Best music creation software

I'm looking to create music for my games. (Trying to make ambient electronic music)

So what music creation software would you guys recommend?

 

Need more information. How much general music experience do you have? What's your budget? Can you program? Do you like to find creative ways to program? Do you know the inner workings of a synthesizer? If you don't know the inner workings of synthesizer, how do would you go about learning to make this kind of music? All of these questions matter so answer every one.

Making electronic music is more than just playing around on a midi controller. You will have to learn it correctly to get anywhere. So that means you will have to learn what all of those 15 some odd knobs are used for along with, wavelengths, different types of synthesis, and having a good foundation on basic piano theory.

I'm not trying to discourage you at all. I'm just saying that it will be a long hard process to self teach yourself audio synthesis. So take it slow.

However, I will need to know the answers to those questions.

 

I like Renoise. Although it's more of an old school style tracker (with modern features). But for ambient music, it's more up to the synths you have (vstis I guess) and how you can get good sound from them. Or how you manipulate recordings. Or...

Well... I guess Omniverse is right. You need to give us more info. Do you have any background in anything? Do you want the music software to support some sort of notation display? Because not all software has those. Are you on Win? PC? (Linux?). How much money are you willing to spend? Do you need something that has a little bit of everything, or that does a few core things well and then you can rely on plugins for everything else?

 

Never made any music before, dont know how to make music. Dont really know what synths do exactly.

So really I dont have any idea what I'm doing....

What I need to do is find a program with a trial version and some good tutorials.

 

http://www.csounds.com/

http://puredata.info/

Check those free programs out. Csound is heavy on programming but it's powerful. Pure Data is more visual in terms of programming.

 

you couls always try FL Studio... It's a very robust package and has a great community to learn from... especially for Electronica...

http://www.image-line.com/documents/flstudio.html

 

I like Logic and GarageBand for mac. One of my friends uses Ableton Live religiously and it works on Mac/PC. A lot of it in my opinion depends on how far you want to go with it and the UI. Some programs have "weird" interfaces *ehem Reason* cough cough, and this can turn down productivity. I don't think you really want to go out and commit yourself to this stuff with out some research, they all take time to learn but I do encourage making your own music... It'd be cool.

 

Open MPT is pretty good and it is free.

http://openmpt.org/

Just be aware that it is Windows only.

 

I have Komplete 6 by Native Instruments. It's the most complete software package for music and sound effects creation I've ever seen. Latest version is Komplete 8 is for 559 USD. There is also an Ultimate version available 1099 USD. Both prices are not the upgrade prices. I know the price seems really high, but don't be turned off by that. Native Instruments Komplete is the best investment of my life!

This comes with a lot of different pieces of software. 50 for the Ultimate version and 27 for the regular version, to be specific. I know it seems like an overload, and it kind of is, but don't try to learn all the pieces of software all at once because you will only get frustrated. Take it 1 synthesizer at a time and you will do just fine. I was at your level when I first started and I would know about getting overwhelmed by komplete. That's only because I tried learning more than one synthesizer. Your creativity is the only limit. Here is a comparison chart for you.

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/komplete-8-ultimate/?page=2563

Also, when you are working with software synthesis, get a midi controller! You don't need a full sized keyboard, but you do need one with assignable midi knobs and sliders, a pitch bend wheel, and a modulation wheel. Search around for the term Midi Controller or Midi Keyboard. Also, more than likely you will have to be able to record something. I have Pro Tools LE 8. The latest version is 10. You don't have to pay for recording software right away, you can use audicity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) since you are just getting started.

Here is a link to the avid store for pricing information. http://shop.avid.com/store/category.do?category=pro-tools-systems

I have the M-Audio Oxygen 49. I recommend the smaller version, Oxygen 25, for sake of price. Here are links to both

Oxygen 49- http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Oxygen49.html

Oxygen 25- http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Oxygen25.html

Good luck with your music!

 

As omniverse said, I'd recommend learning a bit about music itself before you delve into creating it. Pick up a keyboard and teach yourself all the notes, progressions, chords etc. Learn what sound's good together before jumping into a program, it will help you a lot.

As for the actual program, I found FL studio to be rather easy to work with and there is plenty of documentation for it.

 

Professional approach: Logic or Cubase + plugins (e.g. Komplete as mentioned, and/or other libs/vsynths). I myself use Cubase with some vsynths and an very nice orchestral library mostly.

Semi pro: FL Studio and Ableton live + plugins

I strongly agree with the given recommendations to learn musical theory (harmonics, rythms, notation etc) and learning to play piano or keyboard, before diving into composing music.
E.g. i've had piano lessons for years and had special education in composing.

 

For the talent free musicians there is still Autocomp. A funny piece of music software that creates a song by one mouse click

http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA014815/music/English/autocomp.html

Produces Midi though ...

Learning music theory can help. Knowing how to read notes too. And when you can play an instrument then the song creation is much faster. Else you have to enter every note manually in your sequencer. So that`s a good advice.

I personally am more the practical guy, i hate theory. Never learned an instrument really, i still type in every note in by hand here and there. And i can still not read notes. I am even half deaf (mastering is always the funpart, heh). But that all doesn`t stop me. What is an absolute must have is a feeling and the ear for music. Music is art. Without the groove all theory is wasted.

 

I have gone through the internet to find some great programs for music creation. You can find them at http://metamusic.music-software-review.com/. I personally prefer the first option for my music studio, but it's really a matter of preference.

 

Learn music first. Harmony, composition, some keyboard lessons... otherwise, you'll just be wasting time learning software that you really won't understand. Even arranging prerecorded loops (ala GarageBand or similar software) has it's trick since you need to decide chord progression and orchestration.

 

Oh! Very good threads!! Was looking for it a while ago!

Those are paid website but you can get cool sounds for your music creation for cheap :

- http://soundrangers.com/
- http://www.soundsnap.com/

 

I recommend you using the Btv Award Winning software-Btv. I mean it's cheap and on discount so i use it and useful too and easy to use so. hope it helpes

 

I have used FL studio for a few years now, and despite being looked down upon, it's actually a pretty sweet program, and it's fairly cheap compared to most other music programs...

Most people say that ableton live is superior to (quite a lot of music programs), but really all it comes down to is preference. There's Cubase, Reaper, FL, and a whole ton more, so go with whatever you want; I'm just gonna recommend FL studio because I'm biased.

Someone mentioned learning music [theory] first, but you can learn that along the way (it's not too hard to learn both at the same time. Now, don't expect to be cranking out amazing tunes right off the bat, but with some hard dedication and hard work, you could have some nice songs in about a year or so.

If you get serious about this, it can end up as an endless trip down the rabbit hole of sample packs, vst plugins, midi controllers, analog synths, etc., but in the end it can be as cheap or as expensive as you want.

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I'll put some links below to help get you started:

https://www.image-line.com/
https://www.image-line.com/downloads/flstudiodownload.html

https://www.edmprod.com/5-stages-electronic-music-producer/ (good read, teaches what you will go through writing music, has a lot of links)
https://www.hooktheory.com/ (GREAT music theory e-book, 20$)

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So there's my piece, I might have said way too much, sorry if I did

P.S. If you want any help, send me a message on soundcloud and I'll help with anything you need (https://soundcloud.com/crumbsjohnson.) I would be glad to help walk you through everything (theory and etc.) Imo it takes much longer to learn by poking around on youtube and what not.

Best wishes everyone!

 

Wow! There are so many good ones out there, that I can name.
But I create my music/game music, in a free software called Lmms.
Feel free to check it out.

 

I have gone through the internet to find some great programs for music creation. You can use FL Studio Producer Edition 12.1.3 Mac OSX Version. I personally prefer the first option for my music studio, but it's really a matter of preference.

 

i really loved Aria Maestosa