000, and hardware mixing equipment can cost over $10000. i myself own roughly $6000 in VSTis, software, and hardware - my guitars, my amps, cables, etc. if you're lucky, you can find cool free/cheap VSTis that do what you want, or make do with soundfonts or samples or something.

in a nutshell: everything is subjective. there is no be-all end-all solution when it comes to makin fat tunez. google and kvr are your friends.

 

[rexxzecutioner]

Essentially you have two elements when producing electronic music. The MIDI data and your sound output. As far as MIDI producing goes, it depends on what sort of work environment you are comfortable with. If you have a music background, I'd go for Sibelius, one of the best pure notation programs out there. If you are just getting into it, I'd opt for FL Studio for the beginners. IT has a relatively simple user interface and an easy 'pattern' approach to the composition, using the piano roll with MIDI data.

I personally use Cubase SX 3.1 for all MIDI production, as it offers a great variety of MIDI editing tools and excellent host for VST and other virtual instruments.

As far as your sound output is concerned, you have two options: Synths and/or Samples. The synths will provide you with that electronic music sound, and while you can get samples of those, you can not tweak and customize the sound to the degree that you can with a real synthesizer. I highly recommend the synth "Sytrus" from Image-Line, the producers of FL Studio(although I personally use the standalone VST version in Cubase). Another great synth is Hybrid from Digidesign, basically combining most forms of known synthesis into one behemoth of a program. 10/10 from me.

Samples will provide you with a realistic sound, often emulating a real life instrument(varying in degrees of quality). real_estate_barrell hit the nail on the head about the East West samples, they are very good quality for the price that you will pay.

In the end, I recommend actually learning a bit more about music and composition before seriously approaching song production within a digital work environment. Learn about MIDI control values and automation. Learn about synthesis and waveform manipulation techniques.

 

[action]

I would need something smaller in size.

 

[Anonymous]

I would need something smaller in size.

this is the most informative question i have ever seen posted on this forum. smaller than what? anvil is like 3mb.

 

[Grandor]

I recommend Finale, Finale has a free version, however it's not to easy. But I'm pretty sure you can get the hang of it through time.

 

[arcthemonkey]

Maybe he's referring to the VSTs? Some of those things make Blu-ray blush.

You know, real estate barrel (if that be your true name), I too started with Presto, and I too turn to it only in times of remixing/changing instruments - a purpose it is perhaps divinely intended to fulfill.

Of course, I don't really compose digital music at all, so there isn't much else I would use it for. I haven't made an original song in midi in almost 6 years.

 

[StuntmanBank314]

get fl studio....get it pirated! lol




No really...

I honestly recommend you never say something of this sort again, it's almost stretching the point of the piracy rule - Andy

 

[Anonymous]

You know, real estate barrel (if that be your true name), I too started with Presto, and I too turn to it only in times of remixing/changing instruments - a purpose it is perhaps divinely intended to fulfill.

for remixing midis it's a godsend. it's just like CUT BLOCK > MOVE BLOCK > PASTE BLOCK > DONE. for COMPOSITION though it's awful unless you have a keyboard.

also the only VSTis that are RIDICULOUSLY BIG are the ones with mad samples - most of eastwest's stuff, kontakt stuff, etc. stuff like absynth or fm8 or sytrus is like 50-100MB tops.

 

[Anonymous]

http://www.tabit.net ?

I use this. Not free, but you're on the internet; go figure. It would only really be useful if you were familiar with tablature, though when I first got this I didn't know it and quickly became comfortable with it. Just another suggestion, anyway

godamnit I'm going to start warning people for making referencing to piracy, stop it - Andy

 

[Danton Lavergne]

I've actually already said tabIt. It has its ups and downs and I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. The truth is, it doesn't really matter what "music maker" you use. All sequencers are pretty much the same, and one isn't better than the other, it's really a matter of preference.

 

[Anonymous]

All sequencers are pretty much the same, and one isn't better than the other, it's really a matter of preference.

i wouldn't say that exactly. certain midi sequencers are designed for certain tasks - guitar pro/tabit/powertab are primarily for guitar-based songs, whereas anvil/cakewalk/noteworthy are general purpose, with staff notation at the forefront. guitar pro, for instance, is INFINITELY better than anvil for guitar, simply because you are a) faced with the natural limitations of a guitar (tunings) and b) because it is designed for that purpose - quick slides, pitch bends, vibrato, tablature-based interface, etc. alternatively, anvil is infinitely better than guitar pro for things like piano - pianos are generally not limited by the tuning range of a guitar, you don't generally need to use vibrato or pitch bends for a piano, and it is rather difficult to make an intricate piano piece using guitar tablature notation.

preference does play a large role, but generally it is much better to use a sequencer suited for a certain task. if you are making primarily guitar-based music, or if you are making primarily orchestral music, your sequencer of choice will likely reflect that.

 

[Danton Lavergne]

Well, really what I'm saying is that there's no Best sequencer. There is a handful of "most popular" sequencers but the Best one is the one which does what you want and which works in a way in which you're comfortable.

All modern sequencers integrate MIDI and digital audio recording, showing both types of data on one page making it very easy to arrange your music. All come with a range of built-in digital audio effects such as reverb, EQ, compression, delay and so on. All but the most budget programs support DirectX and/or VST plug-ins which means you can add third-party effects to your system - and many plug-in FX are available free of charge on the Web. Many sequencers now feature built-in soft synths which means you may not need to spend money on external synths and sound modules. Again, there are third-party plug-in instruments available commercially and for free on the Web.

Features such as recording, editing, arranging and mixing may vary in the detail from program to program but, again, all but the most budget software has an abundance of features to help you make music.

The most popular PC sequencers are members of Steinberg's Cubase family, Emagic's Logic family and Cakewalk's eponymous Cakewalk family although this has recently been superseded by a new program called Sonar. FL Studio; apart from its gay interface, is fairly decent. On the Mac, it would be difficult to recommend any but Cubase and Logic, apart from which there are few others.