Composers: What do you use?

FL is easy. Probably too easy. But I find it the best to express my stuff.

I've always wanted to compose my own music... which program is best for starting out?

Depends on your type of moozik too you know, i use tabit, and its not so tough, you just need sense and a keyboard, you just gotta enter numbers.

You can use Tabit(its bout maybe 1 mb big and all the songs are in kb's but are good), FL(49mb or so, never made a good song, but they are 3-4mb), Finale(197 mb, but it's worth it too you know, it kinda cool, dunno bout songs) and then stuff like Cakewalk etc which i never used.

Fruity Loops can be good if you get good at it, but it eats up way too much RAM.

He's right you know, the 49 mb is just the downloader, it's kinda big

Fruity Loops can be good if you get good at it, but it eats up way too much RAM.

>.> I have no problems with FL... but meh. There's plenty to choose from Amalgamadora!

That's because you like it and are used to it, but for the one's who haven't it can be a little ram problem, so if you got less space, then ....well  it's gonna be a problem

No, RAM. meaning it eats up resources while its running. I used to use it a lot though.

 

With a fairly large song open :3

As you can see here the use of RAM / CPU is simply people not bothering to turn Smart Disable on, although Silver wins... just showing that the usage isn't THAT heavy. Compare it to MSN and it isn't that much. Oh and the project I loaded was mad with effects and used three VSTs that tend to take up CPU.

Wow, that actually uses up more CPU and RAM than Finale. Unless you use GPO or something with it. But still, that's worse than I thought, and Finale is a resource hog. It might not be that high when compared to other programs one might use, but for a music program, it's pretty bad.

Wow, that actually uses up more CPU and RAM than Finale. Unless you use GPO or something with it. But still, that's worse than I thought, and Finale is a resource hog. It might not be that high when compared to other programs one might use, but for a music program, it's pretty bad.

Hmm... consider the fact that is has to create everything realtime, like the effects/synths?

I think it has a lot to do with Fruity Loops using samples, and Finale, Cakewalk, and Tabit using midi.

Oh yeah... FL don't use MIDI to my knowledge. Although it can if you really bother to bother. Samples? That isn't really what you use in FL (unless a synth decides to mess up upon render, happened a few times with Wasp XT and the solution is to sample that synth on it's own and yeah... *shuts up*).

@Halo: It was pretty heavy with effects to get things to sound right though but I'll stop talking about it now. We all know FL is CPU-heavy well... apparently (according to others anyway and in comparison to Finale / TabIt / WHATEVER).

FL Uses ALOT more. Ataraxy's screenshots only show the RAM usage, not VM usage (virtual disk memory thing =o). It's hidden in task manager by default.

Yeah, FL uses a lot, because it applies effects and everything else in realtime.

@Halo: It was pretty heavy with effects to get things to sound right though but I'll stop talking about it now. We all know FL is CPU-heavy well... apparently (according to others anyway and in comparison to Finale / TabIt / WHATEVER).

If I were writing a song in Finale using samples instead of MIDI, it'd use at least twice the resources FL does (assuming I'm writing a polyphonic song) But that (in my case) has more to do with Garritan and those other libraries, rather than Finale. Finale bare-bones uses less resources than FL, but Garritan alone requires 1 GB of RAM (to run a full orchestra), and Virtual Drumline 2 requires 2 GB to run a full ensemble.

I started using Noteworthy Composer, which is better than most people think. If you can read standard notation anyway. Once you get the hang of it, it's easy and you can do almost anything you'd need to for a MIDI with it.

Now I use Finale, which does everything. Even if you can't read notation, you can just write in tabs, or a combination of both, or whatever. I'm actually teaching myself to read tabs this way: just write in notation, and then copy and paste it into tabs, and then I know what the notation would be if it were written in tabs. And you can do the pitch bends and modulation on instruments, like mentioned before. It also plays the music in a certain style, for example Rock. It will then play the song with all the

Huh...I play classical guitar, played violin and viola and played a little piano, so I can pretty much read everything, plus tabs.
And I was looking into finding something to make MIDIs, what would be the best to start with?

TabIt and Noteworthy Composer are both excellent in that beginners can use them easily and that experts have the ability to do whatever they need in them. Of course, one is only for tabs, and one is only for standard notation, so you'll have to choose.

Cakewalk is a pretty decent choice, but I don't know much about that. You'd have to ask Holkeye.

I have CakeWalk, but I thought it was only for recording.

I think I'll have to go with noteworthy because I'm better with reading staff, than tabs.

EDIT: I also have Adobe Audition, I think the newest version, but that's just for recording.

AA is quite a nice tool.

Just looking at FL7, I'm drooling over the Love Philter and Edison and the addition of a nice Smart Disable for generators is nice too. You can make MIDIs with FL also, which uses something similar to "standard-notation" (I've always called it the musical stave). In which you have a piano to it's side. The similarity should be obvious.

Making MIDI drums in it is easy as it tells you what every note/key is. Of course, CakeWalk and any MIDI specific thing is like that anyway? ?_?

It doesn't matter what you choose, everyone prefers something different. =]

FL... 

Ok, thanks! I know, AA rocks. (I didn't keygen it)

I'll try noteworthy.

But I'm not really good with anything other than guitar, I have perfected guitar, so I think it'll be hard for me to do other instruments.

But does it show the note? Or the string/key? Because if it shows the note, I'm good to go.

But does it show the note? Or the string/key? Because if it shows the note, I'm good to go.

How do you mean?

And FL is nowhere near anything like standard notation. It's about as similar to standard notation as a brick.

FL probably uses the map system, where it's basically a huge excel sheet of notes and positions in time and you just like mark it with the pencil tool, lol.

FL probably uses the map system, where it's basically a huge excel sheet of notes and positions in time and you just like mark it with the pencil tool, lol.

But does it show the note? Or the string/key? Because if it shows the note, I'm good to go.

How do you mean?

And FL is nowhere near anything like standard notation. It's about as similar to standard notation as a brick.

Is noteworthy like a sheet of staff, and you mark which note you want with a pencil? Or something like that? Just wondering....

It's staves, yes. And it's much faster to enter notes with the keyboard. You just pick which unit you want (quarter, eighth, etc.) move the little marker thing where you want it and press enter. In many ways it works like Microsoft Word. Well, after some experience with it, you may notice that.

Like any music program, I'm sure, it's pretty slow-going at first, but just keep at it.