What composer software?

[Alchemy]

I've been using anvil and I was looking for how to pitch bend the notes. They say you have to upgrade but downloaded midis have pitch bend in there for anvil somehow. I bet I could copy and paste those notes and they would still be bent. I'm not sure what the note properties, settings, or notation makes the bend or if it's visibility is even possible. Anyway, one forum told a guy asking the same question to get FLstudio so I am. I assumed it was free but I guess not. I almost never download a free to try or pay program I know nothing about. I think that forum was old too. After maybe 20 min it's at 71% downloaded so I guess I'll look at it. I see many talk about cakewalk and Cubase. I did sorta download cakewalk or maybe it was just an add on or something but whatever it was it seemed too complicated. I don't want to put significant money in something unless I really know I want it. Anyone, what do you think?

 

[happyrat1]

Before you sign up for any test drives, go to youtube and watch any tutorials they have for the programs you are interested in.

DAWs and sequencers are complicated in nature and it's best to have an idea going in on how to use them rather than waste your free trial period trying to figure out the interface.

Cakewalk has an excellent series of full tutorials for their Music Creator line of programs, including all versions going back to 5.0

Gary

 

[Alchemy]

great idea
so far I don't know what to think. I didn't like when I closed it that "unless you pay 899.00 they're holding out on you." That's the super duper platinum super galactic whatever I suppose. I didn't find a staff and notes editing yet but I did play some midis and fiddled with reverb etc. I'd have thought they would have installed their own synthesizer though. I was still stuck with MS and coolsoft unless I physically plugged in my real synth

 

[happyrat1]

You were playing with Sonar.

The econobox version of Cakewalk is Music Creator 7

That sells for less than $100, comes with soft synths and has all the features you need unless you're scoring a $100 Million movie.

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

And try out this site.

http://www.magix.com/

They have an uncrippled older version available as a free download right now.

Gary

 

[johnny196775]

traction 4 is free and has pitch bend. It is kind of complicated but worth it as a DAW.

 

[Alchemy]

traction 4 is free and has pitch bend. It is kind of complicated but worth it as a DAW.

thank you, I'll look at it

 

[Alchemy]

And try out this site.

http://www.magix.com/

They have an uncrippled older version available as a free download right now.

Gary

you meant just the "plain" music maker? 698 mb download is a lot for free yes
btw, I looked for FL videos and watched a couple. It looks like they all use piano roll? Maybe that's easier? Never tried it. Anvil always opens with staff and notes and I never tried anything else.

 

[SeaGtGruff]

traction 4 is free and has pitch bend. It is kind of complicated but worth it as a DAW.

Version T5 is now free, too, as of last year. It has some additional features, so if you're still using T4 then you might want to upgrade to T5.

 

[Alchemy]

so far to me each of these looks like their own different universe

 

[Alchemy]

No one uses staff and notes?? Is that a fallacy? Looking through youtubes I don't see any. Only anvil has that? Am I hindered compared to piano roll? Did I get left in the dark ages? I don't really read music, I "decipher" it. It would seem relearning as piano roll shouldn't be a big deal but do I have to? Should I? Yikes!

 

[happyrat1]

If you're looking to work with staff and notes then you're really looking for scoring software.

Though all the ones previously listed usually have some sort of score view, these are among the top score software out there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scorewriters

https://musescore.org/

http://musicmasterworks.com/

http://www.notation.com/

http://www.finalemusic.com/

http://www.avid.com/sibelius

Gary

 

[Alchemy]

Now that looks more homie even though I never in my life spent much time "at home." I'm still in infancy enough I could switch over to piano roll before I get more into it. Is that what most use in here? I know this forum doesn't like to criticize methods and tools but maybe I could ask in a way like "why wouldn't you want to use score composing as opposed to piano roll?"
I'd need those scores for midi of course. Anyway, I'm back to little time mode so it's probably going to be a while before I decipher all this.

 

[happyrat1]

They all have their advantages.

Loops and percussion are easier to edit in piano roll format.

Live record mode works well in piano roll.

Meanwhile detailed edits and cleanups are easily performed in note edit or score mode and sometimes MIDI Code list mode.

Truth be told that's how my workflow goes and Cakewalk Music Creator supports all those modes.

Gary

 

[Alchemy]

AHA! You made a preference .

You were playing with Sonar.

The econobox version of Cakewalk is Music Creator 7

That sells for less than $100, comes with soft synths and has all the features you need unless you're scoring a $100 Million movie.

Gary

On that comment not sure what you were referring to but I was still talking about the FLstudio I downloaded. I did try a cake walk of some kind in the past but it seemed too complicated or something. I also downloaded music maker yesterday. I could not find scores on either of those and music maker has my security system in it's device list and freezes it every time I open it and I could not find a way to get it out of there. I did watch a video on traktion 4 also. I may revisit cakewalk..

 

[happyrat1]

Just highlight a track or multiple tracks and select view and select Note View or right click on any track and do the same.

It ain't rocket science but it ain't exactly a publishable score either.

Gary

 

[Fred Coulter]

There ARE DAWS with notation. You don't need to use Finale or Sibelius. Those two program's main purpose in life is to create publication quality scores. Other DAWS exist who use notation as one of their editing modes. I know that Pro Tools has notation. I find it hard to believe that other programs don't. Logic Pro added notation back in the day when it was called Notator (which was the follow-up to Creator).

Notation based editing is a requirement for me to buy a DAW.

 

[Alchemy]

There ARE DAWS with notation. You don't need to use Finale or Sibelius. Those two program's main purpose in life is to create publication quality scores. Other DAWS exist who use notation as one of their editing modes. I know that Pro Tools has notation. I find it hard to believe that other programs don't. Logic Pro added notation back in the day when it was called Notator (which was the follow-up to Creator).

Notation based editing is a requirement for me to buy a DAW.

I was hoping you would chime in. I suspected you would be pro score .

 

[SeaGtGruff]

Acoustica Mixcraft is a relatively affordable commercial DAW (as DAWs go) that includes a notation view. I'd say it's about on a par with Anvil Studio's notation view.

There are also free notation programs, such as NCH Crescendo, Finale NotePad, Forte Free, and MuseScore.

As long as you don't mind a multi-program solution, you can use a free notation program to do the initial scoring, and export it to a MIDI file. Then you can load the MIDI file in a DAW for more sophisticated editing of things like Control Change events, and export it back to a MIDI file. Or you could do it the other way around.

My philosophy is, don't limit yourself to a toolbox that contains only one tool (even if it's supposed to be "the Swiss Army Knife of tools"). Instead, have a toolbox that contains several types of tools, and multiple versions of each type!

 

[Alchemy]

Lots of great info all around !
Thanks guys!
I'll probably give everything a good look.