I need a piece of software to compose the music for my plugin. Any ideas (Must be free)

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"Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."

I found a bunch of great music software on the CD in the December 2000 (i think it was) issue of MacAddict. Easybeat 1.0 is a great tool, with a fabulous tab system.

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Pro Tools Free is an eight track professional 24bit deck that runs on any G3 Mac with microphone inputs.

You won't find anything better for love or money (well, ok, for a lot of money you could buy the full unlimited tracks version).

As far as sequencing is concerned, there are dozens of free and semi-free packages out there with which to compose your midi files. Coda Notepad is free, and if you are a serious musician will probably be the most appropriate. There's also a nice piece of software called virtual drummer. No guesses as to what it does.
All are on the web.

As a matter for the record, the Frozen Heart music was done entirely 'off computer' with an old Yamaha portable keyboard and an SG 2000 guitar. If I was going to do it again, I would actually pull in real musicians. You don't get the same vibe with digital.

Regards

Martin

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R

Yep, I have to agree on that one... Digi is good, but real musicians are better... way more fun too! (I have a little knowledge about this, since I'm in our school's band) I recorded one cheap intro for one of my plug (I haven't released ONE yet) with a crummy beat of a keyboard, a fender amp and a 7string Ibanez and SimpleSound... Pretty bad quality if you do what I did, record with the internal mic of the iMac... schrug
hehe
Anyone want me to post the crummy intro as a plug? ( I have two, one's with the guitar, the other one's MIDI)

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Arrrrrrr, matey!!!!

This is a good point: your repro quality is never going to be better than you microphone input.

If you are going to be using vocals or acoustic instruments, you need to beg, steal or borrow a good microphone. Shure 58 (SM58) is more or less the standard, although some people like Unidyne III (I can't imagine why). Anything made by Sennheiser is probably pretty good.

For guitars, bass etc you'd be best off direct injecting. If you use Protools or any other quality recording system you can add fancy chorus, echo effects afterwards (though not distortion, unless you want to send it through an FX loop). Generally, this is much better than putting the FX on first, because it's everyone's natural tendency to put way too much on for each instrument. To direct inject into a Mac, you need some kind of a pre-amp, as the signal level will be too low.

I know you're thinking 'hey, the sample rate on EV music is so low, why should I bother with all this?'. The answer is that because the sample rate is so low, you need to have a really clean, noise-free signal ready for downsampling -- if you have much noise, the result will be even more noise.

Incidentally, for those interested, Led Zeppelin's production techniques are still imitated by most producers at least some of the time. One thing they did was to double record all the rhythm tracks to add body. They also put all the reverb ambience on the drum kit. Although it sounds like there's tonnes of it on the guitars, if you listen carefully, it's actually on the drums only. This is how they were able to get that huge echo sound without the very fast guitar work getting muddied up into a blur of notes.

Regards

Martin

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R

I have no Idea what most of that meens. I'm just looking for an idiot proof way to compose simple tunes for my plugin. Guess I should have mentioned that before. :redface:

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"Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."

I stink at making new sounds or graphics, however, maybe someone here could try to help me a bit. Oh well...

Here's a question; what music program was used to create the music in EV and EVO?

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Millennium. Its coming, prepare for it.
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Yea, I was wondering that myself...

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"Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."

Quote

Originally posted by Captian LeGrenadier:
**I have no Idea what most of that meens. I'm just looking for an idiot proof way to compose simple tunes for my plugin. Guess I should have mentioned that before.:redface:

**

Erm, no offence, but if you're not a musician then there is no software in the world that can help you. Melody Assistant and Harmony Assistant are pretty good sequencers, but all music programs (and instruments) depend on you for the music. Even for musicians, the learning curve on most of these programs is pretty steep.

If your plug is more or less finished, I could probably be persuaded to make something for you, if you're interested. I'm sure some of the other muzos on the board would as well.

Regards

Martin
ps email martin.turner@unforgettable.com if you want to take me up, but only if you're almost ready to publish. There was also someone one the board a couple of months ago who said he was willing to make or give music for plugins.

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M A R T I N • T U R N E R

That is very true. If you want to COMPOSE music, take a few lessons... Hey, for me the 8 years of piano kinda payed off.... I tought myself the guitar... If ur not a musician, why bother TRYING to make ur own music... Just take ur favorite and cut out a part of a song and put it in... Hey that's a pretty good idea.... Hm...

P.S. No one has answered my question: Should I upload a plug with my intro music?

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Arrrrrrr, matey!!!!