ATTN Creative types

[Cain]

What is good software for mucking around with music?  In general, recording, mixing, producing etc

Also, freebies will be much appreciated.

Cain,
may finally do something with the 12 gig of music on his hard drive.  One day.

[Triple Zero]

ableton live for creatively mixing loops and effects in a live setting, kinda like traktor DJ studio (for mixing mp3/ogg).

soundforge for general sound editing.

i've heard good things from LMNO about protools.

what do you want to do?

[Cain]

I'm not sure yet.  Eventually, I'll of course do some POEEcasts etc, but for now, I'm content to experiment. 

Cheers, I'll have a look at those.

[Triple Zero]

in that case, skip ableton live and go for soundforge+protools

[LMNO]

For free, try audacity.

[AFK]

if you're looking for something economical, I use Magix Audio Studio.  It's good for someone like me who really doesn't know how to use all of the bells and whistles.  but the version I had came with 3 synth applications (drum machine, drum and bass machine, etc.)  It also has some decent effects like vocoder, amp simulators, reverb and delay effects, stereo enhancer, compressor, etc.)  You can work with the MIDI program or live recording.  Anyway, I think I got it for around 30-40 bucks from e-bay.  

[That One Guy]

I second LMNO's recommendation of Audacity, especially if it's the first digital recording/editing software you're going to be dealing with. I'm used to ProTools myself (which is excellent but NOT cheap), but I got my start using SoundDesigner (basic 2-track editing software) and Audacity seems to be a very good program with lots of robust tools and looks simple yet versatile.

And free is good 

[P3nT4gR4m]

For free, try audacity.

Audacity is fucking horrible with zero features.

For free try the most expensive commercial software on the market - they aint losing out if you weren't going to buy it anyway.

btjunkie - reinventing capitalism with the emphasis on the consumer

[LMNO]

Audacity has enormous open-source user groups who constantly create new effects and modulators.


And you can't use the most expensive programs if they require proprietary hardware in order to function.  Digidesigns pwns YUO.

[Cramulus]

audacity's just fine for lowfi DIY kind of stuff. If you need something complex or professional I wouldn't recommend it, but it's worked just fine for times when I've needed to edit my voice in over music and add an echo or whatever.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Audacity has enormous open-source user groups who constantly create new effects and modulators.

Thanks - I wasn't aware of this. Had kinda wondered why it got such good press since, without plugins it's nowhere near as useful as the waveform editors in shit like cubase or cakewalk.

And you can't use the most expensive programs if they require proprietary hardware in order to function.  Digidesigns pwns YUO.

Depends on the situation. If it's a 'write to dat' function then obviously you need a dat but a lot of these things work like dongle protection - "is the hardware there? ... Y - load up / N - open abuse dialog"

I dunno about protools but if it's a sorta mixing desky thing with all sorts of params which actually control the desk then that obviously aint gonna work but if there's anything in there like adding fx to waves, or copypaste stuff that is usefull it'll be ripped right off - the crackers will just fix it so the software doesn't check for the hardware. Which is exactly the same technique as telling it not to look for a cd/dvd in normal commercial software.

[That One Guy]

Digidesign was smart (from a business perspective) in that they put the Analog <-> Digital converter chips on their hardware and wrote their code to force signal processing to use their chips. Which means you have to have their hardware to run any of their stuff.

AFAIK this is only the case with Digidesign stuff, not things like Cakewalk, Cubase, or any of the other commercial recording/sequencing/editing stuff. Also, many plug-in makers are going to USB keys for authorization (meaning you have to have the piece of plastic plugged in to a USB port for the plug-in to authorize and be usable) so be careful of that if you're "borrowing" any software 

Cain, if you're just going for some basic vocal recording over (pre-recorded) background music, or even recording garage band stuff, Audacity should be fine. The only thing you might run into problems with is if you look to do more than one track (or one stereo pair) of recording at a time, as computers don't have more than the one mic input 99.99% of the time. If you're looking for something a little more complex or looking to multi-track record, you'll probably need to invest in some hardware unfortunately.

I'm always willing to give recording assistance if there's something you're looking to do and aren't sure how to go about making it work, so feel free to hit me with a PM or a post with questions 

[P3nT4gR4m]

AFAIK this is only the case with Digidesign stuff, not things like Cakewalk, Cubase, or any of the other commercial recording/sequencing/editing stuff. Also, many plug-in makers are going to USB keys for authorization (meaning you have to have the piece of plastic plugged in to a USB port for the plug-in to authorize and be usable) so be careful of that if you're "borrowing" any software 

None of this crap ever works for long - thats the crackers stock in trade. Dongle protection (same as software protection) is only there to inconvenience legitimate users and prevent them from giving copies to their friends.

Illegitimate useres get the advantage of cheaper price (usly $0.00) and not having to run with the harware attached/disk in dirive or type the huge stupid serial key into the box.

[LMNO]

You talk a big game, Silly.



Let's see you walk it.  Find a cracked copy of the newest ProTools 7.3 that doesn't require hardware to fully function.

[That One Guy]

Too true Silly - I've wondered if cracking the key embedded in the USB things and copying it onto a USB flash drive or similar would work. It's truly a PITA dealing with all the keys - many studios end up getting a few USB hubs for all the things they "have" to have plugged in to use the legit software they need.

I've definitely used my share of ... less than legitemate music software, and it's definitely less of a hastle (for the period it works for) than dealing with all the - obviously ineffective - pirating prevention measures.