Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

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Westeford
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Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#1 Post by Westeford »

Hi, I'm a complete amateur in music. I know music, I love music, I know what I like in music, but I know nothing about it. So I'd like to change that.
The problem is, I don't know where to start. I would like to experiment with instruments and/or electronic sounds, but I'm totally lost. I'd like to use a free or cheap program to get my feet wet. And also something I could put into my games without much worry. (I feel like I'm on one of those house hunting shows on HGTV.)
I also can't record music myself. Hence why I'm looking for a program for that.

Any suggestions would be a real help.
Cheers.

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#2 Post by MGR_59 »

I like Graham Cochrane's Youtube channel "recordingrevolution", here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjRzsi ... HV4-2LKBtg

One example: "How to build a home recording studio for under $350":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLXSqan3Jcs

Here's another video that may be helpful too - it explains the difference between recording MIDI music (where, in principle, your computer generates the sounds) and recording audio music (where you play an instrument that has its own sound generator, for example a synthesizer or a Hammond organ or an acoustic guitar).
Channel "Music Repo" - MIDI vs AUDIO: Connect And Record Your Keyboard Lesson 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeHrtSVcm0s

If you want a free audio recording program (=recording "sound", not MIDI) you can take a look at Audacity which is relatively simple and doesn't cost anything.
It has some limitations but it is a good starting point for audio. For example, you could look for a cheap synthesizer or music keyboard on Ebay and record the audio/sound from the synth onto Audacity:
https://www.audacityteam.org/

I'm not very good with MIDI recording myself so I can't make recommendations for MIDI software.

I hope this is of some use to you.

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#3 Post by ComputerArt.Club »

I downloaded Ardour awhile back to experiment with, you can get it for as little as 1 dollar, though the recommended amount is higher. Ardour is a digital audio workstation (DAW) that allows you to record mix and edit. It accepts midi (keyboards) and microphones or you can import mdi or audio.

I havent gotten to try it out yet as I have been busy with other things, but I have heard good things about it and I'd like to give it a go soon.

It is not 100% free but it is open source and you can get it super cheap. It accepts midi controllers, you can get a basic one for less than 50 USD on Amazon. You should also be able to use it without a midi controller.

https://ardour.org

I am not sure, but it may or may not be legal for me to share it as it is open source, you are only supposed to pay for compiled files (you can compile it yourself for free too).
Last edited by ComputerArt.Club on Fri Jun 01, 2018 8:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#4 Post by D.ray »

This past post has info I posted that might be of help to you.

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=45105

That being said, what you want is a DAW and some VST instruments.

The DAW will take care of all your audio, recording composing and processing needs. Although audacity is ok for simple recording, it lacks a lot features that make certain necessary things either impossible or harder than they need to be. The same things goes for other music creation software that aren't fully fledged DAWS.

I would recommend Reaper for a DAW: https://www.reaper.fm/

You can try it out for a unlimited time with no restrictions. If you do end up liking it, I would encourage you to buy it since it's only $60 and is just as good as other DAWs or in some instances better than other DAWS that will run you between $600 to $1000. The downside is that it does take time to learn, but there are plenty of online tutorials online and a thriving community behind it.

Once you have something like Reaper installed , download some VST instruments, which are essentially virtual instruments. From there, you can compose a tune in the piano roll by inserting the notes via mouse. You can buy a MIDI keyboard, which can make things easier and more organic. Or with reaper you can use your actual keyboard as a midi controller.

Like in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XTIHV2yLSY

Just be aware you will have to manually adjust velocity.

I would also recommend sites like vsts for free, where you can download a variety of virtual instruments for free.
http://www.vst4free.com/

The sound quality will vary, since they are free, but it's good place to get started with VST's.

In addition google free drum samples, or invest in some. You'll need these for electronic beats or beats in general. If you want realistic quality sounding drums, you'll need to invest in a good drum sample library.

Once you got the software, you need to know some music theory, and drum theory basics to get everything working together. There are plenty of books and free tutorials on this online. Hope that helps.
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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#5 Post by ComputerArt.Club »

D.ray wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:56 pm I would recommend Reaper for a DAW: https://www.reaper.fm/

You can try it out for a unlimited time with no restrictions.
Looks interesting, but I dont think that what you are saying is their official stance.
The website says it has a "free, fully functional 60-day evaluation" not unlimited.

60 for discounted or personal use (though this is also suitable for some small businesses)
225 for commercial.

I made a forum post on ardour asking about sharing the installer. I think the answer will be that I can share it for free as it is open source and you should be able to do what ever you want with it, but I guess Ill have to wait for an answer first as it is a bit more complicated than that for ardour.

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#6 Post by hemspekilegur »

I definitely agree with everyone else as far as midi and VSTs being the way to go starting out, especially if you're interested in electronic music.

If you have macOS, Garage Band deals pretty well with midi and supports some VSTs (although generally the ones you'll want to download for GB are called AU components or something like that).

LMMS https://lmms.io/ is also really good and it works across platforms.

Like D.Ray said vst4free is a really awesome resource.
I would also recommend sites like vsts for free, where you can download a variety of virtual instruments for free.
http://www.vst4free.com/
If you're looking for a specific VST to start out with Synth 1 http://www.geocities.jp/daichi1969/softsynth/ is pretty cool.

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#7 Post by D.ray »

ComputerArt.Club wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 9:43 pm
D.ray wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:56 pm I would recommend Reaper for a DAW: https://www.reaper.fm/

You can try it out for a unlimited time with no restrictions.
Looks interesting, but I dont think that what you are saying is their official stance.
The website says it has a "free, fully functional 60-day evaluation" not unlimited.
Well, it's not their official stance, but.....
you can basically use it for an unlimited time with no restriction even after the 60 days is up. (There's basically no enforcement or penalty, other than you feeling guilty for not purchasing it if you find it useful.) Hence why it's users and me included, encourage people to buy it. It is only $60 after all.

60 for discounted or personal use (though this is also suitable for some small businesses)
225 for commercial.
The $60 licence covers personal use, educational and non profit, as well as commercial use if your profit is less than $20,000 a year.
The only real difference between the trail version and the paid version is a 5 second splash screen at start up. And both the discount and commercial are the same.

The $225 licence is for commercial use if you make more than $20,000 a year in profit, or if you are feeling generous and want to support the company. I've known many users who end up paying that $225 despite meeting the $60 requirement, or they buy the $60 version and end up paying $225 because of how useful it is. Although it is unstated, the company has basically made it as easy as possible for any user to purchase it, despite economic status.

The company's unique and awesome stance is one of the reasons why so many people support them.

This is from their website.
Cockos Incorporated was founded in 2004, beginning an effort to build quality software that would benefit people throughout the world.
Our goal is to develop software sustainably while preventing profit rationale from forcing engineering compromises. By doing so, we can keep our product visions intact, giving maximum benefit to our users.
It certainly doesn't hurt that reaper is an incredible software to begin with. It basically destroys it's competition, which is why it's becoming so prevalent in audio recording and the music scene. It's incredibly stable, lightweight, fast, has many unique features, amazing native plugins and is highly customizable.

The fact that you can write code for it and change or add features or functions, is one of the reason why it's so powerful. You can pretty much tailor it to your needs and taste.

I've spent many hours writing stuff for it, but once done, it'll execute various actions that would take you several minutes, or even half hours to do, and with a single click of a button do it in matter of seconds. You can further save time by customizing various other aspects that make it as efficient as possible for your workflow. Other DAWs do have things like macros, but they don't come close to reaper in customization. It's saved me so much time for all the things I do, which apart from composing include recording, editing, mixing, mastering and various other audio tasks.


By now, it should be apparent that I'm a huge reaper fan. I've tried other DAWS, and IMO, Reaper has them outclassed. It' s one of the best purchases I've ever made.
I made a forum post on ardour asking about sharing the installer. I think the answer will be that I can share it for free as it is open source and you should be able to do what ever you want with it, but I guess Ill have to wait for an answer first as it is a bit more complicated than that for ardour.
I've never actually heard of ardour before. It looks interesting, but I haven't had any experience with it myself. However, it's always great to see open source software in use.
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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#8 Post by ComputerArt.Club »

The creator just replied to me about sharing Ardour, and said:

“Ardour is released under the GPL. You are free to do whatever you want with it, with the requirement that if you distribute it to anybody else, you give them all the same rights that we give you.

You can copy it, give it to friends, whatever you wish.

Obviously, we would like financial support to continue our work developing the program, but this is not required.”

I'll post a link in about 10 hours as I am out at the moment. Anyone who wanys to give it a go for free can do so.

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#9 Post by ComputerArt.Club »

For anyone interested in giving Ardour ago, I uploaded it here for you to try for free: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19W_JKe ... p=drivesdk
that is version 5.12, the 32bit version (as the 64bit bersion is not compatible with 32bit vsts). It is the most rcent version for Windows (for those of you reading this in the distant future, it is June 2018 now).

Give it a go, if you like it or you want to update it, go to their site and you can give any donation above 1 dollar.

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#10 Post by ComputerArt.Club »

Yeah, gave Ardour a go today, still figuring it out but I made a simple song by drawing the notes on midi tracks. Probably even easier for me than playing on a keyboard. Might have a keyboard shipped from my old house or just buy a simple midi keyboard, but might not be necessary for my purposes.

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#11 Post by HeartbrokenDeveloper »

The first Music Creation Tool, which let me to make music.
Very easy to use and it's open source, too.

Bosca Ceoil:
https://boscaceoil.net/
<a href="https://heartbrokendeveloper.itch.io/">I will need a better introduction...</a>

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#12 Post by ComputerArt.Club »

HeartbrokenDeveloper wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 11:11 am The first Music Creation Tool, which let me to make music.
Very easy to use and it's open source, too.

Bosca Ceoil:
https://boscaceoil.net/
Thanks for this! Bosca ceoil comes from Irish, which is interesting to me as I am Irish. I have Ardour now, but it has been so long since I used it that I have forgotten how it works. Maybe I will look at Bosca Ceoil too, it looks relatively simple, though it is probably much less powerful as a result.

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#13 Post by HeartbrokenDeveloper »

ComputerArt.Club wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 12:33 pm Thanks for this! Bosca ceoil comes from Irish, which is interesting to me as I am Irish. I have Ardour now, but it has been so long since I used it that I have forgotten how it works. Maybe I will look at Bosca Ceoil too, it looks relatively simple, though it is probably much less powerful as a result.
Thanks!
I'm happy that my post was useful.
I found this topic when I already used Bosca Ceoil.
And I didn't find this program mention before, so I mentioned it.
<a href="https://heartbrokendeveloper.itch.io/">I will need a better introduction...</a>

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Re: Music Creation Tool For Beginners?

#14 Post by Faruqa97 »

I recommend Fl studio, it is quite different from other music software in terms of workflow, and one of the ways it helps you lay down your idea faster is when creating beats or drum loops with the step sequencer. Fl is quite different from other DAWs in terms of workflow, and one of the ways it helps you lay down your idea faster is when creating beats or drum loops with the step sequencer. or check out other Music Recording Software

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