Composers: What do you use?

Maybe I should give FL Studio 9 a try. Every I know that writes game music uses it, though I can't imagine it being all that different from Logic.

edit: On further inspection, it seems the main difference is that FL Studio comes with generators and auto-creation stuff, so the composer has to do less ... actual composing. Is this true, or am I misunderstanding something?

No, you're right, it does take less understanding on actual composition. However, there are aspects that require at least a general knowledge of theory to really get the full use out of the program. The one thing I have a hard time with is that it uses those step notation things.... I prefer just a standard staff than what it provides, but I usually weasel my way around it.

On further inspection, it seems the main difference is that FL Studio comes with generators and auto-creation stuff, so the composer has to do less ... actual composing. Is this true, or am I misunderstanding something?

The generators tend to generate the shapes of the sound waves. Not the notes themselves, much less melodies. They're more along the lines of synthesizers or samplers.

Started using Renoise again.
It's badass.

Sibelius is really good for orchestral compositions imo. But it does cost quite a bit of money, so probably isn't the best choice. My school teaches composition so I'm really lucky.

I always use Cubase 5.1. It's kind of very elaborate, so that's a bit of a con for me (I only write some simple songs with my little keyboard), but it's actually the only thing I've ever tried, because my brother used to use it a while back. But for what I want to do, it's perfect. The only thing is that I'm not that rythmic, and Cubase doesn't correct me in any way.

I've been using PXTone, made by the developer of Cave Story. It has a piano roll interface and is great for that retro-chiptune sound, but you can also use .wav samples, so it's not limited to simple waveforms. There is a bit of a learning curve though.

I use and recommend Reaper. It has a no-bulls*** interface and doesn't use a lot of memory. All my music is done with Reaper.

Personally I tried many many music maker things.

I loved working with Tabit ( thanks to Roph for the help ), FL studio, Ableton live, MilkyTracker, Nanoloop and of course LSDJ running on Gameboy.
I also play the guitar, I got an Epiphone DR-12.

I started out using Acid music but then later got myself a copy of guitar pro 5. i've since then upgraded to the new guitar pro 6. i love guitar pro for its easy to use interface and realistic sounds, escecially if you use the soundbank installs. it can also export to midi or wav formats, so you can then import to rpgmaker. only downside is that its not free and harder to use if you have no music experiance. though if your that inexperianced and trying to use guitar pro, your better off with music lessons. other than that, though its well worth the money.

I use sibelius for the score writing and in the same software the East West libreries (Orquestal Gold, Choirs, Basses, Stormdrum, etc), then i mix and edit the .wavs in cool studio.

Sibelius, FL Studio, and Guitar Pro.

I love FL Studio cause it's easy

I like FL Studio because I can get a wide range of synths out of it.

In Sibelius, I usually make two scores for every piece I write; one for presentation and one for playback, for the sole reason that Sibelius doesn't always interpret sounds the way I WANT IT TO.

Oh thats so true, for example, the percusions, i also make two scores, one for score and other for edit, its a mess the edit version.

I used Guitar Pro for 5 years aprox before sibelius... old friend guitar pro

Real necropost from me, but it's a sticky.

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone knew of any app worth buying or downloading that can be used to compose on the iTouch with some sort of playback. I would jizz myself if they had Tabit for the iTouch (alas, no such thing exist from what I know), but standard notation or anything would be appreciated. Options of multiple tracks with the playback would be nice, but I just want something for writing basic melodies or chord progressions when I'm not at home since I can't "hear" things perfectly and write them down just on paper without hearing them back and making sure they're right.

Well, since I'm a new composer here, I'll add my 2 cents:

I use Cakewalk Sonar x1 Producer.  For years I used their Cakewalk's Homestudio 2, and it was great for me; that as an upgrade from an old midi editor called WinJammer Shareware (the slickest little midi editor I ever found on the internet, Winjammer taught me the basics of music... ).  Unfortunately, I lost my install disc for Homestudio 2 and had to upgrade.  Happily enough though, the upgrade to Sonar X1 Producer was worth it, the program is slick, and has great sample/ digital instrument quality packaged with it.  I was so used to my old shortcuts and workflow though, learning the new program was kinda difficult.

To edit audio files I'm in love with Cool Edit Pro 2, which I guess was purchased by Adobe years ago and became Audition?   In any case, it's my favorite simple tool for cleaning up beginnings, endings, post amplification/fading, converting to MP3,etc, also for cleaning up sfx.  Somehow I got it to work today on Windows 7, when I first installed it on my new computer the audio engine crashed, but it works suddenly! (YAY!)  I also still use Winamp to dump to Wav/Mp3 or to add ID3 tags when I need a tool that's old and reliable.

(Note: to run Sonar x1, I purchased a simple usb soundcard the cakewalk UA-1G.  No onboard MIDI in/outs, but works great with my system, little to no latency.  However, the headphones monitor has a significant amount of background noise/static that actually sparks my ears a little, for some reason).

Personally I use Cubase 6.

I use Renoise and good old Adobe Audition.

I STILL don't have a damn friggin clue how to play guitar :C I use Finale, Logic, and ProTools. I used to use Reason as well for more rhythmic-based stuff, and had issues with the upgrade. I do wish to use it again someday. I had to learn mixing in Cubase for work.

Reason did kind of fall off the face of the Earth, didn't it? I certainly have no desire to use it anymore.

Reason crippled itself by being limited to MIDI. If I were okay with that level of restriction, I'd still be using TabIt.

This is as good a place to ask as any:

Spoiler for:

I collect / rip sample sets from old games, primarily on the SNES. Lately I've been going through, personally perfecting loop points, tuning etc, and setting them up as templates in FL Studio.

Would anyone get use out of them if I posted em here? So far I have:

-------------------
Earthbound
Mega Man 7
Mega Man X
Mega Man X2
Mario Paint
Super Mario World
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy VI
-------------------

I have plans to work on templates for:

-------------------
[Capcom CPS2 Sound Chip]
F-Zero
Donkey Kong Country
Donkey Kong Country 2
Kirby's Dreamland 3
Kirby Superstar
Super Metroid
??????????????????????
-------------------

So basically you install the samples to a specific place and then you put the templates in another place and boom, you can start writing music in a style from a favorite game instantly.

Go for it, man.

Where do you get your rips? Or rather, how do you do it? Zophar.net has a few rips that are pre-set as soundfont files, that can be easily loaded in to any sampler for any DAW, but those 6 have been the only 6 on the site for a decade. Having .sf2s is so damn convenient, I wish I had them for other games, too. Maybe if I knew how to make them, I'd  be convinced to do it myself (and maybe share the results).

If you know how / want to make the SF2 files, I'll gladly give you my samples. As for where I get them, I found a BUNCH by pure luck on youtube, put up by one of the guys at OC Remix. That was the bulk of my start. Then, I used a program called SPCTool to rip a bunch more (they come out with loop points already set and everything most of the time, but sometimes a bit of data ends up missing). Sadly, SPC tool is old and tends to crash a lot, but it does the job right and without much hassle.

On samples without loop points, I have to zoom WAY in to the file's waveform and set the loop points myself which is an...ear bleedy experience. But, it works. I use the Edison plugin in FL studio to accomplish that, then save the sample from there.