Sound Programs

[NiX]

I decided, in my half awake state, that I want to try mixing/editing music. I was wondering what programs were good for that. I was also wondering, since I don't have a microphone, if there was a program that does damned good text -> speech or a program that just does speech manipulation. Something like that.

[stray]

I decided, in my half awake state, that I want to try mixing/editing music. I was wondering what programs were good for that. I was also wondering, since I don't have a microphone, if there was a program that does damned good text -> speech or a program that just does speech manipulation. Something like that.

I mainly use ProTools on my old Mac, so I can't give advice on everything out there...But, I'll say this: Multitrackers are only worth it if you have the hardware and inputs to accompany them. There's an excellent, fairly cheap way to start if you go with ProTools (the mbox). And if you ever decide to get serious, Digidesign is the way to go. The other popular app for PC's is Cubase, which works with more third-party hardware, has better synths, but isn't as powerful or stable.
 
There are tons of others worth mentioning, but I'd be getting ahead of myself. If you want to mainly record or synth, you'll need something like ProTools, Cubase, Logic, MOTU, Sonar, or Live.

There's also cheap multitrackers made by Cakewalk, and that may be all you'd ever want or need (too bad there's nothing like Garage Band for Windows, because that's just about perfect). You'll still need a mic, midi keyboard, or a guitar with a 1/4" to 1/8" adaptor to get some use out of these things.

If you don't want to bother with hardware or inputs right now, then you can just mess with sampling or synth (with most synths, you can still use a mouse/or computer keyboard, but it sucks). Download the Live demo and see what you can do with it. I don't know the limitations of the demo, but hopefully you should be able to do at least a little sampling.

Lots of downloads at the Shareware Music Machine too. Some freeware.

As for text-to-speech programs, I'd like to know too. There's something like that on Macs, but I've never seen it for Windows.

[Kenrick]

I use Cool Edit Pro.  It's a great program for audio editing.  Have a cracked version in zip file if you want.

[Alluvian]

I did some mixing to make a Monty Python / I kill bunnies mix of the Mortal Kombat theme on an Acid 2.0 demo.  I found the software very easy to use with plenty of power.

I would have bought it if I was ever going to use again beyond my one gag song.

[Sky]

Amp hooked me up with a shareware mixer called ntrack (google it, I'm lazy and/or busy). Decent, but it's crippled past the first track. I don't think it's worth the dough for the full version, so I'm saving for a small Pro Tools system to learn on the real deal. But ntrack works for very basic multitracking. Pretty basic, like Acid meets Cakewalk.

As far as needing multiple hardware inputs, that's only if you need them. I get by with one input, because I only play one instrument at a time and layer them by multitracking. Import and export beats the damn tape machines imo.

[Arnold]

All free:

http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/ Sequencer

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Audio editor (WAV, AIFF, Ogg Vorbis, and MP3)

Here's a silly little clip that I made while putting these two programs through their paces.  I spliced bits of Yngwie solos together into one that I laid over Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" =P http://home.comcast.net/~mcurry49/music/Yngvana.mp3

[Arnold]

Multitrackers are only worth it if you have the hardware and inputs to accompany them. There's an excellent, fairly cheap way to start if you go with ProTools (the mbox).

The Line6 Guitarport is a cheap, kickass option.  It's $99, has USB output (menaing you don't need to fux0r with buying a good soundcard) and has all the amplifier modeling software.

You can use all sorts of stuff besides guitars with it.  I use it for my bass and I've run my drum machine through it too (can get super funky when run through the guitar amp models).  It's got a "model bypass" mode and a "tube preamp" model for signals that you don't want to run through a guitar amp model.

[cevik]

It sounds like NiX is interested in doing the silly "mix-up" stuff that seems to have gotten popular lately, so if that's the case I really can't help.

But if you're interested in creating your own music (which seems to be the question most people here are answering) I can give you my own setup.  I'm on a PC and I use:

Hardware:
M-Audio Delta 44 Soundcard
M-Audio Audio Buddy preamps.
nForce 2 motherboard with an onboard MIDI controller (I really need to get a better MIDI controller)
Alesis QS7 Keyboard, shitty keyboard that I wish I hadn't purchased, but I use it as a MIDI controller only (yeah I know, a $800 MIDI controller, ughhh).
Boss DR-660 (A drum machine that rarely gets used anymore)

I also play guitar, so I play a Gibson Les Paul through my Marshall stack and mic it (via a Shure mic and the Audio Buddy) on the very very very rare occasion that I actually use guitar tracks.

Software:
Cubase SX 2.0 for the multitrack recording and MIDI sequencing
Native Instruments Reaktor 4.0 (using VST to plugin to Cubase, best Software Synthisizer on the market)
Native Instruments Kontakt (best Sample on the market, again I use VST to plug it into Cubase, since I got Kontakt my DR-660 drum machine has been gathering dust)
Native Instruments Vokator (for vocoding effects, this is just awesome.. if you haven't noticed I'm a huge fan of Native Instruments)

For some secondary stuff I also use
Spectrasonics Atmosphere (more synth stuff, also a VST plugin)
Spectrasonics Trilogy (a great bass VST plugin)

For the actual soundfile editing I use Sonic Foundry's Soundforge 6.0 (it's now Sony's Soundforge 7.0, but 6.0 does everything I want so I haven't looked into upgrading)..

I could very easily create just about any song off of the new Skinny Puppy CD with my setup, it's pretty much everything you could ever need when it comes to synthesis and sampling..

[Arnold]

How is Cubase SX?  I bought Cubasis (cheapo version of Cubase) to fool around with a couple years ago and had all sorts of latency and synchronization headaches.  Even after I bought a Delta 410 soundcard, I still had synch problems.

That free package I linked, Kristal, works so much better than Cubasis ever did for me.  It doesn't crash randomly like Cubasis did either.

[Arnold]

BTW, it's amazing how much you can do with so little.  I just remembered that around 10 years ago, a friend and I used the simple audio recorder utility in Windows 3.1 to take all the lyrics out of Primus' "Mr. Krinkle".  Then we replaced them with our own lyrics, added two extra versus, removed the original guitar solo and replaced it with our own solo.  We even had a chorus of about 20 of our voices going at one part.

It took MUCH, MUCH more work to do that than what it would take with the tools available today, but it can be done.

[cevik]

How is Cubase SX?  I bought Cubasis (cheapo version of Cubase) to fool around with a couple years ago and had all sorts of latency and synchronization headaches.  Even after I bought a Delta 410 soundcard, I still had synch problems.

I love Cubase SX.  Before my Delta 44 soundcard I was using onboard nForce sound and with either card and the ASIO drivers that every soundcard manufacturer now supplies (running WinXP) I have less than 15 ms latency.  I could easily play live with my setup (I do most of my composition "live", recording each MIDI track one at a time, and I never notice the latency).  I also typically run 2-4 instances of Reaktor, 1 instance of Kontakt (with 4 or 5 samplers in the rack), 1 instance of Trilogy and lots of effect plugins, all at the same time (i.e. without bouncing any of my tracks to .wav until I'm near completion of the song) and I rarely go over 30-50% CPU usage.  And I never have dropouts.

Of course, latency is a function of the sound card driver, not the sequencing/multitracking package.  With the modern ASIO drivers for Cubase, or WDM drivers for Cakewalk, you should be able to lower the sound buffers to a point where you have 10-20 ms latency before you run into drop outs.  The important thing to realize is that you have to use ASIO or WDM drivers, typically Cubase SX or Cakewalk Sonar will show you a list of 4 or 5 drivers, and picking the right driver is the most important step to setting up the application.

[Arnold]

Of course, latency is a function of the sound card driver, not the sequencing/multitracking package.  With the modern ASIO drivers for Cubase, or WDM drivers for Cakewalk, you should be able to lower the sound buffers to a point where you have 10-20 ms latency before you run into drop outs.

Yeah, I misspoke there.  The latency problems were actually from a Soundblaster card.  I found some custom hacked .dll that fixed the problem under Windows 98.  Then when I upgraded to 200, the .dll no longer worked and that's when I ditched the Soundblaster for the M Audio Delta 410.  But that thing just would not properly synch with Cubasis.

[NiX]

It spawned from a "mix" idea. BUt expanded into a "I want to make some music" idea. I play no instruments (gave up piano couple years back) and never really had the time to do guitar. More or less I'm looking more towards techno/trance/industrial..etc. Mainly mixing samples and stuff. I tried a shitton of programs. Acid, Cakewalk, Native Instruments DJ Studio and a handful of others. None helped due to me just not understanding any of the programs important functions. Mind you, the DJ studio was fun because it had scratch tables.

[stray]

More or less I'm looking more towards techno/trance/industrial..etc. Mainly mixing samples and stuff.

Then you'd have more than the enough if you followed something like a slim downed version of cevik's setup. Cubase SX is about $500, but there are cheaper versions like SL or SE. Steinberg has a USB based M-Audio kit with SL that runs cheaper than the price of SX alone, and is about the same price as the mbox:  Link

Get an el cheap midi controller and you'd be set.

Native Instruments is the shit, but it'll cost. There's a cheaper version of Kontakt called Kompakt, but I'm not sure if there's anything similar for Reaktor.

Like I mentioned before, there's Live, which can do a lot all on it's own. If you don't want to start off with a whole bunch of stuff right off the bat, it's a good place to start. It's a lot like the Akai MPC, and then some. It's more geared for realtime sampling/sequencing, more "instrument" than "program", so you might find it more fun and easier to use. It will work with VST plug-ins too. You can do recording/composing if you want, but it isn't meant to replace something like PT or Cubase.

I could very easily create just about any song off of the new Skinny Puppy CD with my setup,

Finally got it last week. I wasn't expecting much, but the first song blew me away. The whole album is good (I'm talking about cEvin though. ohGr is kinda hit and miss for me).

[Sky]

I've wondered about the USB-based interface. While I really want a Digi002 (for the control surface..mmmm), I'm thinking of getting the Mbox so I can learn the Pro Tools software (last I checked the free version of PT wasn't available for XP! I did use it a bit on w98).

Has anyone used one of the USB-based interfaces? Is there enough throughput for multiple instruments? The Mbox is USB 1.1.

When I learned to run music software, it was on a Mac II or so :) We were still using physical mixers, computer control was only on the real high end stuff, there was one computer-controlled 64 track studio on the campus, but I moved before I got to work it.

[cevik]

It spawned from a "mix" idea. BUt expanded into a "I want to make some music" idea. I play no instruments (gave up piano couple years back) and never really had the time to do guitar. More or less I'm looking more towards techno/trance/industrial..etc. Mainly mixing samples and stuff. I tried a shitton of programs. Acid, Cakewalk, Native Instruments DJ Studio and a handful of others. None helped due to me just not understanding any of the programs important functions. Mind you, the DJ studio was fun because it had scratch tables.

I recommend checking out a program by Propellerhead's called "Reason".  Reason lets you create a virtual rack that contains a Subtractive Synthesizer, a Grainular Synthesizer (of sorts), a drum machine, two different samplers, a nice loop player, and a metric shitton of effects.  The best part is, you can have an infinite number of each device, so you can, for instance, create a rack with 3 Subtractive Synths, 2 Grainular synths, 2 drum machines, a sampler and 100 effects for each, assuming of course your pc can handle the load (my AMD 2400+ with 1 gig of RAM has never had any problems playing all of the instruments and effects I throw at it).

Reason also contains a multitrack MIDI sequencer so you can compose complete songs all inside of reason.  The downside is, it doesn't have a multitrack audio recorder, so you are limited to only the sounds inside of reason (i.e. no laying down a guitar track or a vocal track).  The nice thing about Reason is, it's newbie friendly but it also uses Propellerhead's "Rewire" application to interface with more advanced software packages like Cubase or Cakewalk, so that you can use it later if you really get into things and need a better multitrack recorder..

Anyways, for what you want to do, I highly recommend checking out Reason, it's a one stop shop for everything you need.  It'll be great for a first purchase type thing, it'll show you the ropes of electronic music in a self contained application.

ETA:  Here is a link for Reason.  They even have a downloadable demo that you can check out.  It's a crippled version that only has ~43 megs of soundbanks included, whereas the full version has over a gig, but it'll give you an idea of what you'd be in for.

Finally got it last week. I wasn't expecting much, but the first song blew me away. The whole album is good (I'm talking about cEvin though. ohGr is kinda hit and miss for me).

If you missed the tour (it fucking rocked, best show I've seen in 10+ years) then I have good news:  Skinny Puppy and Ministry (plus one other so far unnamed band) will be touring together this year starting in October.  It's going to be a political rally to attempt to keep Bush from ever winning an election.  It looks to be another good set of shows!  When dates are leaked and/or released I'll probably post a link around here..

[Arnold]

I've wondered about the USB-based interface. While I really want a Digi002 (for the control surface..mmmm), I'm thinking of getting the Mbox so I can learn the Pro Tools software (last I checked the free version of PT wasn't available for XP! I did use it a bit on w98).

Has anyone used one of the USB-based interfaces? Is there enough throughput for multiple instruments? The Mbox is USB 1.1.

When I learned to run music software, it was on a Mac II or so :) We were still using physical mixers, computer control was only on the real high end stuff, there was one computer-controlled 64 track studio on the campus, but I moved before I got to work it.

Don't they usually use firewire for multi-instrument setups?

[stray]

Don't they usually use firewire for multi-instrument setups?

Yeah, but the mbox can handle a couple instruments with zero problems. That would be it though -- There's analog and digital inputs, 2 of each, but you can only use one or the other at the same time. Unless they changed it, the max is 2.

Also, USB sucks up CPU power, so you're limited by that. The other thing it lacks is a midi input (!). You'll have to get one separately.

If you can get the Digi 002, go for it. I wish I had the cash (My PT setup is ghetto, circa 1996, on a 604e PowerMac). Besides the excellent mixer, it has it's own DSP, uses Firewire, has more inputs, and more software.

If you missed the tour (it fucking rocked, best show I've seen in 10+ years) then I have good news: Skinny Puppy and Ministry (plus one other so far unnamed band) will be touring together this year starting in October.

That is good news. Skinny Puppy hasn't been to Texas in a while, but since Jourgensen lives in Austin (last I heard), I hope the tour will make it's way here (the new Ministry album fuckin' rocks BTW). I can't find tour dates though. Are they listed anywhere?

[naum]

Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Not as polished as Cool Edit Pro, but it's free.

Haven't tried this one  yet:
http://www.bannister.org/software/cacophony.htm

Though the top downloaded programs at the latter site are game consule emulators.

[cevik]

That is good news. Skinny Puppy hasn't been to Texas in a while, but since Jourgensen lives in Austin (last I heard), I hope the tour will make it's way here (the new Ministry album fuckin' rocks BTW). I can't find tour dates though. Are they listed anywhere?

No dates yet, there have been rumors about the tour for a few weeks, ever since Al showed up at a Skinny Puppy show in the North East and played guitar during Tin Omen (man I wish I had been at that show), but Al just announced that it's "official" last week on VH1 (of all places).  The anouncement was for Ministry and Skinny Puppy, plus one band who hasn't been anounced to tour together starting after Labor day.  They will be attempting to get 100,000 people to register to vote.  Al said he is willing to do "anything" to get people to register, from signing autographs to giving blowjobs.. :)  So not only will it be a good tour, but there will likely be a good meet 'n greet after the shows if you stick around.  I'm obviously already registered to vote, but maybe I can get an autograph anyways.. :)  

The moment dates are announced (or even rumored) I'm sure they'll be posted on http://sptravel.info/, that guy has been extremely reliable in the past.. :)

[stray]

They will be attempting to get 100,000 people to register to vote.  Al said he is willing to do "anything" to get people to register, from signing autographs to giving blowjobs.. :)  So not only will it be a good tour, but there will likely be a good meet 'n greet after the shows if you stick around.  I'm obviously already registered to vote, but maybe I can get an autograph anyways.. :)

Heh, I'm probably going to vote for Bush. If Kerry wins, Al will just go back to making shitty albums again. We can't have that now, can we? ;)

[Hanzii]

Heh, I'm probably going to vote for Bush. If Kerry wins, Al will just go back to making shitty albums again. We can't have that now, can we? ;)

House of the Mole is the best album in ages - this is a realistic outcome to a democratic win, so yours is the best reason for voting Bush I have yet heard.
I hope there's a chance of catching the tour over here too.
*crosses fingers*