I’m looking for something that I can use to compose music, based on short audio samples - I want to be able to record a sample, then set up the tune in a piano roll or similar layout, and have the software handle the changes in pitch from the original sample.
I’ve got Audacity already - and this is great for recording and mixing, but not brilliant for arranging a whole song (no piano roll)
I’ve got Anvil Studio, which has a piano roll, but is MIDI synth only - no recorded samples.
I’ve got Dance Ejay - which is great at assembling sample loops into a full song, but not good at manipulating individual notes.
Ideally, I’m looking for something free or at least inexpensive. Windows or Linux is fine.
I forgot to mention, Winamp will play most tracker module file formats without needing to convert them to mp3 first. That made it my mp3 player of choice when I transitioned from my old Amiga to the PC… had a ton of old protracker and other format modules I still like to listen to.
My daughter has a Mac, but it’s a G3 iMac and won’t run GarageBand (it probably would run - it just detects the processor type and refuses to, apparently).
Go down to WH Smith and buy the latest copy of Computer Music magazine, just make sure you get the cover disk (£5-6).
On the disk are the elements of a pretty good computer studio - XT2 CM edition is pretty good, and the virtual instruments/effects are pretty sharp, too. You will get a sampler VSTi that may do what you require, too.
Or get RoseGarden on Linux for free, but that does not have the range of VST plugins available on Windows, and a whole lot less complexity.
Hmm - just reread your OP, and I am not entirely sure that I get what you are trying to achieve. Are your short samples single notes (in which case just set up your sample into a sampler, and drive it off a midi track/piano roll), or do you want to slice a phrase into notes, and then repitch the notes (say, record a melody line, then slice and dice into a harmony line with the same lyrics and phrasing). That is more complex, as you need to feed your source through a pitch to midi converter to determine the current note, then through a formant aware pitch shifter (driven off a midi track) to get the notes where you want them.
There are expensive harmonisers, but you could look at **G-Snap **, a freeware VST pitch tool similar to Autotune - I think you can control the target note from a midi track. Also, VisualVox VST or MadShifta may do the job better.
Thanks Si. I had real trouble explaining what I want to do, reworded the question several times and was still unhappy with the post.
What I want to do is what I eventually partly achieved in Audacity in making the soundtrack for my ‘Blup’ clay animation project (discussed in greater detail in the CS forum) - to wit:
-Record samples of my own voice (also possibly other sounds) - I already have several ways of doing this. Arrange those samples into loops using something hopefully as simple and visual as a piano roll (and have the software that does this handle the pitch shifts)
-Arrange those loops into a full track (I already have several ways of doing this)
So it’s only the middle bit I need - I want, I think, a playable/programmable instrument for recorded wave samples, that doesn’t require me to pitch shift all the samples for it for every note.
Fruity Loops (that’s the trial download site, the software’s site is here) is way, way, way overkill for what you want, and the demo might not even get the job done.
I had the demo of a previous version, and it allowed exporting to .wav or .mp3, but not saving of the original project files (think Word allowing you to export a .pdf, but not save as a .doc). It has a piano roll. I think it would do what you need.
But it’s way overkill, and the learning curve might be more time than you’re willing to invest (that’s why I said I “had” the demo).
I think I see (hear) what you want to do. You want to play a variety of sampled sounds from a track, but shift the pitch of those sounds as well.
Try Freecycle - it’s called a beatslicer. It will slice a longer sample either timewise or frequency wise into samples that can be used in a sampler - probably the Soundfont option will be the easiest. Then you can feed that into SFZ or QSynth - each note will be an element of the sample. Then use a pitch shifter to modify the pitch of the subsample.
You end up using two midi piano rolls - one to trigger the elements of the sample you want, the other to drive the pitch shifter. But both the tracks are the same time wise.
Or create several tracks - each track drives a sampler with a single source sample being pitched by the midi notes. This is a more traditional approach (Bass track, Piano track, Drum track, Lead track), but takes more coordination between tracks.
The sampler in Energy XT2 on the CM disk should do this, too, but I have not played with it enough (I get my half my study back as a studio this weekend, so space to play, time for fun).
