There are probably more live musicians than in any other time in history, although the idea of the big night out has changed.
Also, ogg vorbis is also a very good, lossless format. There are a few players out there that will accomodate lossless formats, including some home audiophile quality ones like Oppo.
Let’s dial back the outrage and refrain from calling other’s names in this forum.
You can do the whole thing on on a PC, and it does not need to be highly specced (but it can help).
If you want to compose, you need a Score editor - Musecore looks good and is free (I’ll have to try it over the break). I used Noteworthy Composer (which is cheap) for many years.
To get some sound out of your score, you need a software synth to turn MIDI data from the score into audio. This can be a stand-alone program (eg Timidity), but is more likely to be a plug-in that is used in a host studio application.
For your Studio host - you have already got Cockos Reaper (from the other thread). Other hosts to consider are EnergyXT (cheap), Anvil Studio (free), n-Track Studio (cheap). You can also spend lots of money for more features (Pro Tools, Ableton Live etc). Your choice.
For your initial Instrument - I suggest Cakewalk SFZ+ (it is free from the Cakewalk website). It is a Soundfont player, so you can give it a good soundfont (I like Chorium.SF2 and Fluid.SF2 - both are massive sampled General Midi soundfonts) and get nice output. You can assign a different soundfont per channel, so can select specific soundfonts for specific instruments. Of course, you can buy or find different instruments - sampled ones recorded from real instruments, synthesised ones of all variety, modeled ones from physical descriptions. You can pay big money or very little - your choice.
Once you have your composed tracks and instruments, you use your Studio Host to arrange and then render the final output to a WAV file. This does not have to be in real time. And don’t diss the WAV - it is the best choice for your output, as long as you select a high bit rate (24-bit 192kHz is the best for many hosts, but it will be much harder on the CPU to render, CDs are 16-bit 44.1kHz). You then downsample the WAV to CD quality and burn to a CD (CDBurner Pro is free and does the trick.
Hope all this helps
Si
In addition, as for physical bits like mics and instrument interfaces…
You can spend lots of money on this gear, too. And some of it is worth it.
Preamps (amplifying mic or instrument levels to line level) have a major role in shaping the sound. Now, I personally am not one to bow down to the altar of valve, but some people like the sound so pay for the extra. Plenty of great rock and roll was recorded with SM57/SM58 mics that cost less than £100. I use Behringer SM58 clones at a tenner each - I take them to the pub without a care and I don’t have smooth vocal tones that need a really good mic.
My Firewire interface is also pretty cheap (FA-101) for 10-in, 10-out, but good enough. Not £10 guitar-USB cable cheap, but that works too, when you are getting started. USB Mixers/interfaces are good, but you have too many eggs in one basket. If it goes wrong you are stuffed.
My advice is to start small, get comfortable with cheaper, easier tools/equipment, get some results. Then look at what you want to upgrade step by step.
Si
I think it was justified as the person I was responding to made it quite clear he wanted to derail the thread by going on about “Apple Tax”.
Acid Pro has the slight problem in that it may have been in development longer but it also hasn’t even had a new maintenance release since June 2010, almost two and a half years ago.
Reference:
Click on “Release Notes”
Wikipedia dates that 7.0e release:
Also, not only can Logic open Garageband files but it can also open files from the mobile (iPhone and iPad) version.
Congratulations. I’ve worked as a developer, sys admin and tech support for both Windows and Linux. I develop at home on a Mac. From where I am sitting I can touch both a Mac Book Pro and a dual boot Linux/Windows machine. I’m also really well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of both. I can also tell that you know very little about the Mac product we are talking about as you made a pretty glaring error about the upgrade path.
In case you don’t believe me:
And just for your information, as you do seem to be rather ill-informed:
http://ismashphone.com/2011/11/how-to-export-garageband-ios-files-to-logic-pro.html
Unfortunately for you it is true.
And? Not a big fan of change for the sake of change in software.
My mistake. But it still locks one into a very limited upgrade path on an over-priced platform.
Most of my Apple support work is for photographers. Personally, I use Sony’s Vegas Pro 12 as a DAW, and am currently working on a 24 track mix-down for a five camera HD shoot - that I recorded and edited on a Windows 7 HP laptop that cost me $650.
I note that you didn’t address my actual point, which is that a $599 Mac Mini (and it is very likely to be $599 as Apple rarely discounts anything, and protects the line from retailers who might do so) gets you a plug-in-the-wall box that does not even come with a keyboard or mouse, let alone a display. And that same $599 will get you a laptop with the same or better specs, with a nice display, keyboard and trackpad. You want to get a Mac laptop, you are going to cough up nearly double.
I’m happy for you that you are pleased with your Apple purchase, and am confident that it works well for you. But the OP was looking to produce music and specifically mentioned a CD burner.
This, in a nutshell, is exactly what I’ve been looking for on the Dope for years now, with no luck! Thanks for this post. I write a lot of music in Finale, but the garritan orchestra is far too tinny, and I want options to add in some really interesting timbres. This saves me a ton of sleuthing! 
Good thing that, as we are not talking about film editing, that that has absolutely no relevance to the discussion at hand then.
Well, apart from showing your issues with Apple and efforts to derail the thread.
Apart from exporting to MIDI I really can’t see how using Acid doesn’t also lock you into a specific upgrade path. Maybe you could enlighten me?
http://www.sony.co.uk/pro/product/creativesoftware/acid-pro-7/specifications#specifications
Frankly, that Apple’s software opens stuff from their mobile application (much about with an idea on the train home from work, import it at expand upon it at home) makes Acid actually look a lot more limited.
And what you still don’t get is that all I did was mention a tool, when other people were mentioning 500 USD for software and 800 USD for the computer that costs significantly less. Software which is known to work well. Software with an upgrade path to professional tools that can be found in studios worldwide. Software that I, myself, have used extensively and have enjoyed and found easy to use, my reasoning be that maybe I could pass this on.
And you got really, really upset because I dared mention Apple, a company you clearly have issues with and attempted to derail the thread just so we all knew about it.
My point about anti-Apple fanboys still stands and, well, with every post you are confirming it.
No, it’s a cautionary tale about change for the sake of change, exactly as I said. Apple took a solid, professional product…and broke it.
My issue is with drastically overpriced hardware. I believe I mentioned that I am currently working on a 24 track mixdown of a concert? I’m doing that on a Windows 7 HP laptop using the very inexpensive Vegas Pro 12 and a cheap external control surface, a Berhinger BCF-2000. That I bought for $100. I use this same hardware to accept the Firewire video feed from my Canon XH-A1 camera, and then take the SD cards from four Canon HF-S100 cameras. I sync all five of those cameras, edit the whole thing in Edius and output a finished, HD master. And I can, and have, done this in a day.
If I tried to do that with Final Cut Pro, I’d still be waiting while everything was transcoded to Quicktime to start editing.
BTW, I upgraded the laptop with a hybrid/SSD hard disk and 16 gigs of RAM. My next upgrade will be a 2 terabyte secondary hard drive, swapping out the optical drive. The bracket will cost me $44, and the drive will be $109. The laptop cost me $650 originally. I have no idea what Apple would charge me for a 16 gig, quad-processor laptop with separate OS and media hard drives. Do they even offer one?
Note: My experience with Final Cut Pro was two generations ago when a Apple fan friend loaned me a Mac Pro and Final Cut Pro. I tried to do one of my jobs on it, and found that if I wished to do a multicam edit, I had to take all the cameras and make a special multicam Quicktime file. They may have fixed it since that version - I can’t imagine that professionals would accept that for long.
You still keep wriggling around the fact that the hardware solution you proposed, a Mac Mini, is useful only when plugged in. To use your solution on the train, the OP would have to buy yet another expensive piece of Apple hardware, while the Windows Laptop I suggested would work on the train. No expensive iPad, thus no need to move from one to the other.
I’ve re-read the thread, and the OP came up with those numbers - which would necessarily exclude Apple hardware. The first mention of software was the free Audicaty. Which I also mentioned Todd Rundgren using, on his Macbook.
You’re an Apple fan. Fine. But let’s not pretend that there isn’t a large premium on Apple hardware, and any Macbook is a lot more expensive than a similarly powered Windows laptop.
What are you talking about? I’m a real person, not some straw man. I didn’t get the slightest bit upset. I just prefer reasonably priced hardware. I am not religious about computers. I use both PCs and Macs, and have in the past used Amigas, SGIs and other Unix boxes. For instance, I have a Mac Mini that I run Plex on, and it does a perfectly lovely job. Of course, I got it for free from a client, as Apple had invalidated that particular piece of hardware for the OS my client needed for his camera hardware (they tend to do that).
You are cordially invited to sulk. Or the Pit. Whichever.
That is not difficult, even with mp3.
Check out http://www.reaper.fm. It is a very powerful DAW with a great community around it. It also has excellent scripting support which should appeal to your inner geek. Lightweight and efficient and loads super fast.
Did I mention a personal license is only 60 bucks?
Actually, I downloaded Reaper in yet another attempt to get this cheap laptop to recognize my midi keyboard.
I was completely overwhelmed by the complexity of it - I don’t know half of the terms I ran ino in the 30 minutes I spend playing with it.
Maybe If I had some experience with the hardware equivalents of its functions, I could make sense of it.
But, yeah, it is well worth the money (assuming it doesn’t break every time you do anything even slightly out of the ordinary).