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."

Comments

While it may seem obvious...

[Christopher Doopov]

...or at least I do hope it should be obvious (but unfortunately it is not true for everyone, I don't see any other comments talking about it yet), whichever software and operating system you choose, please consider using Ogg Vorbis format to store your music.

Many people still keep using proprietary MP3 file format, which is unfortunate not because of its lower quality to size ratio, which is hard to hear for an average person, who doesn't even usually hear any difference between 192kbps and 256kbps constant bitrate MP3 files, but because of its legal issues. While Vorbis is technically similar to JPEG graphics format, i.e. it's a "lossy" compression, it is legally similar to PNG, while MP3 is in that analogy similar to GIF, using LZW compression patented by Unisys. See the MP3/MP3PRO Patent and Software Licensing Information website and search Google for "MP3 patent" to find more informations about this issue.

Also, I hope, and I'm sure most of the people here will agree with me, there will be a little "(O)" mark, next to your copyright statement! Good luck! We'll be looking for your links in the Open Music Registry!

(And please, don't post this old stupid joke that we should use double OAL logo, "because (o)(o) looks better," because it doesn't. It looks like an immature joke made by a 15-year-old child, while EFF's OAL should be taken seriously if we ever want it to successfully compete with the recording industry at large.)

Re: Buzztracker

[i_am_nitrogen]

A friend of mine decided he was going to approach the Buzz guys about porting Buzz to Linux, and I offered to help with the port. Apparently they acted interested, except there was one tiny problem... according to my friend, they "lost" the source code.

If you can get SpiralSynth working in Linux (it is an extreme pain... I had it working once; you have to have all the exact same libraries as the developer, and fix a few compilation errors), it's a pretty darn cool synthesizer, as is the Juno 6 from realitymasters.com(?). In Windows, RGC Audio has some cool softsynths.

Open Source & Music - Where's the community?

[mattmunz]

As a musician and a software developer, I know intuitively what OSS and the internet community in general has to offer musicians. I recently downloaded Audacity, for example, and I was able to use it out-of-the-box with no problems -- something I can't quite say for some of its proprietary counterparts.

But as a software developer, I'm missing the community websites, mailing lists, and general online discussion that I enjoy in other domains. Where do music software developers "hang out" online? (I'm specifically referring to those people developing software tools for musicians, as opposed to those developing file-trading and music-player applications.)

There are plenty of websites about music out there, but 99% appear to be fansites or e-business sites for music industry companies.

From time to time I toss around the idea of putting together a mailing list / website for music technology discussions (maybe slashcode is good for this?). If I did, would anyone use it? Or does something comparable already exist, and I am just missing it?

BTW, the musical community needs OSS badly. Leaving technology standards up to the music industry has left us with crappy, slowly evolving protocols with little innovation. With all due respect, MIDI was great in its day, but it really doesn't meet the tests of time, IMHO. Also, I know that musicXML is on the way, but I'm still skeptical :) ...

Herbie Hancock.

[jericho4.0]

Totally OT, but interesting none the less. (I hope)

The introdution of MIDI can largly be credited to Herbie Hancock, the jazz musician. He was the one who kept bugging manufatures to make synths connectable, and had input into technical design issues. A nice example of creativity pushing technology.