Music Creation Software

[The Neoclassic]

Does anyone know of any good, free software to make music/songs on one's computer? Something decently simple and easy to use would be preferrable. Thanks!

[Raistlin1040]

Do you mean recording software, or simply using the program to string notes together into a song? Either way, for the low low price of free, you're probably not going to get much.

[The Neoclassic]

Instrument synthesizery things, where you can pick an instrument and string notes together. I realize I won't be able to get anything amazing, but I mean, Inkscape is free and it's fantastic. :smallbiggrin: I figure someone must have come up with some halfway decent freeware of this sort, hence I ask.

[RS14]

Take a look at this list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_editor). Qtractor looks like it might be useful, but is apparently Linux only; LMMS might also do what you want.

[RTGoodman]

Are you talking something like Garage Band, where you just throw a bunch of pre-programmed melodies together to make a (techno-esque) song? Or a program to write music yourself.

If the latter is what you want, I think you can get various versions of Finale (either a Finale 2009 Demo or a version of Finale Notepad or whatever) for free or very cheap on their website (http://www.finalemusic.com/). It's hell to learn (I've been using Finale for about 5 years and still don't know how all of it works), but it's a pretty good program. Once you finish writing your song, you can save it as an mp3 or MIDI file, or print out the actual sheet music, or whatever you want.

[Flame of Anor]

If you want to do the creating just on the computer, Mario Paint Composer is actually not bad. Check YouTube for samples of its capabilities. If you want to be playing on a real-life instrument and have the output recorded on a computer, that would be a MIDI system, and no way is that going to be free.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I personally have a program called, erm... Well, it appears not to be on my computer anymore, but it was called something like FrootyLoops 7.0.

[adanedhel9]

Back when I pretended to be a musician, I used Noteworthy Composer. It was a pretty nice program; it let you play with the whole range of MIDI instruments on unlimited staves, and it was pretty easy to use as well - especially once you learned the keyboard shortcuts. When I was using it almost every day, I got to the point where I could transcribe a sheet of dense score in ~30 minutes.

It had a free version at the time; I seem to recall the only limitation was that when printed out sheet music it would put "Noteworthy Composer Free Edition" at the start of every line.

Looks like it's still available as well. (http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/)

[Flame of Anor]

Oh yes, I have used Noteworthy Composer, but I forgot it was free. However, it has the disadvantage to Mario Paint Composer in that the notes don't look like Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Mushroom People, or even little airplanes and steamboats. :smallbiggrin:

[B-Man]

I've been writing and composing music with Guitar Pro 5. It's really good if you're just trying to emulate a rock band or some such.

EDIT: Sadly, not free but it is an awesome program.

There is PowerTabber, which is midi-based that's free.

[Trazoi]

ModPlug Tracker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ModPlug_Tracker) is a good, free module tracker for Windows. Note thought it's a tracker, which means it isn't a program you compose notes on a musical scale. Instead you sort of switch notes on and off and set other properties. It's good for old school electronic music, like you'd get in early computer games.

GarageBand is pretty good for a cheap beginner music program, but you'll need a Mac to run it. It can lead into the not-cheap Logic series if you get serious. I've got Logic Express and it's on my list of tools to learn in the very near future. In this area there's also Cakewalk with Sonar as well, but I don't think any of their products are free.

Finale's bottom-of-the-range note composing software Finale Notepad used to be free, but now it costs some small amount. It's pretty basic though. Finale's got a whole range of composition software ranging in degree of crippledness, up to their rather expensive premiere version for serious composers. This is more for writing music for orchestration or playing in real life than for mixing your own tracks on the computer, though. If you're more interested in this track, then there's Sibelius and Melody Assistant as well, but not much that I know of that is free.

[THAC0]

I use Sibelius, but that is most certainly not free.

I've heard good things about Audacity, and will be messing around with that shortly, but I think it's more for recording than notating.

[SDF]

You can program most things into Garageband. I used it for recording for a while, then got Logic Pro. While Logic is easily superior, I will still open up Garageband to mess with certain things then bring them over to Logic. The only thing I've ever conjured up in the program entirely is the drums. I plug in and play all the other instruments through a firepod.

[Flame of Anor]

Ah yes Sibelius, I have that but I haven't tried it out yet.

[adanedhel9]

I've heard good things about Audacity, and will be messing around with that shortly, but I think it's more for recording than notating.

Audacity is a wonderful program for recording - I use it at work, I can manage to make my recordings sound halfway decent despite being in a busy office environment with a $5 microphone.

But, at least to my knowledge, it has nothing to help you out with composing.

[Athaniar]

If you want to do the creating just on the computer, Mario Paint Composer is actually not bad. Check YouTube for samples of its capabilities. If you want to be playing on a real-life instrument and have the output recorded on a computer, that would be a MIDI system, and no way is that going to be free.

Where do you get that, really? And how much skill do you need to recreate songs?

[THAC0]

Ah yes Sibelius, I have that but I haven't tried it out yet.

It's yards better than Finale, IMO. I'm a big fan.

Also, I got it for cheap, with a combo teacher discount and switching from finale discount. Smooth move on their part.


Audacity is a wonderful program for recording - I use it at work, I can manage to make my recordings sound halfway decent despite being in a busy office environment with a $5 microphone.

Good to hear. I'm going to start messing around with it this weekend so I can use it with my kids next week.

[Deckmaster]

This (http://www.addictinggames.com/punkomatic.html?cid=YSSP) is completely unrelated but this thread reminded me of it's existence, since it's the first thing I thought of.

[Jorkens]

Cockos' Reaper is cheap ($50, with an unlimited unrestricted demo version) and it's basically powerful enough to do anything you want - from recording jazz bands to writing electro tech speedbass whatever. You'll probably need some instrument and effect plugins to go with it, but there's rafts of good freeware out there. And there's a bit of a learning curve - basically, anything that gives you that many options is going to need a bit of time to figure out what's going on - but it's pretty natural once you get used to it.

Otherwise, I believe Propellerheads Rebirth is now available for free, that's worth a look.

Or look at Brambos' Tunafish (again, not free but pretty cheap).