Slashdot Mirror
Creating Music Using Your PC?
onenil asks: "I'm a guy who has sort of fallen into IT from a young age, but was also quite heavily into music when I was younger. I now want to spark up my interest in music again as I want to broaden my horizons, and I figure the best way to do it is with my PC. I've started looking around for hardware and software, and have come to the conclusion that the best option is to buy a simple MIDI keyboard for music input (which just takes the keys you play and sends em off to the computer, with no in-built synthesizer) and a really kick-ass software package to do all the sound processing. Are there any musicians out there who can shed some light on this area?"
"I've been told by a shop clerk that with a simple Sound Blaster Live s/c, I'll need to buy a package like Reason as it processes all sounds with the CPU, and sends one track to the sound card. Reason retails for around AU$995 (roughly $500 US?). Is this the best way to go? Or should I perhaps look at a more hardware-based solution (some type of synthesizer built-in to a sound card, or perhaps a keyboard that does synth and output). As I'm just starting, out I want something that gives good sound (I don't like the MIDI that comes out of my SBLive), but also doesn't cost too much. It would be great to also build on it when my wants and desires aren't fulfilled by what I have."
OK, for all to know. You need buzz-tracker. Its freeware, has a million simulated machines (drum machines, effects, reverb, flange, distortion, physically modelled instruments). Its completely pluggable. It can be found at djLasers site or at BuzzMachines.com. Try to download the biggest pack possible. It runs on Windows, just FYI. If you want to hear some stuff made on it, you can check out dTx Productions. Some of the songs towards the top there were made entirely in Buzz with no mastering. I wish somebody would take Buzz into sourceforge, and attach a different IDE to it. The current is very usable, but it could be better. Anyways, hope that helps.
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
Reaktor by Native Instruments. It's got incredible analog synth support and a very extensible architecture. Since it does full sound modeling, you can create your own custom instruments from scratch. Not the cheapest around, but if you search Usenet, you'll find lots of user praise for it.