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PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

Cyne posted:

Huh, that's funny, I like Live's effects so much I barely use anything else for signal processing except some Sonalksis plug-ins (love that TBK filter), so I will have to heavily disagree with this.

I've never had any problems with Live's stock plugins.

I'm generally comparing them to the other stock plugins that suites have. Of course Live's reverb isn't going to sound as good as an $800 reverb plug, so I'm trying to put somewhat reasonable expectations on the software.


And what are you referring to with MIDI to keyboard? As in, your computer's keyboard can be switched to transmit MIDI notes?


Cyne posted:

For me a big part of the appeal in Live is definitely a function of the specific kind of music I produce. I make techno with an ambient/dub edge and basically creamed myself at seeing not less than four delay units. Basically I think for most kinds of electronic music they're perfectly functional and if you don't like them can still at least make decent stand-ins until you get some new plug-ins. For me they're perfect though.

I'm trying to keep things like this in mind too: staying within the expectations of the genre. Since this is about electronic music, it doesn't matter if your DAW sucks rear end for multitracking, at least not like it would if this were The "how do I make three-piece rock band music" Megathread! Having things like superior MIDI support, ease of making and managing complex effect chains, CPU load balancing (because of the amount of plugins that are potentially going to be firing at once), track freezing and flattening, and working with collections of gear like synths weighs the curve somewhat.

PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Mar 15, 2008

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PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so
Now that I think about it, would it be better to have a chart of specific features of different software suites?

For example, number of possible voices (software limitations), bare-bones price, "decked-out" price, ability to freeze, multicore/multiprocessor support, plugin support, and other things like that?

If so, what are some ideas of things that should be put on there? They should be things that are reasonably considered facts, but not things like "Ease of use? Check or no check", those can go in comments or +/-'s.

Mannie Fresh
Jul 2, 2006

Cyne posted:

Ah, heh, that might explain it.

For me a big part of the appeal in Live is definitely a function of the specific kind of music I produce. I make techno with an ambient/dub edge and basically creamed myself at seeing not less than four delay units. Basically I think for most kinds of electronic music they're perfectly functional and if you don't like them can still at least make decent stand-ins until you get some new plug-ins. For me they're perfect though.

I was a bit harsh I finally played around with them tonight they are serviceable and good for being included considering Live's price. Beats the poo poo out of M-Class I must say.

Elder
Oct 19, 2004

It's the Evolution Revolution.

Aenovae posted:

Slightly related topic: What do you guys think of Battery 3? I need a large library of drum samples.

I love Battery 3. I don't use the stock samples, but the program itself is fantastic. It's got a great interface and it's really flexible. Highly recommended.

massive spider
Dec 6, 2006

I'm having trouble with drum programming. I'm ok with slow grooves, but I have no diea where you even begin to start making those crazy fast drum and bass/jungle style loops. I'm using Reason and Ableton.

ManoliIsFat
Oct 4, 2002

A lot of drum and bass comes from the kick and snare being really powerful. The speed comes in from ghost-hits on the snare and some hi-hats for window dressing. Once you have a solid kick and snare, you ornament it with the other stuff. That's how I do it, at least.

Packed Tightly
Mar 3, 2007

Three Red Lights posted:

I'm having trouble with drum programming. I'm ok with slow grooves, but I have no diea where you even begin to start making those crazy fast drum and bass/jungle style loops. I'm using Reason and Ableton.

I had a bit of trouble nailing down a lot of the standard drum and bass beats, but I'm starting to get my head around it now. ManoliIsFat is right about the snare - adding a snapping snare on beats 2 and 4 give a really familiar feel to your drums. If you move back the second snare hit to the 3& beat(as in, 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &), it gives you that nice syncopated, dancy feel that a lot of tunes use.

Check out this site for a couple of the more standard backing beats. It even has a nice set of samples you can use so things start to sound a bit more junglish.

I'm using Ableton too, so I could always save something and upload it, if you wanted to have a look.

pengO
Apr 15, 2003

get weird, turn pro
i run a serato setup with a pretty mediocre mixer and set of tables and i've been trying to figure out the best way to record my mixes. one way i've done it is to split my rca cables coming out of the mixer, run them to a rca->1/8" converter, and plug into the line in on a macbook pro and record in garageband. today i worked out a setup using audio recorder where i just plugged into the line in on the black macbook i usually mix on. it seems though that the line in on the macbook gets saturated very easily. is there another way or some kind of device i could buy for greater fidelity in my recordings or should i just turn down the master volume on my mixer?

mezzir
Jul 1, 2007

I'ma rub your ass in the moonshine.
Let's take it back to seventy-nine...

pengO posted:

i run a serato setup with a pretty mediocre mixer and set of tables and i've been trying to figure out the best way to record my mixes. one way i've done it is to split my rca cables coming out of the mixer, run them to a rca->1/8" converter, and plug into the line in on a macbook pro and record in garageband. today i worked out a setup using audio recorder where i just plugged into the line in on the black macbook i usually mix on. it seems though that the line in on the macbook gets saturated very easily. is there another way or some kind of device i could buy for greater fidelity in my recordings or should i just turn down the master volume on my mixer?

Does the recording sound right if you turn the master volume down? If so thats probably your best bet, that and turn the speakers up so you can hear it. Unless you have two outputs on your mixer (this is ideal) so one goes to the speakers and one goes to the laptop for recording. When I'm recording stuff off my decks I have one cable connecting my laptop to the booth out of my mixer and then the speakers go through the master out, that way i can control both volumes separately. So basically, depends on what kind of mixer you got.

Wykyd Sceptre
May 8, 2005

by Fragmaster

mezzir posted:

Does the recording sound right if you turn the master volume down? If so thats probably your best bet, that and turn the speakers up so you can hear it. Unless you have two outputs on your mixer (this is ideal) so one goes to the speakers and one goes to the laptop for recording. When I'm recording stuff off my decks I have one cable connecting my laptop to the booth out of my mixer and then the speakers go through the master out, that way i can control both volumes separately. So basically, depends on what kind of mixer you got.

I have a "record" output on my mixer, and this is what I use. It goes from RCA to 1/8" straight into my laptop.

Pengo are you running MP3's only out of your Serato setup? If so, have you tried the recording feature that comes in Serato. I admit I never use it for recording mixes, but I use a combination of regular vinyl and MP3's.

stun runner
Oct 3, 2006

by mons all madden
How do I turn my voice into a robot's voice, like Zapp and Roger or Daft Punk-type vocal effects? I'm running Ableton on OS X if that matters.

ManoliIsFat
Oct 4, 2002

I don't know any for OSX, but you could probably google "free AU vocoder" (abelton does, AUs, right?)

I don't mean to be a dick by saying "google it, fag", I just don't know what works well on mac. But the word you're looking for is "vocoder"

ManoliIsFat fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Mar 18, 2008

Laserjet 4P
Mar 28, 2005

What does it mean?
Fun Shoe

blingasaurus rex posted:

How do I turn my voice into a robot's voice, like Zapp and Roger or Daft Punk-type vocal effects?

This may be nice to add in the starting post.

:sun: Synthetic Vocals :sun:

- the Cher effect (Daft Punk - "One More Time") - that's the Antares Auto-Tune. Pretty infamous, not only because every no-talent jackass uses it but also because the producers of Cher lied through their teeth in a Sound On Sound interview to protect their "secret". This myth persisted for several years, and Sound On Sound eventually rectified it.

- the Zapp & Roger effect (Daft Punk - "Digital Love") - that's the Talkbox. How to make one for really really cheap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EIQxwotn3k - and a demo of the improved version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APgzky3RujA

- the vocoder (Kraftwerk - The Robots, ELO - Twilight, shitloads of more songs). There are several plugins for this, but the Prosoniq Orange Vocoder is pretty good for software (and was most likely used in Chicane ft. Brian Adams - Don't Give Up

- a Speak & Spell - (Kraftwerk - Numbers). This was a toy - a talking calculator made by Texas Instruments. Prices went up like crazy when people figured out what you could do with this in a musical context.

- an Atari (U96 - Das Boot). For this, see AnalogX SayIt > http://www.analogx.com/CONTENTS/download/audio/sayit.htm

- a Mac - (Hrvatski - Vatstep DSP.) - this is a slightly "whiny" voice.

ManoliIsFat
Oct 4, 2002

Yoozer posted:

- a Mac - (Hrvatski - Vatstep DSP.) - this is a slightly "whiny" voice.
isn't that a kid606 song? i mean like, i know how sampling works, but that's like the whole song. they even say 606 in it a bunch. hmmm...

ManoliIsFat fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Mar 18, 2008

Laserjet 4P
Mar 28, 2005

What does it mean?
Fun Shoe
I have several other examples but that one was the fastest/easiest to recall. It's based on 606's "Catstep" apparently, but the basis seems some kind of reggae riddim.

stun runner
Oct 3, 2006

by mons all madden
Yoozer, I swear you should write a book or start a blog or something, I can't count the number of times I finally understood something electronic music related because of one of your posts.

Laserjet 4P
Mar 28, 2005

What does it mean?
Fun Shoe
Believe it or not, I've been toying with the idea, but just typing stuff out every single time took up my time :).

Besides, if I want to put it in some kind of official shape, I want to do it really really well. As in screenshots, illustrations, sound demos, etc.

pengO
Apr 15, 2003

get weird, turn pro

mezzir posted:

Does the recording sound right if you turn the master volume down? If so thats probably your best bet, that and turn the speakers up so you can hear it. Unless you have two outputs on your mixer (this is ideal) so one goes to the speakers and one goes to the laptop for recording. When I'm recording stuff off my decks I have one cable connecting my laptop to the booth out of my mixer and then the speakers go through the master out, that way i can control both volumes separately. So basically, depends on what kind of mixer you got.

word, i have a cheap piece of poo poo numark mixer with only one output so i guess i'll just try loving around with volumes before i record again. thanks.

Wykyd Sceptre posted:

I have a "record" output on my mixer, and this is what I use. It goes from RCA to 1/8" straight into my laptop.

Pengo are you running MP3's only out of your Serato setup? If so, have you tried the recording feature that comes in Serato. I admit I never use it for recording mixes, but I use a combination of regular vinyl and MP3's.

i haven't even heard that serato had a recording feature, how do i get to it? i only use mp3s but i can't imagine how it would work since serato doesnt know what's going on at the mixer.

mezzir
Jul 1, 2007

I'ma rub your ass in the moonshine.
Let's take it back to seventy-nine...

pengO posted:

word, i have a cheap piece of poo poo numark mixer with only one output so i guess i'll just try loving around with volumes before i record again. thanks.


i haven't even heard that serato had a recording feature, how do i get to it? i only use mp3s but i can't imagine how it would work since serato doesnt know what's going on at the mixer.

One other thought. I don't know serato at all so I dunno if that can record, but I know on my computer (a PC however) that just like you can change normal volume you can change input volume. I feel like there is too from what I can remember with loving around with garage band a while back. You may be able to just turn that down till its not clipping anymore, that may be the easiest way if it actually works like I think it would.

Christof
Oct 6, 2005
For sve Homeland!
I just wanted to say thank you to all of you guys contributing to this thread, it has helped many ( as well as myself ) with a few things. I have been DJing for awhile, but I havn't really touched production although I own Reason. To me, Reason has seemed like this giant Mountain of painful learning that takes forever, so getting started is hard. There are so many knobs and sliders, It's hard to know where to start. Although, This has given me a little motivation.

edit: :siren: Possible ideas for this thread :siren:

I think a few good topics to cover would be musical theory, good books or classes to take. Instruments to learn or basics of chords and keys. Subtractive synthesis. Mixing specific genres with examples. Also, ultimately, I think a lot of producers would like to take their music live to the club, so good ideas for topics would be on how to promote yourself and land gigs at clubs. Possibly good stuff to use ( for example, M audio Midi controllers vs Korg Kaos pads, samplers, etc.) Vinyl vs CD/mp3 tables, speakers, monitors, etc...

I will contribute what I know ( which isn't much, I'm very novice), but a good decent resource is on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?p=r&user=ellaskins&page=1

I know this is about making electronic music, but mixing and making goes hand in hand and this guy has hundreds of videos on youtube that are VERY very informative.

I know I'm being pretty vague, but there is a poo poo ton of resources out there, and we should try to cover most of the bases.

edit: Also, I apologize in advance if I am derailing by going into mixing and doing gigs.

Christof fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Mar 19, 2008

PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

Yoozer posted:

:words:

I was going to just leave that in the bottom section, but evidently it gets missed. I also forgot how awesome Chicane was.

Christof posted:

I think a few good topics to cover would be musical theory, good books or classes to take. Instruments to learn or basics of chords and keys. Subtractive synthesis. Mixing specific genres with examples. Also, ultimately, I think a lot of producers would like to take their music live to the club, so good ideas for topics would be on how to promote yourself and land gigs at clubs. Possibly good stuff to use ( for example, M audio Midi controllers vs Korg Kaos pads, samplers, etc.) Vinyl vs CD/mp3 tables, speakers, monitors, etc...

I wouldn't do theory: Theory applies universally across the board. One book has been added to the OP, but if there's anyting else electronic-specific to read, I could add that too.

I have something I wrote on synthesis awhile back. I could always add it in, but I'm not sure what to do with it since it's really goddamn long and I don't want to stretch out the thread.

This really isn't for DJing/Performance, more just music production. But, if everyone really wanted to add that in, I don't have a problem with it.

The issue with mixing (I think I said this some posts up) is that it's almost entirely subjective, so anything on mixing should be something that's pretty much universally accepted as being something you always do. I'm just hoping to stay away from too many opinionated techniques. I guess the idea is that if I pull 100 songs at random and 98 of them have technique XYZ then it's fine to go in (EG, keep your kick in the center).

PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Mar 19, 2008

First Time Caller
Nov 1, 2004

quote:

The issue with mixing (I think I said this some posts up) is that it's almost entirely subjective, so anything on mixing should be something that's pretty much universally accepted as being something you always do. I'm just hoping to stay away from too many opinionated techniques. I guess the idea is that if I pull 100 songs at random and 98 of them have technique XYZ then it's fine to go in (EG, keep your kick in the center).

Then how about lets have some subjective mixing tutorials. No-one learned Photoshop by generalized tutorials. Most people learn by "Here is picture X. Here is picture Y. Here is this rad rear end poo poo you can do!"

If you're trying to learn how to mix, you won't learn how to mix by just a few general tips, you have to actually mix songs. And it is very hard to learn how to do so without being walked through a couple mixes!

Now on a completely different tangent. In deadmau5's "Not Exactly" the main lead, how is it that it is really short and choppy at the beginning, and it seems that as it builds up the notes get longer and longer and longer. Does he assign his modwheel to the release knob of his synthesizer or what? It also sounds like he's modwheeling the cutoff freq at the same time. And the delay at 2:00 sounds so awesome. How was that done? Shed some insight? (Link to song: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vUiL8ZIOpaM)

First Time Caller fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Mar 20, 2008

The Fog
Oct 10, 2004

-I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.
I haven't heard that deadmau5 track myself, but if the lead is short in the beginning and long in the end, I would imagine he put the Sustain on the Amp Env to 0% and automated the Decay to slowly increase as the track progresses. Is that what you were looking for?

Altoidss
Jun 7, 2007
Curiously Strong

First Time Caller posted:

Now on a completely different tangent. In deadmau5's "Not Exactly" the main lead, how is it that it is really short and choppy at the beginning, and it seems that as it builds up the notes get longer and longer and longer. Does he assign his modwheel to the release knob of his synthesizer or what? It also sounds like he's modwheeling the cutoff freq at the same time. And the delay at 2:00 sounds so awesome. How was that done? Shed some insight? (Link to song: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vUiL8ZIOpaM)

This won't help you but thank GOD dude I have had that song stuck in my head for so long and I had no idea what it was!

Anyway, crosspost from my own thread:

Alrighty, after a long exile due to school, I have an updated version of Gladius:



I'm not sure I'm too happy with it. I panned out some of the instruments, per the suggestions in the other thread. I put an EQ on pretty much everything, and turned on the mastering suite also. I changed the sound of the high saws and the arpeggio, and I cleaned up a lot of the sequencing. I sidechained the arpeggio as well, but I tried to make it not that immediately obvious. I also deleted 8 bars that I thought disrupted the flow of the song. Tell me what you guys think!

PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so
Added Trip-Hop to the OP. Hopefully this will finish all genres.

unixbeard
Dec 29, 2004

First Time Caller posted:

Now on a completely different tangent. In deadmau5's "Not Exactly" the main lead, how is it that it is really short and choppy at the beginning, and it seems that as it builds up the notes get longer and longer and longer. Does he assign his modwheel to the release knob of his synthesizer or what? It also sounds like he's modwheeling the cutoff freq at the same time. And the delay at 2:00 sounds so awesome. How was that done? Shed some insight? (Link to song: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vUiL8ZIOpaM)

I'd say yes to release and cutoff freq. It could also be the filter env amount set to the mod wheel too, and the filter env decay or release increasing rather than the amp env. Not sure what you mean by the delay at 2:00 though.

WanderingKid will know. He'll also be able to tell you the genetic disorder Deadmau5's grandmother had that got passed on and made his wrist a bit weak as he moved the mod wheel. Freakishly good ears.

unixbeard fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Mar 20, 2008

mezzir
Jul 1, 2007

I'ma rub your ass in the moonshine.
Let's take it back to seventy-nine...

Kai was taken posted:

Added Trip-Hop to the OP. Hopefully this will finish all genres.

NEVARRRR WHAT ABOUT EPIC UPLIFTING VOCAL TRANCE?!

But yeah, looks pretty good to me. And good call on trip-hop, it's distinctive enough to warrant its own category.

Laserjet 4P
Mar 28, 2005

What does it mean?
Fun Shoe

mezzir posted:

NEVARRRR WHAT ABOUT EPIC UPLIFTING VOCAL TRANCE?!

http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/music.swf

We've got that covered :colbert:

Ideally you'd consider each song separately; as it is probably the most accurate, but genres are a crutch with fuzzy borders and mismatching reference points.

Christof
Oct 6, 2005
For sve Homeland!

Altoidss posted:

This won't help you but thank GOD dude I have had that song stuck in my head for so long and I had no idea what it was!

Anyway, crosspost from my own thread:

Alrighty, after a long exile due to school, I have an updated version of Gladius:



I'm not sure I'm too happy with it. I panned out some of the instruments, per the suggestions in the other thread. I put an EQ on pretty much everything, and turned on the mastering suite also. I changed the sound of the high saws and the arpeggio, and I cleaned up a lot of the sequencing. I sidechained the arpeggio as well, but I tried to make it not that immediately obvious. I also deleted 8 bars that I thought disrupted the flow of the song. Tell me what you guys think!

This is just from a standpoint of liking the song or not, as I don't know poo poo about mastering or reason, But I really like the song itself, and it sounds pretty good.

edit: Kind of off topic, I've seen quite a few rather good djs use the individual channel mixers (volume levels?) to do their mixes and never touched the crossfader once. Is that just preference?

Christof fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Mar 20, 2008

toadee
Aug 16, 2003

North American Turtle Boy Love Association

Does anyone want to mention Trackers? I know they aren't for everyone by any means, and the people who tend to gravitate toward them are the ones who are least likely to go online and ask "how do I make music?", but they are a rather interesting and somewhat large subset of Computer DAW's. I would say easily the biggest at this point is Renoise, and then there's a smattering of others (Buzz and its newer clones like Aldrin and Psycle, EnergyXT) that I don't know much more about but someone else here probably does. Renoise has the added bonus of being one of the slickest Linux DAW installs Ive yet seen. It.. Just Works(tm) and with Linux audio that's really saying something.

If you're trying to get into the Micromusic/8bit/Chiptune/SID/NES/GameBoy type sound, you're pretty much going to have to use a Tracker.

toadee fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Mar 20, 2008

First Time Caller
Nov 1, 2004

The Fog posted:

I haven't heard that deadmau5 track myself, but if the lead is short in the beginning and long in the end, I would imagine he put the Sustain on the Amp Env to 0% and automated the Decay to slowly increase as the track progresses. Is that what you were looking for?

You are awesome, this is the kind of reply I was hoping for! I think he put the decay on the modwheel though, as automating it throughout the track would be a total bitch.

Christof posted:

edit: Kind of off topic, I've seen quite a few rather good djs use the individual channel mixers (volume levels?) to do their mixes and never touched the crossfader once. Is that just preference?

I leave my xfader in the middle when I'm mixing and use the upfaders to more precisely control the volume of each channel. This way I don't have to worry about xfader sharpness/curve at all.

Altoidss posted:

I'm not sure I'm too happy with it. I panned out some of the instruments, per the suggestions in the other thread. I put an EQ on pretty much everything, and turned on the mastering suite also. I changed the sound of the high saws and the arpeggio, and I cleaned up a lot of the sequencing. I sidechained the arpeggio as well, but I tried to make it not that immediately obvious. I also deleted 8 bars that I thought disrupted the flow of the song. Tell me what you guys think!

I find the bass to be conflicting with the kick a little more than I'd like. Ive found that a well placed high db very sharp Q cut lets you fit things in a lot easier. Sometimes multiple ones work as well. Keep in mind I hardly know poo poo about eqing!

I like the track but I really loving hate that arpeggio you have going throughout the track. It'd be a MUCH stronger track if you dropped that out and found something less cheesy.

First Time Caller fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Mar 21, 2008

Altoidss
Jun 7, 2007
Curiously Strong

First Time Caller posted:

I like the track but I really loving hate that arpeggio you have going throughout the track. It'd be a MUCH stronger track if you dropped that out and found something less cheesy.

Yeah, I could never get the arpeggio to sound like I wanted it to. I originally imagined it as one of those crazy high arpeggios Muse always uses but it didn't really pan out. Problem is, I think the track would be too empty without it and I can't figure out what I would put in its place... I've always been terrible at coming up with melodies. I also want to replace the drums eventually but I haven't had enough time to sort out some better sounds.

Speaking of sounds, I have another idea in my head that I can't translate into paper. How would I program these two sounds:

First, disco strings. I don't really know how to describe it but it's instantly recognizable and it's the high violin sounds that are always around in disco sounds.

Second, how would I get the bass sound from the song Thriller? I love it and want to use it.

Altoidss fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Mar 21, 2008

toadee
Aug 16, 2003

North American Turtle Boy Love Association

Altoidss posted:

Second, how would I get the bass sound from the song Thriller? I love it and want to use it.

I would guess that it was something like a Minimoog (or some other Moog monosynth). In general, I would try a square wave and a sawtooth wave layered together, run through a 24db low pass filter with the cutoff set relatively low (definitely under 50%). Set the envelope for the amplitude to a short attack time and moderate decay time, then have another envelope modulating the filter cutoff with a slightly longer attack time than the loudness envelope. Honestly, I'm sitting at work right now and don't have access to either Thriller or a Synthesizer so I'm doing this all from memory, but as I recall its a fairly standard synth bass type sound.

Laserjet 4P
Mar 28, 2005

What does it mean?
Fun Shoe

Altoidss posted:

First, disco strings. I don't really know how to describe it but it's instantly recognizable and it's the high violin sounds that are always around in disco sounds.
Get the Houseworx sample CD from Ueberschall or this thing here:
http://www.ueberschall.com/en/products/details/view/disco_de_luxe.html

These have those violins as separate samples. Sample CDs aren't dirty; it's fine if you want to use it for things like that.

quote:

Second, how would I get the bass sound from the song Thriller? I love it and want to use it.
toadee's description is pretty good, though, but the Moogy character is something that not every run off the mill softsynth will do properly. I can probably do this with Thor - but when I'm back from work again :).

edit: and heeeere we go:

Laserjet 4P fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Mar 21, 2008

Mr.Trifecta
Mar 2, 2007

Some really good front page information. I am interested in picking up a new hobby and this sounded fun as I like Electronic music and such. So from what I read on the page, I have a brand new computer and if I wanted to just test the water before I jumped head first into this to see if I like it, Audacity would be a good free software to start on?

Is that all I need to just start on the cheap is a decent computer and some free software?

Laserjet 4P
Mar 28, 2005

What does it mean?
Fun Shoe
Audacity is mainly a wave editor.

Just test every demo version and see if you can get any sound out of those.

As for "all you need", yes; and a decent soundcard plus some good speakers if you want to listen to it in another place than just where your computer is.

toadee
Aug 16, 2003

North American Turtle Boy Love Association

Yoozer posted:

edit: and heeeere we go:

drat I was basically right on the money

Mr.Trifecta
Mar 2, 2007

Yoozer posted:

Audacity is mainly a wave editor.

Just test every demo version and see if you can get any sound out of those.

As for "all you need", yes; and a decent soundcard plus some good speakers if you want to listen to it in another place than just where your computer is.

Thanks for the info. Now as you say Audacity is a wave editor, I assume it wouldn't be the correct software to create your own sounds, or would it? If not, what software should I look to?

I guess I am just trying to find out a basic checklist of software and perhaps even hardware to get to create and make my own sounds, string them along and make something.

Cyne
May 30, 2007
Beauty is a rare thing.

Spy posted:

Thanks for the info. Now as you say Audacity is a wave editor, I assume it wouldn't be the correct software to create your own sounds, or would it? If not, what software should I look to?

I guess I am just trying to find out a basic checklist of software and perhaps even hardware to get to create and make my own sounds, string them along and make something.

You can do basic sequencing in Audacity and I believe it has some degree of VST support but honestly just don't bother. It's tedious as gently caress to use Audacity for anything but wave editing.

For a functional, free DAW option, I've heard some pretty good things about Reaper, though haven't had the chance to try it out since I'm on a Mac most of the time.

But yeah, like Yoozer said, check out the programs mentioned in the OP, download the demos, and if you find something you like, many of these programs have lite versions and/or student discounts you can apply if you're worried about the price.

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breaks
May 12, 2001

If you're not easily intimidated, just grab Reaper, Iblit and/or PolyIblit, and Ersdrums. See if you can get all that installed and get everything making some noise, Reaper has some bundled FX you can use.

Those three plugins are here:

http://www.bostreammail.net/ers/vstplugins.html

If you are easily intimidated, I wouldn't recommend Reaper. It is a solid DAW, easily the best "free" one (you really ought to pay the 50 bucks if you end up liking it), but it's not the easiest thing to learn and it being ugly as poo poo doesn't help. Consider shelling out for Fruityloops or something, in this case.

breaks fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Mar 23, 2008

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