Blue123 wrote:FL Studio is good for a beginner but it gets too basic and limited quickly.
You have to be joking... FL Studio is one of the most advanced music composing software from few available. And I would barely reccomend it to the begginers, unless you're talking in terms of pro musicans begining their journey with computer software - it might be quite confusing for everyone to start with. Neverthless, It's a very popular software used both by amateurs and professionals.
Anvil is a good choice. If you would like to compose electronic/disco/house music Reason is the tool for you. It may take some time to understand every single thing (it's darn complicated and very complex program and it doesn't look user friendly, too), but results will recompense the time spent on learning how to use it, plus there are a lots of tutorials available on the net. Of course, it also doesn't mean you can't create any other music types on Reason, but it was especialy designed for electronic/house music.
Apart from this, some people might be already interested in general music composing. Those who remember older times should hear about trackers like screamtracker, fasttracker or newer Madtracker. Those tiny programs were used (and still are used) in the demoscene community back in the old days, although their abilities are somewhat limited you can still compose great music (if you're not believing me check out this tune for example:
http://modarchive.org/data/downloads.ph ... #ac-sos.it It was made using another program - Impulse tracker, which is imo one of the nicer trackers around there available). They are easy to grasp and perfect for begginers. Another thing is that they basically require a little operating power and can be run on almost every machine (you can't say that about FL or Anvil, not to mention Reason). This music type is also particullary chosen for game making, especially if someone tries to add a retro-fell to their work. And mostly important - they're free!
Programs are important, but they mostly nothing without good plugins, which enchance their abilities and produce richer sound or generate special effects. more advanced users will be especially interested with them. There are lots of plugins available on the net for download, both free and commercial paid versions. From the few better ones (of course available for free) I would reccomend
http://www.e-phonic.com (nice retro effects, already bundled with Madtracker), and
http://www.tweakbench.com/ (those are good especially for those interested with retro game music. Toad, triforce and peach emulate the sound from NES).
Most of pro composing software have the ability to save work in various music file formats. Trackers mostly save music with special file formats that nowadays might get confusing to run (only with a tracker software or special programs that excell in running them. New Winamp versions DOESN'T support mod file formats anymore. For those I would reccomend using XMPlay or older versions of Winamp, such as 2+. XMPlay is simple, easy to use and has great abilities and who nows - you might like it so much you'll throw your older music player or shitty winamp away) and compressed/uncompressed wav formats. Programs for conversion of those file formats to more popular and well-operated ones, such ass mp3 or ogg are essential. For this particualr task I would reccomend SUPER (it's free and very handy) or you might spend a few bucks and get commercial version of Easy CD/DA Extractor, which is a great ripping/conversion program (IMO better than SUPER, but you shouldn't require too much from free software).
Finally, You might also try to check out some music creating blogs and sites:
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http://kev-on-music.blogspot.com/ - this guy rocks
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http://www.fictionjunction.be/2007/10/0 ... our-music/ - example process of musing composing
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http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2008/04/ ... -from.html - I found this very interesting
That's all from me for now. I Hope thats helps a little bit
