I just read (in a ten year old book) a reference to computer software that allows one to compose and orchestrate music at the computer. Presumably, this software also plays the music, too. Without investing in piano keyboards, and complicated hardware, is there such a thing - within a reasonable price range? Where do you folks find these things? I stay away from Best Buy, etc. because the saleskids there seem to only know about games and office productivity stuff. How can I find out more about this stuff?
I’ve bought very cheap versions of Cubase Lite and Voyetra Orchestrator, both of which allow you to compose music in midi format. Cubase is (or used to be?) a well-known program for professionals; Cubas Llite is apparently a simplified version.
You can do it with the standard alphanumeric keyboard and mouse only, but I would strongly suggest using a (piano style) keyboard to input the notes. That way it is much easier to quickly create a melody. I don’t recall the exact prices, but both were less than $ 50, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. Oh, and you can use them too for printing out the music, and also for transcribing music which you’ve got in midi-format!
I work at a K-12 school and the high school band teacher just bought a really cool keyboard/software combo. It is made my Creative and it is a alpha-keyboard with a piano keyboard at the bottom. The software was fairly simple to install and write music with. It’s called Prodikeys (http://www.prodikeys.com/) and costs about $100 plus they also threw in a new sound card. This was educational pricing, but I think it wasn’t much, if any, discount.
I had lots of fun playing around on the software when I installed it for him!!
That’s so cool. Do these programs actually allow you to orchestrate what your write and then hear it?
There are a couple that I have experimented with. At the top end there is Sibelius. As their site says “It helps you write, play, scan, edit and print scores, and even publish them on the Internet.” It is quite powerful but quite difficult to learn.
At the other end is Tabit . This is really designed for guitars and you end up with tablature instead of standard scores, but it’s much easier to learn.
You might go over to CNET and search on “music notation” to see what else there is.
…and to answer your last question, yes, they let you play the music back.
I just checked Voyetra: The cheapest MusicWrite version costs $ 29.95 (box).
And yes, you can edit, playback, and print out the music. It is nice, but if you want to create proper symphonic effects it may take lots of time. You would want to get the dynamics and timing just right. OTOH it is fun to do while you’re at it.
Fruity Loops is another program, though predominantly based on drum loops, that records and plays back orchestration. It even exports to wav and mp3.
I saw a program with Alan Alda on PBS which mentioned a composition program that was being done in either Harvard or MIT (I’ve forgotten which) and was free on the internet. I had problems after installing it (it didn’t run) and that was the end of it. Sorry, but its name escapes me.
Something gave my memory a jog. The program is called Hyperscore.
You can get it here.
You didn’t say, so I expect you are using Windows. If you have access to a Linux box, you might try http://www.all-day-breakfast.com/rosegarden/ It is (of course) free.
Is any of this software available for the Mac?
In case you’re looking for a fun (and free) program that will allow you to play with electronica, check out Jeskola Buzz. It’s a very cool little syth. Word is that a few successful electronica composers use Buzz to write their stuff. (I recall Moby saying he uses it, but I’m not certain about that.)
It should be possible to get Rosegarden to compile and run under Mac OS X, but I am not aware of a current port of it.
There really should be software available for the Mac for this kind of thing, though.
You can certainly get a range of PC composition software for BOTH PC and Mac. Some of the bigger names include Cubase and Logic.
I highly recommend you try and purchase “Computer Music” magazine from Future Publishing - each issue usually has a CD with free software on, so you should be able to at least try some things out for only the price of a magazine.
Their website is here:
Sorry - first line should have read:
“You can certainly get a range of composition software for BOTH PC and Mac.”
You should start by learning about MIDI. That’s the technology that everything you’re going to do is based on.
Once you learn about MIDI, then you need to know what your computer and sound card is capable of. If you have something like a Voyetra turtle beach Santa Cruz sound card, then you have a good basic general MIDI module that you can use for composing. You can buy soft-synth software to generate sound but stuff like that is expensive and it requires a lot of computing horsepower to run effectively. Sounds great, though.
Now that you have a working knowledge of MIDI and a sound source, you need to look for software. Cakewalk, Cubase, Logic, Finale have ‘lite’ versions and demos you can download and try out.
Harmony Central is also a good resource.