Heartland

Ladies, gentlemen, boys & girls.....

Can anyone recommend a music package for a starter to play with?
Something I can create dark ambient dub thrash with?

Mmmmmm.Wicked.

If you have instruments to do it with, then Audacity is a nice gentle start - you can more or less just plug whatever you're playing in and press record. It's apparently not great for more complex projects, but if you're lazy enough, it can probably be convinced to handle a bit more than it was meant to. If it's a synth that you want, then I'm told that Buzz is quite good.

I'm sure Izzy or Dark can give you a better idea than me, given your genre of choice

You could try Reason..

I have it but haven't really started to look at it..

Procrastinator, moi? Preposterous!

reason is good in all its versions.doesnt do audio though.

"the hit kit" has a cut down version of logic that runs on a pc. does audio and midi. costs about £5 from discount book stores.

cubasis, if it still survises is cheap and cheerful.audio and midi.

of course there are more expensive entities to choose.
all of which , i think , provide free trial versions.

Hom_Corleone wrote: Something I can create dark ambient dub thrash with

Mmm sounds interesting!

TADAA!!!!

Iz to the rescue

Try Cubase SE for those small projects, or if you are happy enough with 8 tracks mono, try Pro Tools Lite at the Digidesign site (support/downloads, but only for Win98 or Me, not for WinXP!)

I am very happy with my Steinberg Nuendo system, tho it is very expensive (around 1500 euro nowadays, I think...). Although I do not support illegal DLs, I suggest obtaining a 'shady' Cubase version, try it out, then buy it if you are happy with it.

Cubase SE (the light version of Cubase) costs at about 150 euro, and you can always upgrade to SX3 later if you feel the need to. The whole SX package costs something around 800 euro, last time I checked, and that's a bit expensive for your needs, I fear. Check the Steinberg site for some comparisons between the different Cubase versions and then decide what you need. There is even a downloadable PDF pricelist.

Also, better to buy a cheaper software package and a better soundcard, which is more important. Find one with low latency and enough connections. For more info on that, call me when needed

About Reason, it is very nice to use for beats and loops, the best packege around nowadays. And you can use it as a plugin (with ReWire technology) in Cubase. The two work together flawlessly. It is midi-based and you can use hardware controllers and all with it too... not really a necessity, but very nice toy to play with

IZ.

nigel d wrote:"the hit kit" has a cut down version of logic that runs on a pc. does audio and midi. costs about £5 from discount book stores.

IMO, refrain from using 'Logic'. It is one of the oldest music recording softs, but it is a bugger to work with. Nowadays it is often implemented in the ProTools setting, but I worked with it and it sucks. Logic works very 'unlogic' to me

cubasis, if it still survises is cheap and cheerful.audio and midi.

True, I started with Cubasis and it is nice, but look for a very recent version (the newest is 2002, I fear). If you want to start sharing stuff with other musicians in the form of raw audio, sometimes the 'modern' big software progs are not compliant with the outdated Cubasis or Cubase VST engines. Not always, but more thatn enough to get frustration rising. I know from personal experience

IZ.

You could get Rebirth http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/index.htm Which is now free! Download the ISO file, use Nero to burn it onto a CD and install it.

I tend to go down the more simple route.

Thanks everybody. I will have a look at the options.
And then unleash Black Altar on the world.

As it happens, this topic made me get all my guitar equipment out and run off a quick cover. The original is by The God Machine.

Download Here

A somewhat bigger thing is Demudi, "Debian Music Distriution". I don`t know exactly what comes along with it, but according towhat I read a great lot.. And as it is open source, it is free.
I didn`t look it up myself closer yet (A bit early to do so, got my guitar two sweet months ago.. ), but from what I know they try to make it an all-in-one package which includes evry gimmick you need for making and producing music.
May be worth a closer look..

eotunun wrote:A somewhat bigger thing is Demudi, "Debian Music Distriution". I don`t know exactly what comes along with it, but according towhat I read a great lot.. And as it is open source, it is free.
I didn`t look it up myself closer yet (A bit early to do so, got my guitar two sweet months ago.. ), but from what I know they try to make it an all-in-one package which includes evry gimmick you need for making and producing music.
May be worth a closer look..

Two problems here:

Biggest one: Linux. I am waiting for years now for a very stable music production platform for Linux. The only thing that refrains me from switching to Linux was the poor stability of audio/video soft and support. It still is poor.
I really do hope for the future, but if you want to go a bit further than recording your living-room jams for your friends to listen to, refrain from using Linux as an audio platform.

Second prob: a bugger to configure. Well, a problem you always have with Linux at the start, but I have it from some sound engineers that tried the Debian stuff, and they had to make literally a hundred separate configs for all the everyday stuff they did, which did not even work the same way the day after... And it's about recording music, not writing little config files for every second you want to record/edit...

PS: always remember these are my PERSONAL musings. Don't take them for granted. I lie sometimes

IZ.