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[qwertyuiopas]

I have a slowly growing selection of computer programs, but don't really know how to start making something that sounds even 10% decent.

I am not requesting people to be creative for me, but some advice on where to start would be immensely helpful.

[Armok]

I have the same problem.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I learned to make music by picking up an instrument and playing whatever came into my head at the time and hoping it stuck.

[Blacken]

Define "write music." There's a lot of different stuff you can do with a computer that involves creating music of some kind. Are we talking about something like Finale (and thus more directly related to music theory), or something like Live or Reason or Audition?

[cowofdoom78963]

Ive been having the same problem as well.


Ive been thinking of first trying to copy music without a sheet to see how to get the timing and stuff down before I try doing anything myself.

[qwertyuiopas]

I'm interested in learning some techniques to make basic patterns, and then be able to build off them eventually getting good at it. As for programs, I have both Psycle and MIDI-based ones.

[Creamcorn]

Edit: No wait, a large chunk of that was wrong.

I've been using a program called anvil studio, it's quite simple but not free, well for my purpose what I need is free.

I've been fiddling around with this program for the last... three years I believe. Up until 08 I've been using it in a more disciplined manner and I will say the results have been quite promising.

The best thing to do for making music is to familiarize yourself with a certain instrument. Keyboard or Guitar immediately come to mind, because their most common (duh) moving on.

After that is said and done, you should then learn a little on music theory. Though focus more around your instrument, I've done guitar, so most of my music focuses around the high E of treble cleft (Highest empty space between two lines on staff). To second empty space between the two lines of the low E of the bass cleft (looks like this)

For high E, Treble Cleft
---

---

---

---

♪--

Low E Bass Cleft
---

---

---

---

---

♪--

That's basically the octave of a guitar. Also I cheat with staff by using the Piano Roll viewer to create it, but I do listen to it in the staff viewer. It really doesn't matter though, just make sure you spend a good amount of time. I don't know how much but for me, I spend too much time just trying to perfect a single measure!

As for inspiration, of course, don't plagiarize. That said, I'd probably start with a simple two part composition, one lead the other bass or drums/rhythm.

[Blacken]

I'm interested in learning some techniques to make basic patterns, and then be able to build off them eventually getting good at it. As for programs, I have both Psycle and MIDI-based ones.

Alright. First order of business: Psycle will aggressively work against you. It has potential to be a decent piece of software at some point in the future, but it's not very good right now. I would strongly recommend you drop a couple dollars on decent tools. I use Ableton Suite 8 and Propellerheads Reason 4, though they're very expensive and I don't recommend the full versions of each; the demos are pretty handy though.

As far as free software goes, if you're on OS X, Ardour is quite good. If you're using Windows, the best free one I know of is Reaper (this one's very good--I use it when I can't load Ableton on a machine for screwing around or the like). If you're using Linux, stop, because Linux audio production is more of a hassle than it's ever worth.

The way I learned how to work is to play around with video game music. OC Remix's tutorials are somewhat thin on the ground, but they're how I started. Generally speaking, you want to go drumline, bassline, and then the melody, and the reason I started with video game music was because it meant I didn't have to come up with them myself, I could riff off existing ones. To learn how to actually work with the tools, what I did was I downloaded the chiptune or the MIDI track of whatever I wanted to play with, then downloaded a ReMix of that song and tried to make a reasonable facsimile of what the remixer did. Learn by doing.

As I did that, I started to get an intuitive grasp of what makes for a good drumline and bassline. A decent melody can either follow or counter the bassline, and that's the sort of thing that you'll learn from a music theory class or textbook. I don't know of any decent online resources for music theory; I ended up taking a class at my university.

EDIT: Also, get some decent MIDI surfaces. I use an M-Audio KeyStation 61es, which is a very simple 61-key MIDI keyboard with few frills. I would not go below 61 keys; if you're going to play it as a piano instead of just a surface for keying MIDI control signals, you need two-hand range and so you need 61 keys. If not, you're still going to want 61 keys for something like RealGuitar (hands-down the best guitar simulator out there, and the one I use for arrangement). Ensure that whatever you get is velocity-sensitive and is at least semi-weighted; full-weighted keys are better, but only show up on high end gear. I would also get at least an eight-note drum pad; I've been thinking about the Korg nanoPAD for myself as a portable pad, but for a beginner I think it would be pretty nice. Ignore the nanoCONTROL and the nanoKEY; the former you don't need and the latter is crap.


Hope this helps.

[qwertyuiopas]

Psycle does have potential, in a way: I found how to control MIDI with it. But I think I will use the other program: A copy of the last version of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_Pro that was released for windows. Somewhat outdated (6 MB installer, ~14 MB installed) but it seems to be quite good.

Edit: In response to the Edit above: I have an old Optimus MD-1200 that has managed not to break after years of mostly neglect. It still does better MIDI sound than my PC.

[Boksi]

The most important thing to writing music is practice.

"Oh, that is all well and good," you say, "but my problem is I can't even start practising!".

I myself use Anvil Studio, but I can barely write something passable as a tune on it. However, having played for years on a tuba, I've found that it's easy for me to improvise some snippet on it and then write it down. So that's one way to get the necessary practice: Improvise on an instrument you know.

You may be thinking "But improvising is a totally different thing than playing from sheet music/tabs/somethingortheother!"

But it really isn't. Depending on how much you play, you can be able to improvise in less than a year's time from the day you start practising! If you've heard and played a lot of music, and know reflexively how to play each note, you have everything you need to improvise! It's easy, so long as you cast off your doubts, and it just gets easier!

"But Boksi," you say, possibly putting the s before the k, "what if I don't know how to play an instrument, huh? And don't intend to? What then?"

Well, there's another route, I suppose. Write and write junk until you succeed. Try to make what you think will sound good, do include large jumps like E B rather than just making little hops up and down, and most importantly, don't preview it! Turn all the sound off! If you can hear each note as you write it, like in Anvil Studio you will be unable to progress past the second note because it doesn't sound right. Eventually, you'll get some sort of feeling about what sounds good and what doesn't. It helps if you learn actual music theory, but it's not necessary.

I hope that was informative. You can always ask me more questions, music(and by extension writing music) is a hobby of mine :3

[Blacken]

Psycle does have potential, in a way: I found how to control MIDI with it.

I can control MIDI with eight lines of code; that doesn't make it a good way to do it. Psycle's user interface is kind of clunky on its best day and the community is a fragmentary mess. It has some cool features, but nothing you can't get better, elsewhere.

But I think I will use the other program: A copy of the last version of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_Pro that was released for windows. Somewhat outdated (6 MB installer, ~14 MB installed) but it seems to be quite good.

Logic? On Windows? Logic's is a born-and-bred Mac app, and the ports to Windows were never very good. The last PC version does not support either RTAS or DXi. It is substandard software--very good for its time, but jesus wept, it was released in 2002, things have advanced significantly. Seriously: go give Reaper a try. It's no harder to use than Logic would be, and has a much higher upside.

(I'm not trying to flash credentials here or sound like an authority on the topic, but I do a lot of work in a digital audio workstation; one of my commercial projects I'm working on right now is a VST-based extension for real-time collaboration over the Internet. I do kind of know my shit on this topic. )

Edit: In response to the Edit above: I have an old Optimus MD-1200 that has managed not to break after years of mostly neglect. It still does better MIDI sound than my PC.

Because of the way you phrased this, I'm guessing you don't really know how MIDI hardware works/has changed over the last few years. That's no big deal, but I can explain a bit. I will guarantee that your MD-1200 is an inferior synthesizer to your computer. There is no such thing as "better MIDI"; MIDI is a digital signal that has nothing to do with the audio output.

A synthesizer is the part that turns MIDI into PCM (audio). You are mistaking the shitty Windows GS Wavetable Synth for what a real digital audio workstation will do; I don't know if Finale or whatever composition software you ran into uses the Windows synthesizer, but that's not how anything else does it. Any DAW (digital audio workstation--Reaper, Ableton Live, etc.) will act as its own MIDI synthesizer: it takes MIDI signals in and sends PCM out. The MD-1200 has a shitty little 24-voice polyphonic synthesizer in it: most instruments are multi-voice, and that tops out relatively quickly on anything complex. It also cannot multi-track, so you're limited to one instrument at a time. The MD-1200 has 200 preset patches, but that's no big thing--any real DAW will come with that many, and they'll be across multiple types of synthesizers and not just the subtractive synthesizer in the MD-1200. It is not in any way superior to a PC DAW.

Now, you can use the MD-1200 as a MIDI controller, sending MIDI signals to your PC and letting it act as your synthesizer (this is the better way to do it unless you know why you shouldn't be doing it, and frankly you do not), but there are three major problems with it. One, it uses DIN jacks (the big fucking five-prong jackplugs that look like those from an old IBM PS/2 keyboard jack) and MIDI-to-USB adapters introduce latency to your playing. Two, it isn't 100% General MIDI compliant, which can cause problems when novice users try to use them. Three, while it is velocity-sensitive, it is not weighted/semi-weighted (unless the manual forgot to mention it, and that's a big point so if it was I think they would), and that'll make trying to play a serious pain in the ass. A decent-quality keyboard will run you $120. Put bluntly--and that's a code phrase for "don't get offended")--if you're serious about learning, it is much more difficult to learn on an inferior product you are going to want something that is at least decent-quality. If you're just on a passing jaunt and don't have any real intent to stick with it, buying a MIDI cable and a MIDI->USB adapter to jack into your PC will be fine.







Boksi: Practice and jamming around is all well and good, but there's a lot more to it than just plonking at things. Turning off the sound to do it strikes me as utterly silly, too--if you can't hear it while you're playing, you lose out on instant feedback. It doesn't sound to me like a very smart way to go about things, especially when learning. Having a directed goal that you can take measured steps toward achieving, even when that goal is a duplicative one, strikes me as being far more useful than just aimless jamming. Free playing without a point is unlikely to yield real results--no, not just "hey, that four note sequence sounds good," I mean results--until the player has at least some grasp of chord progressions and some understanding of why certain things sound good--a very common limitation of self-taught musicians. There is an incredible body of theory out there, and it's very very relevant. Reinventing the wheel is all well and good, and there are times when it's very important to do so, but that time is not when you are a neophyte.

And it's a tangent, but with all due respect, what is with the Anvil love? It amazes me that people still use Anvil when Reaper--or even Psycle--are free.  It's an overgrown Win 3.1 application that aggressively blocks you from features unless you spend even more money in it. I'm asking honestly when I ask what the appeal is. I mean...when they want you to lay down money for automation--a critical function for anyone who wants to make music on a computer--or to use VSTs or even to use effing ASIO, you have to ask what kind of outfit you're dealing with. "Buy Pro-Mix to use VSTs and Automation!" That's just clownshoes.

OTOH, Reaper (which, while it's not my primary DAW, is light-years beyond a lot of the for-pay stuff, including and possibly especially Anvil) and CVPiano are an incredibly authentic-sounding DAW/VST piano sim, with a total cost of $0, and you get subtractive/graintable synthesizers and a pretty good sampler on the side if you're feeling ambitious. Anvil gives you a few shitty MIDI effects that I could hack into a VST in an afternoon, and charges for anything else. I mean no disrespect, but why hobble yourself with bad--not even just "less good," but outright nasty--tools?

[qwertyuiopas]

Logic? On Windows? Logic's is a born-and-bred Mac app, and the ports to Windows were never very good. The last PC version does not support either RTAS or DXi. It is substandard software--very good for its time, but jesus wept, it was released in 2002, things have advanced significantly. Seriously: go give Reaper a try. It's no harder to use than Logic would be, and has a much higher upside.

Well, it is the best that I have seen, and you seem knowledgeable(though a bit tolerably rude) so I value your suggestions.
Besides, I am finding that it has one great feature: Unlike everything else I have, I can use it to put together a few notes, and see how it would really sounds. And it can save it to my computer. So it is a great notepad for small ideas.

Because of the way you phrased this, I'm guessing you don't really know how MIDI hardware works/has changed over the last few years. That's no big deal, but I can explain a bit. I will guarantee that your MD-1200 is an inferior synthesizer to your computer. There is no such thing as "better MIDI"; MIDI is a digital signal that has nothing to do with the audio output.

I was intending to say that it sounds better than the windows default when midi files are played through it.
And no, I don't have a clue about how it has changed recently. But I do know that playing a .mid file with my computer set up to use the old keyboard rather than it's internal midi synthesizer will generally sound better, except where there is a volume imbalance.


And Reaper doesn't appear to be free.

[Heron TSG]

Finale 2008 is free, if you can find the download.

Generally you can just place random notes and see if they sound good. If they don't, just edit 'em.

[Blacken]

Logic? On Windows? Logic's is a born-and-bred Mac app, and the ports to Windows were never very good. The last PC version does not support either RTAS or DXi. It is substandard software--very good for its time, but jesus wept, it was released in 2002, things have advanced significantly. Seriously: go give Reaper a try. It's no harder to use than Logic would be, and has a much higher upside.

Well, it is the best that I have seen, and you seem knowledgeable(though a bit tolerably rude) so I value your suggestions.

I would warn against conflating rudeness and bluntness.

Besides, I am finding that it has one great feature: Unlike everything else I have, I can use it to put together a few notes, and see how it would really sounds. And it can save it to my computer. So it is a great notepad for small ideas.

Any DAW can session (which is what you're describing). Ableton, for example, can session to track (the primary sequencer) or to clip (a notepad for MIDI or audio pieces that you can then copy and paste to track). Reason doesn't have clips, but it does have multiple MIDI runs on the primary track that are layered together when you hit play on the transport (though this doesn't work so well in ReWire mode, which is how I usually use Reason).

Because of the way you phrased this, I'm guessing you don't really know how MIDI hardware works/has changed over the last few years. That's no big deal, but I can explain a bit. I will guarantee that your MD-1200 is an inferior synthesizer to your computer. There is no such thing as "better MIDI"; MIDI is a digital signal that has nothing to do with the audio output.

I was intending to say that it sounds better than the windows default when midi files are played through it.

Right, that's what I mean by the GS Wavetable Synth.

And no, I don't have a clue about how it has changed recently. But I do know that playing a .mid file with my computer set up to use the old keyboard rather than it's internal midi synthesizer will generally sound better, except where there is a volume imbalance.

Because you're using the GS synth. Again, that isn't what any DAW will do. MIDI is just a set of signals that says "play this note at this pitch for this long" - you know, concert A being 440Hz and that sort of thing. Windows's GS synth is a general-purpose one, and it's barely-good-enough for basic listening. What you do when you load a MIDI file into a DAW is you queue those MIDI signals for playing with whatever synthesizer you select. Windows's GS synth never comes into it.

And Reaper doesn't appear to be free.

It's an unenforced 30-day demo, and they really don't care unless you're making money off the software. Kind of like WinRAR or whatever, where they say "please buy a license" but don't stop you from using the program.

[Armok]

I can't find the free download fro Reaper, after looking evrywhere, can you give a more spesific link?

Also, sounds like I need to learn this "music theory", any good 5 page introductions with the basics?