Another Newbie... Hobbyist...., Lookin' for ways to make music! Options

[Turner]

Hi -

Ok, here's my situation.

I've got a Blue & White G3 and a Casio CTK-601. (About to get USB to MIDI interface) Also iTunes and Toast CD burning software.

Basically, ideally, what I'd like to be able to do is:

1) Score "standard" orchestral pieces; by orchestral I mean traditional instruments - I know there is plenty of stuff out there to do this. I've downloaded some demos - cheaper is better - and found that while some look pretty good, their operation is a tad strange. Even Finale, which I just started playing around with (the demo) doesn't seem to want to let me drag notes horizontally. So ease of use is important. I'd like to be able to change time signatures mid-composition, too.

2) Score "ambient" pieces, and by ambient I don't mean dance ambient, I mean traditional ambient, e.g. Brian Eno... (after all, he did invent ambient)... I guess what you might call "soundscapes". Long sustains and long transitions would be nice.

3) I just learned about SoundFonts on this board! Yeah! Ok, what I suppose I'd like to do here is... eh... use them and also make them if it's sensible, and I realize I need some type of input device to make them... I think? Dunno.

Any help appreciated!

Thanks,
Andrew

[Synthetic]

well... it may not be the cheapest route but... I would suggest looking into something like Logic Silver or the "Big Box" and the consider possibly adding the ESX24 sampler.

Logic has a score area like Finale but may offer a bit more freedom that you seek. Logic has opened many new midi ideas for myself but it is a complex program.

The ESX24 will play soundfonts and comes with some really nice sounding traditional instrument sounds. You can find other great sampled instruments to add to it easily too.

As far as creating soundfonts... I am not sure what is the best method for that. I have used Recycle to make soundfonts for use in my ESX24 before but it was just for beats and exporting the midi file to play the beat sample. I am not sure if it offers a way to make a multisampled instrument soundfont file or not as I don't use it a lot.

[ryosode]

It sounds to me that what you want to do can be achieved by having one keyboard and a copy of Reason 2.0. Reason is a software synthesizer and sampler that blows away a lot of production system as far as what you want to do is concerned. I don't even know how to begin explaining this stuff. Read about it at their website (http://www.propellerheads.se/) and download the demo. Basically, Reason lets you sequence a whole music by itself and the sound is all prepared for you. All you need to do is make the music and export the music to AIFF file (Reason lets you export), then have iTunes or MP3 encoder of your choice converth the file into a MP3 file and give it to your friends!!

Here's a little fun promotion (Oh I can just begin imagining other Reason users bashing me now): I have a sample song that I recorded using only Reason and a small keyboard that's available via mp3.com (http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/495/ryos.html) you can check out.

[Turner]

well... it may not be the cheapest route but... I would suggest looking into something like Logic Silver or the "Big Box" and the consider possibly adding the ESX24 sampler.

Hiya Synthetic -

I just checked out Logic Audio (on the site, since that's what comes with Big Box) as well as the Big Box stuff... looks pretty sweet. Not sure if it's overkill for me but the price (on sale, $240 US) looks very reasonable.

I don't think they have a demo, and I sure would like to try it out - I'll look again and email them if I don't find one.

And the ESX24 - holy cow. That did have a demo, and WOW. Obviously you already know this. I'm licking my chops but that is another $300.... Hmmm..

Thanks for the leads, it's even more confusion now for me

Andrew

[Turner]

It sounds to me that what you want to do can be achieved by having one keyboard and a copy of Reason 2.0.

Hi ryosode, and thanks -

Reason looks awesome too, as well as their other stuff. A friend of mine swears by it but I haven't had a chance to see it in action yet. Demo time maybe.

Andrew

[danml69]

Does'nt Big Box have ESX24 as one of the sound tools thats included? That would save you some bucks.

[ryosode]

Big Box comes with EXSP24, which is a dedicated sample "player" as opposed to a sampler. The difference? The software is aimed at users who wish to use already existent library of samples but not their own. In Andrew's case, EXSP24 might be good enough.

http://www.emagic.de/english/products/inst...nts/exsp24.html

[Turner]

Yeah, the Big Box is looking nice - I'm trying to find info (or a review) for the staff entry part of the software...

Thanks guys...

Andrew

[Synthetic]

reason is cool little app but it will not really "score" a song... when I hear score... I think of using actual staffs and notes as seen on sheet music, So not sure if this is what you mean by "score" but Logic will actually let you create by placing these note symbols or by using a a matrix type grid as Reason and many other apps use. Logic will also take a matrix sequence and create a "score" of the music that you can use to print as sheet music if so desired as well.

yep, the ESX24 does not come with big box but ESP24 does. I used to use an EMU ESI2000 hardware sampler but got tired of the non-mac friendly hardware and was a pain to setup so I sold it for $400 and bought the ESX24 after getting Logic. I must say that running Logic with ESX24 on my laptop is way more powerful and easier to use than the ESI2000 would ever. Considering you can use up 24 outputs... and uses RAM wisely, it is great for the cost.