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Newcomers DBPro Corner / Music Programs---your suggestions?

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BearCDPOLD
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Joined: 16th Oct 2003
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Posted: 4th May 2004 10:16 Edited at: 4th May 2004 10:31
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Hey guys,
I've looked around the forums and on Amazon-I'm looking for some nice music editing software. I have a Clavinova CVP209 that has a direct audio output line I can stick into the SBLive with the right cables, and it has a little bit of midi support if you don't use voices that are too complicated.
Basically I need to hear all you sound guys out there on what are good music mixing/creating/midi sequencing programs. Price range doesn't go over $200 or so, but I'm always stretching.

Some programs I've looked at:
Magix Music Studio 2004 DX
Cakewalk Home Studio XL
Acid 4 (Pro version is $120 on Amazon vs $500 on sony.com, but you
buy from other people, so I dunno, regular edition is also $90-$120)
Cubase-one of those programs, still researching exactly

Ideally I would get Finale or Sibelius in addition to one of the aforementioned programs to optimize the midis, but ideally it's best right now to be able to just use .wavs or .mp3s for my music--with all the bugs with midis. Alas, maybe in a few years.

Sorry if this has come up in a post somewhere in the past, I tried looking for some posts,but alot of it was just using sndrec32 and Anvil or Soundforge (free versions) along with a keyboard or Finale Notepad.

I've been on the piano for 8 years, got some basic theory down (intermediate level really, past the music reading on into the complex chord names, not much further). This will probably be the field I go into after high school, and into/outof college.

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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 5th May 2004 10:17
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It might be a little early to bump, I know.

I put this in here thinking "I'm a newb to music production for games, Newcomer's Corner good place", maybe I can put this in the General area or something?

Anywho, even if you just want to pipe in about what you use, midis that came with DB, Anvil, electric piano w/PC mic, Finale and Pro Tools HD System and nice Sony mixing console, whatever!

Something that is kind of missing from TGC is audio, I know they've got Soundmatter and the Magix stuff, but there's more out there. Maybe I/somebody could start up a post about audio with some help links and stuff. Home Recording for Dummies anyone?

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WytRaven
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Posted: 5th May 2004 19:31
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There's only one answer you need

ImageLine FL Studio Producer Edition

http://www.flstudio.com

Simply the most intuative music editing package around...and at a decent price

All your code are belong to us
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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 6th May 2004 08:38
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Wow. I checked out the FL studio site and it is looking very nice, definitely added to my list of packages to try.

BTW, WytRaven, do you work with music production/recording at all? Your joining date is new, bud judging by your name, avatar, and knowledge of great music software you've been doing this awhile.

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indi
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Posted: 6th May 2004 09:34
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www.digidesign has a copy of protools5 for free usage on their site.

I use soundforge at work as a sound editor for photoshop and cubase or protools for composition.


on the mac side its cubase / peak / soundedit 16 and protools


fall down seven times, stand up eight
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WytRaven
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Posted: 6th May 2004 16:15
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Hi Bear,

Yeah I have been doing this kind of thing for a while. I have completed study in Audio Engineering. I'm not all that skilled when it comes to music composition itself, however I do enjoy it immensely

During my AE study I spent a lot of time with both ProTools and Cubase. Our main studio at SAE featured a complete ProTools HD Cubed system coupled to a DigiDesign Control 24 control surface. We also had another studio with ProTools/Cubase and a Yamaha O1V mixer/control surface.

ProTools is an overpriced but competent audio recording package. It is pretty much tied to proprietry hardware and really only does one thing well and that is recording/processing audio ie. recording a band in a studio. Although it does support MIDI sequencing, using Protools for this task is like trying to nail **** to a wall.

Cubase on the other hand is like a baby, hardware independant, emulation of ProTools. It's is primarily also an audio recording package and also supports MIDI sequencing but again its a real mission to do so. Cubase's 'Piano Roll' is almost as bad as ProTools. Steinberg, the creators of Cubase must be given credit for their development of both the ASIO and VST standards, unfortunately I can't give them much credit for Cubase.

FL Studio Producer Edition on the other hand is primarily a sequencer (supporting VST/VSTi, DX/DXi, and FL Native plugins including a MIDI out plugin) that can also record audio. Recording is a relatively new addition and so will improve over time. FL Studio includes free updates for life to the package version you purchase and is updated at least every 6 months and the updates are huge

After having used all three of these packages extensively, including a few others as well such as the atrocious Reason (oh I feel so violated), I can say without a doubt that for sequencing you simply cannot beat FL Studio. The interface, although drab to some, is just so damn intuative it's scary. Dieder Dambrin (the author) is extremely skilled when it comes to interface design.

Don't let the low price throw you. These guys simply believe that reasonably priced software will ensure volume sales. I can't argue with that logic and it works for them.

Download the demo. You can't go wrong. The only thing that's disabled is saving of projects. You can still export to wav or mp3

If you decided to purchase you can expect to recieve regular updates and enjoy the full support of a vibrant community via the exclusive FL Studio forums. Gol (Dider Dambrin) and other members of staff are an active part of the community.

I must sound like a bit of a 'Fan Boy' which I suppose to a degree is true. But believe me, if you buy you will find it pretty damn hard not to become a 'Fan Boy' yourself. It's just damn fine software at a damn fine price

One last thing. Although FL Studio will function best when run an a professional ASIO 1.0 or 2.0 capable audio card (audio recording infact requires this) it has full support for DirectX capabale cards, albiet with higher latencies.

Anyway I hope this info has been usefull

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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 7th May 2004 06:23
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Wow, thanks guys, your input was invaluable. Right now I'm leaning toward Fruity Loops. I checked out the demo and am loving it so far. But I also am wanting to be sure in my decision, has anybody tried Cakewalk Home Studio? (Sonar is a bit too expensive).

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Phaelax
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Posted: 7th May 2004 13:16
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screw cakewalk. its worst organized and hardest to use.

acid is nice. I have acid pro myself. came with my sound card.
I also have cubasis vst, but haven't had it long enough to play yet. but my friend uses cubase for all his cd's, and so does my other friend. It's pretty good as far as i can tell.

"eureka" - Archimedes
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zircher
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Posted: 7th May 2004 18:33
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Since we have some knowledgable folks here, where does CoolEdit Pro fit into the food chain? I really like Hyperdyne Labs' SciFi Deluxe plugin for voicemasking.
--
TAZ

Game Beavers
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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 9th May 2004 04:32
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Whoa, Phaelax, what sound card did you get that it comes with Acid Pro?
I tried out the CoolEdit demo a while back and it was pretty sweet. The only problem is they got bought out by Adobe, and Audition is pretty expensive. I haven't heard much about what it supports as far as music goes, though, I'm getting the trial.....

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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 10th May 2004 07:05
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Well downloaded it and it was probably the easiest to use interface for sound editing, but unfortunately it's not well tuned for actual music creation from scratch, this would be perfect if you had a full-blown band or orchestra to record, but Fruityloops and Sibelius/Finale type programs are better suited for raw music creation.Basically I need all the nice midi sequencing and synthesizer editing, but I also need a pre-made library of some standard instruments like trumpets, trombones, violins, violas, tubas, flutes, clarinets, basically a little orchestra, I've seen some stuff in fruity loops but it's like electronic trumpet and sounds like it should be in a disco song.

Do you guys know where to get either some midi instruments, soundfonts (I think???), or other stuff along those lines? And (sorry about all the questions), has anybody tried Magix Music Studio 2004? I'm basically searching anywhere I can for something that I can compose/sequence/edit sound with, probably because all the midi voices on my CVP 209 Clavinova are too complex for any sound card to understand, so exporting a midi doesn't work too well (but I haven't screwed around with ALL those features yet).

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Sparda
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Posted: 10th May 2004 08:21
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I'm not too experience with music making, but if you want to make some techno, try out Fasttracker or Impulse Tracker. It's what my friend uses. Good luck in the search

There 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't
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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 11th May 2004 02:28
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Looks like Fast Tracker, Impulse Tracker, and Scream Tracker are nice free trackers for techno, but I need something that has a big collection of classic orchestral instruments or at least some that can be downloaded from somewhere and used as a plugin or something. Our game is going to switch between orchestrated suites and sonatas (the final boss likes to listen to Beethoven) and heavy metal for action sequences. One of the obvious solutions is a notation program like Finale or Sibelius, but their functions for editing note properties is somewhat limited, so that's why a sequencer is so appealing.

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Sparda
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Posted: 11th May 2004 05:31
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Creative might have some freeware. My old comp came with Creative speakers and a ton of software. It had sounds from strings, to drums, to gunshots (go figure).

There 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't
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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 13th May 2004 09:08
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Sorry in taking so long to reply.

I've got a SB Live!, so I have all that tight stuff, I'm glad you reminded me about it !>

Lately I've been toying with Sibelius, since it uses a conducter's score view instead of tracker interfaces, and that's more what I'm used to--I was a musician before I was a programmer. I couldn't get the soundfonts to load correctly (probably the darn integrated card still on the motherboard messing everything up). I think I've found what I want though. Sibelius is just the kind of program I need. It exports to .wav, as well as midi I can just put into my Clavinova for more realistic sounding instruments, then record with a line-in in the default sound recorder that came with my SB Live.

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Sk8er Namja
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Posted: 17th May 2004 12:00
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all the other software isn't as good as what you need for real good quality. Thus, the only one answer to this question is:

REASON

http://www.propellerheads.se
for more information

1 PRINT "This s..t works!!!"
2 GOTO 1
RUN
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berklee
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Posted: 18th May 2004 14:12
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My personal favorite is Tracktion. It's developed by Raw Material Software, and is now distributed by Mackie.
http://www.rawmaterialsoftware.com
It's very simple to record with, handles VSTi's well and for $80 you get a license for two machines.

That being said, I've found this to be the most intuitive music package. Your mileage may vary.
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