Vega Strike Forums

Hello fellow VegaStrike players.. and musicians.

I would like to compose my own music and such for VegaStirke. I'm pretty sure they won't probably go into it, but what the heck. I still can try. ^,^

I'm a really a n00b with making music, but I pwn playing them ( I play piano and clarient).

Sooooo, I was wondering if there is a good program that I can use to make music... It would help alot if it was free. THanks

And another thing, please be something user-friendly. I really don't want to make this really hard for me.

One more thing. I would REALLY help if it can have multiple instruments (like full orcastra and such)..


THANKS!

Hi,

Try JazzWare at http://www.jazzware.com

I haven't used it before myself but it looks pretty decent from the website.

Mike

For open source:
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/
http://mixxx.sourceforge.net/
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Thx people... but i could use more.

ANyways, how do you get ROSEGARDEN? I don't know how to compile an OPEN SOURCE code and make it work.

Rosegarden is Linux only and won't work with windows.. Audacity is audio only and doesn't do midi and the other one he mentioned is a program for DJ's.

Mike

Eh... Linux.... I was going to install that OS on my lame comp... I should do that sooner.

http://www.ubuntulinux.org

It's easiest.

A word of warning -- I once tried to get Rosegarden running fully on a Linux box, and succeeded in compiling it and getting audio and MIDI functions enabled after spending hours on it (due to having to figure out how to get stuff to route through ALSA), only to find that the distro I was using did not have a built in software MIDI synth. Most Linux distributions do not appear to have a software MIDI synth built in.. The instructions to download and install the Linux compatible software MIDI synths were a lot more cryptic than Rosegarden's install text file, which was easy enough to follow, so I gave up at that point. And I am a very advanced PC user and have had a reasonable amount of Linux experience..

Windows still makes a much better MIDI/audio workstation only because a) it has a built in half-decent software MIDI synth that you don't have to install separately, and b) you have many more options for audio/midi software and free VST plug-ins for Windows that would not run on Linux. If you are in the 90% of users category where all you want is a computer that does e-mail, web browsing, photo management, word processing, plus a few other little things here and there, Linux is great, but for serious audio/MIDI work it is not.

with Ubuntu installing Rosegarden is just apt-get install rosegarden and ALSA is improving by leaps and bounds Jack is also handy the soft synth problem is also moving in the right direction most of the current releases have the proper kernel module by default.

Enjoy the Choice

I also wanted to play a midi file on a Suse 9.3 linux once. Rosegarden is available as a package, so there was no need for compiling it myself. Then Jack is used (with qtjackctl as gui) to pipe the outgoing midi signals from the Rosegarden application into a software synth for which I chose fluidsynth (command line) with qtsynth as gui. The wav output is then piped into alsa-out (to my speakers). With some free and reasonably good soundfonts I was impressed how good midi can sound! Alright, the saxophones still sound aweful but I think this can also be improved with the right samples such as the ones I had for the grand piano.

Sure, it took me a few minutes to set up everything up but its definitely not magic as everything was available as a precompiled package (so no compilation) and playing a midi amounts to starting the sythn-gui, the jack-gui and rosegarden as the player. In addition, the quality is much better than what I'm used from playing midis with the default MS-synth. Things in the linux world have evolved rather quickly during the last months. Midi might not be as hard anymore (remembering my futile tries a few years ago).

Even given that, there are many free VST instruments and effects plug-ins available for Windows and MacOS that Linux does not have options for, such as equalization, compression, sub-bass, dithering, reverb, chorus, etc, as well as many free VST synthesizer instruments. This is because VST plug-ins are were made for Cubase, and Cubase only runs on Windows and Mac, not Linux. So all the nice free plug-ins that let you put finishing touches on your music only exist for Windows and Mac as even if you could find a VST-host for Linux you couldn't find plug-ins for it.. And from searching I found one or two free VST-hosts for Windows that would allow you to take advantage of those free plug-ins.

The one thing that linux does have that Windows does not is a free GigaStudio-compatible software sampler (I forget the name of it).. However you would typically run that on a dedicated machine seperate from your sequencer/audio-editor anyway. So a good setup would be to run your sequencer/audio with VST plugins on your main system and run the GigaStudio-compatible software sampler on a linux box with audio routed from the sampler box to the sequencer box via SPDIF.

As well, a really nice and easy way to get started with sequencing orchestral instruments is the Garritan Personal Orchestra sample library/sampler, and that only runs on Windows and MacOS.

Bottom line is, to do professional-sounding work, you need Windows or MacOS. The options simply aren't there on Linux - even if you have Rosegarden and a softsynth and they are easy to setup, that only gets you part way there. Effects and other pieces are still missing.

Mike

For Midi synth in linux: download (or apt-get for debian users ) timidity and make this a script in your home dir:

(filename timiditystart.sh):
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/timidity -iA -B2,8 -Os

ok so run that.
Then start up roze garden and jam on you midi keyboard, EZ-AG yamaha midi guitar, or EZ-TP yamaha midi trumpet

Or just compose using the matrix editor (easy) or the notation editor (cool for printing out sheetmusic... or for those people who know what the dots mean (not I... much)).

BTW My music is on https://cat2.dynu.ca/cat2/media.html
Everything of mine there is (opensource/libre/free) and is either GPL or BSD. All the music is BSD. It's in cronological order.

It depends on the hardware you have.

Do you have a midi-compatible keyboard? Then a lot of options open up for you.

You could download Finale Notepad (www.finale.com), which is the free version of their Finale composing software. It has a marginally good library of orchestral sounds, but it limits you to a mere 8 channels. Also, it looks like sheet music, which might help.

The next level up is either Reaper or Buzz, which are both passable free DAW's (digital audio workspaces). I haven't had much experience with either, however.

If you have a bit of money to spend (say like $30), you could get the lite version of Fruity Loops 7. You can download the demo from their website (www.flstudio.com) and try it out. I'd recommend this, because it's a very versatile program. While its stock sounds outright suck, you can compensate for that, since FL is VST-compatible, aka you can add instruments however you want.

If you want an all-in-one-box-of-awesome solution, I'd recommend Reason (www.propellerheads.se). It's got a very nice stock set of orchestrated sounds, and its ease of use and quality of its synths is second to none. However, it lacks VST support. That problem is easily overcome by rewiring Reason to act as a slave VST in Fruity Loops (which is what I personally do). However. It costs $500, and since you said free... that's like the opposite of such word.

Well, hope that helps.

http://www.linux-sound.org/

I like Psycle. Latest version is 1.8.5. It isn't very buggy as far as I am concerned. I like it, because it not only has tracker stuff, but it can be modular as well, I guess a little bit like Cubase, Renoise, or FruityLoops. It is also nice because it has a send return effects mixer. You can only plug in 20 instruments into the main module, but you can just send all the instruments to the mixer, and then 1 component (the mixer) to the main module. What's also nice is the ability to render raw wave. (I use Audacity to make mp3's). The only problem is it doesn't come chock full of VST's or samples. You have to look online for all the free ones. There are good sites for this, just type in "free vst instruments" in google, and I'm sure something will come up. Otherwise, Psycle is probably the best tracking gets. There is also MadTracker, which has an instrument library of free and pay-for instruments. If you want to be minimalist about tracking, and if you like "old skool" stuff, try Modplug (a little outdated, but still pretty good). Remember the good old days of FastTrackerII?
Most of this however is probably MIDI stuff. I think Psycle might support MIDI input, (internal machine). If you want MIDI, try Jazzware, or ProTools free, or Sony's proprietary ACID Xpress.

From my experience, I'd say ditch all Linux audio stuff unless you have a perfect set up working for you, and you use it regularly to do production. The stuff takes weeks to get right, and when I spent those weeks setting it up to at least "work", it wasn't stable or usable enough to do any serious work. I once tried to set up a Ubuntu Studio environment for a commercial project, and had to ditch the idea since the apps were so sub par. Ended up working with evil old XP was still the more sure way of getting stuff done. (not to start up a debate.. it's just how it is on the audio front)

If not, I'd lean towards Reaper. Reaper is very stable, and I've actually used it in some of my commercial stuff. Very cheap if you ask me, and gets the job done. It does have some limitations on automation, but if you just need something to get started on, automation is probably not going to be your main issue.

As for types of sequencers, I'd recommend that you stay away from tracker style apps if symphonic is going to be your thing. Trackers are cool, and I have full respect for them, but they are just not built for symphonic material. You might be able to get it all right on a tracker, but I'd say it'll be darn hard, or take you much longer than necessary. So, although Fruity and the likes is cool, it's probably best to stick to a more traditional sequencer like Reaper or Cubase. (where the primary mode of input is recording through a midi keyboard)

For vegastrike sounds, you'd probably be looking for mostly cinematic / symphonic sounds, so you'd best invest in a good sample library. A cheap one is GPO, which unfortunately wasn't out when I wrote the vegastrike stuff. You can also try Goliath, Colossus, if you have the cash to burn, and also Yellow Tool's Independence series. Independence series has surprisingly good strings for its price class. Unfortunately I don't think there are opensource alternatives to these products, so these will be necessary evil. EastWest's series is cool, and of course Vienna Symphonic, but those are probably out of reach for most people.

After that, you can check at northernsounds for good orchestration practices and even some theory training. A great overall forum to help you with symphonic material.

To finalize, as mentioned by many before me, Audacity does a decent job. Much better than what you'd expect from opensource software. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but gets the job done.