What are the most professional music making programs?

[OdioOmnus]

It's not the software, great music lies upon a great musician.

While a bit cliched, this is definitely true. Great music is all about having solid samples/soundfonts, knowing how and when to use them, and knowing what you want to achieve.

 

[rexxzecutioner]

Or just, you know, recording live instruments. Who would have ever thought about doing that?

 

[Gilleece]

hmm my last comment didn't get posted.

Anyway basically what I said is:

About the great music comes from great musicians, while this is true the music is a hell of a lot better if you have better tools, great music can sound terrible if the tools are terrible, its like a guitarist using a really bad guitar, no matter how good the guitarist is they cannot make a bad guitar sound great. I firmly believe that a great musician needs tools to matchs the abilities of said musician to get the best out of them.

Skills are important there is no doubt but tools are important too. Never forget that.

 

[moog]

It's not the software, great music lies upon a great musician.

Great computer created music is all about having solid samples/soundfonts, knowing how and when to use them, and knowing what you want to achieve.

Fixed

 

[CorporateGreed]

Try ACID Pro, Sound Forge, Reason, or Cubase. One of em must be the one you are looking for.

But lemme tell you this.
It's not the software, great music lies upon a great musician.

As stated in the post above mine, it is common sense great music comes
from skill and imagination. Nothing beats that. That said, without the right
tools and software, great compositions can go down the toilet. Ever tried
to record an epic piece of music which ended up sounding like noise?

Bad equipment can do that for you.

Anyway, concerning 'professional' software...

If you are trying to go for sampled and programmed musics, you might
want to go for Ableton Live or Reason 4.0 (or 3.1).

Reason is a Sequencer, which means you cannot record in it. Aside from that,
it holds a lot of power in it's synthesizers and refills, and experienced users
can make it pack quite a punch. A downside is the sound engine of the program,
which causes exported reason tracks to sound like that. Reason tracks.
This problem can be avoided by 'rewiring' reason into another program, something
you should always do.

Ableton Live used to be a DJ'ing tool, using samples and triggers to easily
sequence music. It's on-the-fly triggering approach makes it a brilliant tool
for live gigs, and the fact it supports most VSTi's finishes it's potential. it
also comes with a bunch of effects, and the later versions of Live have turned
it into an all-round Recording and Sequencing program. Like most recording
programs, Live supports Rewire.

Soundforge is NOT a recording tool. It should not be used as a DAW and does
not belong with the likes of ProTools or Cubase. Soundforge is a piece of software
that enhances sound. It's brilliant, and its what most professional Mastering-engineers
use, but it is actually just that; A means to master your music and change your
sound. It's professional, but unless you're very experienced and have a talent for
hearing, don't bother.

Everyone thinks protools is great and fine and dandy, and it is. It's just that to
use it you need equipment that really works with ProTools which can seriously
cut the freedom in your style. Some people love it, I have come to hate it.

Cubase goes among the same lines, but gives the user more freedom in the equipment
used. I haven't used this extensively, so I can't give you a detailed review of
the software. Maybe someone else can.

Also, if you can afford it, you might want to consider Logic. It's basically a product
for MAC, but I believe they've released a windows version as well. Logic pro
is a really wonderful piece of software... but it requires you to have an extensive
budget.

Me? I go with Ableton Live and Reason because of Live's Recording possibility and
the fact it uses VSTi's. Reason is an amazing sequencer, but I rarely use it for more
than synthesis.

As far as VSTi's go... If you're a computer musician, you'll probably need this. Native
Istruments has some awesome sets of plugins (Notably Komplete, which features both
Battery and Guitar Rig, two awesome pieces of software). Please note, extensive use
of VSTi's really eats away your RAM, so you'll need plenty of it.

EDIT: Please note, no matter how brilliant your software is, in case of recording it
doesn't frickin' matter. If you have shitty equipment, you'll have shitty sound quality.
And if you're a shitty musician, no piece of software or equipment can help you.
period.

 

[serrated_colon]

If you can read notation and know the basics on how it works, then go for Sibelius. It is really awesome, and I loved it since I have started using it! Seriously, when I compose most of the time I just hum a tune then put it to paper. When you go from there to make the tune Sibelius really helps, and the interface is quite user-friendly.

 

[Lauren Revolt]

Soundforge is NOT a recording tool. It should not be used as a DAW and doesd
not belong with the likes of ProTools or Cubase. Soundforge is a piece of software
that enhances sound. It's brilliant, and its what most professional Mastering-engineers
use, but it is actually just that; A means to master your music and change your
sound. It's professional, but unless you're very experienced and have a talent for
hearing, don't bother.

Exactly! Well, I just thought that it could be a help somehow.
But it's very useful to me, that I now never regret buying it. ^^
I'm very specific of every music I make that even a seemingly useless small crap of beat is very important. I dunno why but it's been my nature ever since.

I'll try to post my recent compositions once I've finished it.

Anyway in that case, I will also say "go for Abletonâ„¢ Live!!"