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OSS Music Composer Gaining Attention

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the sounds-like-fun dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Following in the footsteps of Psycle, VioLet Composer is a completely GPLed music composer for Windows that has slowly but surely been gaining attention. In an interview at Laptoprockers the author covers not only the program itself but the his reasoning behind choosing to open the source using the GPL."

7 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. And now with link by tcdk · · Score: 4, Informative

    The actual project:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/buzz-like

    The screen shots looks kind of nice, but I don't know enough about making music to be able to evaluate it's worth.

    --
    TC - My Photos..
    1. Re:And now with link by X0563511 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Er, the friggin thing lets you wire the "rack" and the "rack" devices are actual programs that you can enter and edit!

      You call that a lack of features?

      Basically a not as pretty version of "Reason" where you make your own devices. Plus some other things that are nice.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  2. Backups by Short+Circuit · · Score: 5, Funny
    FTFA:

    This guarantees that in the future it will *always* be possible for *anyone* to pick up from some point in VC development and continue it or to make their own flavour of it. The GPL also guarantees that VC will always be available for free, even if I or someone else decides to make a commercial derivative later on.

    The day the source code to Buzz got lost was a very sad day and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do. We'd just had an updated version of Buzz released and suddenly everyone realised there would *never* be another one. By publishing not just the application but also all of the files that go together to make it, I'm making sure this can't happen to my little corner of the scene again. "Real men don't use backups, they post their stuff on a public ftp server and let the rest of the world make copies." - Linus Torvalds
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  3. Don't forget ModPlug by MindKata · · Score: 5, Informative

    Its great there are some good OSS music editors. I've not heard of VioLet Composer until now, but I'll check it out.

    One great OSS music editor I've used is ModPlug.
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/modplug/

    --
    There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
    1. Re:Don't forget ModPlug by shawb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think you're looking for ProTools. It does pretty much what you say. It is, however, quite expensive and needs specialized hardware to be used to the full extent. Hence the Pro part of the name. I don't know if it natively works on a note by note basis, I think conceptually it's more of a software based multi-track recorder. It does, however, have plug-ins that allow for such thing as locking pitch/etc. You know, all the effects used on pop-divas to make them actually sound bearable.

      --
      I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
    2. Re:Don't forget ModPlug by shish · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you're going to reply to a question with a command line command, at least make sure it's the right one... (you want "apt-get install rosegarden")

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      I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
    3. Re:Don't forget ModPlug by soliptic · · Score: 4, Informative
      This is not entirely on point. Since it's a rare day on slashdot where I actually halfway know what I'm talking about, I can't resist pitching in :)

      Hm. Naming problem. Colloquially they're called 'module trackers' or 'midi/music sequencers', but essentially they're both the same thing: a program that places hardware/user-defined notes in user-designed spots in songs.
      Although at the most simplified level I suppose this is correct, they're not really the same thing at the level beyond that. Trackers are step-time. Commonly, each step equates to sixteenth notes (four steps per beat of the bar). Modern trackers may allow you to choose greater resolution, but in the past (and by "past" I'm talking turn of the century here, which was when I used them, not decades ago!) it was pretty common to simply work at double-bpm if you needed more resolution. On the other hand, midi sequencers... well... clearly I can't claim they're continuous, as that's obviously a theoretical impossibility in a digital system. But they don't come across as step like. Resolution-wise, even at the same sort of period ('99), Cubase had an internal MIDI resolution of 15360 PPQN (pulses per quarter note). Most decent DAWs these days (Pro tools, Nuendo) will allow you to spot events to sample accuracy (ie, if you're working at cd quality, you've got a resolution of 44,100 per second) or locked to various types of timecode (for, eg, film scoring). Against, while it's possible modern trackers incorporate this (I haven't really used them for a few years), I would certainly say that older trackers (FT2, IT2, Modplug-as-I-knew-it, Buzz) do not allow you to put your notes on spots as defined by (eg) SMPTE timecode. Also, the "note" in a trackers was traditionally triggering a sample loaded directly within the tracker software, whereas the notes in a midi sequencer drive hardware, or a software sampler/synth/instrument (the most common format being VSTi). Admittedly, these days many/most trackers can output midi and use software instruments too, so I admit the definition is pretty thoroughly blurred. Still, it helps to realise the different backgrounds they've come from, because whilst it's blurred, you still can't really see them as identical.

      To the talented, they are a good as a room full of fine musical instruments. To the less talented, they're much like a cat with a tether attached to its tail, labeled 'swing me'.
      True!

      There are also 'sound editors', like Sound Forge, that allow you to mess with the raw sound data, and Cakewalk and Audacity, which are excellent 'multitrack recorders' with SF-like functionality built in (Cakewalk's a MUCH better program, but as for Audacity, 'free' is a good selling point).
      Cakewalk these days is known as Sonar. But even with the old Cakewalk branded versions, considering it a multitrack soundforge would be doing it a bit of a disservice. Like Cubase and Logic, it's essentially a hybrid DAW/Midi sequencer.

      None of these could be considered 'music editors', which to me implies something that can take in raw PCM data and let you select out and remove, add, and modify notes. No such program exists to my knowledge.
      Well, no, not really, because it's barely possible for computers to pull apart PCM data in that way... In fact as little as five years ago I'd have said impossible, but we are getting there. The closest there currently is would be melodyne. I haven't used it (because it's bloody expensive!) but reviews I've read suggest you can pretty much treat audio as midi - ie, select and alter individual notes from an audio file. Even then, it will struggle or outright fail if the source material is (eg) heavily effected with delays/reverbs/etc. And while it's ok for monophonic audio, you're not going to be able to (say) change the flute line from the midst of an orchestral recording.