I need to get myself into some form of sound production for my games, although I have petteri to make some A class midi's I'd really like to begin to develop my own sounds, sound effects and that sort of thing.
If anyone can help me out by pointing me in a good direction e.g good programs, good tutorials etc...
I've used fruity loops a bit before, and i've heard cakewalk is rather good, but if anyone can help i would appreciate it.
thanks
There's a tutorial about how to write music for adventure games over at Adventure Developers :)
edit: pr'aps I shoulda left this in talk n chat ^_^
I found this tutorial to be quite helpfull:
Geoffkhan's Midi Tutorial - Adding Emotion to Flute Lines (http://herculeaneffort.adventuredevelopers.com/tutorials/tut1/tutorial.html)
You say you've already used FruityLoops, which is a good step in the right direction. There are a number of great programs out there for composing music. I do all of my composition with Reason (http://www.propellerheads.se) (My personal favorite). If you've already got FL studio (The software formerly known as FruityLoops) (http://www.flstudio.com), it's a good program, and the one I taught myself with before buying Reason. Also out there are Cakewalk (http://www.cakewalk.com/), as you mentioned, and their product SONAR (http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/default.asp) seems to be really worth it (My extremely talented colleague GeoffKhan composes with it).
The problem with the above, though, is that you'll have to be willing to shell out a good 300 dollars or more for these programs. They tend to be quite pricy, but it's worth the extra simoleans for the extra functionality. With one of said programs in hand, you may wish to venture also into the realm of Soundfonts (http://www.computermusic.co.uk/tutorial/soundfont/soundfont.asp), which can be obtained here and there on the web, at places like Sf2Midi (http://www.sf2midi.com/) or Soundfonts.it (http://www.soundfonts.it/).
A cheaper alternative would be a straight Midi sequencer without so many of the bells and whistles, like Quartet x2 (http://www.midisite.co.uk/Quartet_X2_Music_Studio.html), which I can't really say anything about, as I've never used it, but it's only 20 bucks, so it may be worth the investment. Way back in the day, AdLib sound cards used to come with a sequencer, though I can't quite remember the name. I had one in my old 386 when I was in Elementary/Junior High.
As far as free audio software, a quick look on the Big list of freeware programs (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=14371.0) thread yeilded a few programs that you may also want to take a look at: Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/), Anvil Studio (http://www.anvilstudio.com/) and Skale Tracker (http://www.skale.org/).
As far as composition is concerned, the links on the posts before mine are really worth a look, and I'll just add Falconmusic's (http://www.falconmusic.tk/) page as well, which I found in the Tutorials (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=600.0) thread. I've never taken a class in music theory but I'm a second rate composer. I'd like to say that it's not 'essential' to composition, but it certainly seems to help, and most of the truly 'good' composers on the forums will tell you the same. In the words of Blackthorne:
Quote from: Blackthorne on Tue 04/01/2005 06:24:27
learn music theory if you want to be good. If you don't wish to be good, ignore musical theory completly.
As sound effects and what-have-you are concerned, I'd suggest investing in a program like the late Cool Edit Pro (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Audio-Editors-Recorders/Cool-Edit-Pro.shtml) (Adobe recently assimilated the product and turned it into the much more expensive Adobe Audition (http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/main.html)) if you want to start recording things yourself - they are also handy for sampling and sound editing, which can be a nice alternative to using 'Sound Recorder'. I'd suggest trying out the 30 day trial of CEP2.1 and if you decide you're willing to dive into your wallet that deep, it's a reasonable investment. You can also, of course, always go to a site like Flashkit (http://www.flashkit.com/index.shtml) for public domain sounds, as long as you don't mind that someone, somewhere has used the very same sound.
Hope some of this is useful to you.
Wow, thanks!
Quite a lot of stuff to take in there. ATM i'm not looking to fork over any of my hard earned, and quickly depleating money so I may check out some of the free links. If I come into some wealth i.e i actually get a job :P, then i may buy something a bit better, but I like to check out all the alternatives before buying so it might be a while before i'm creating anything nice.
Anyway, I'll check out some of the links tonight probably.
Right on. Good luck in your composition and remember that before you buy anything, if and when you eventually do, download a trial version and see if it fits your personal composing style before you actually make the investment unless you have a lot of disposable income, which most of us don't, yknow?
hey m0ds, could you make an offline version of that music tutorial?
all my midis end up sounding like puzzle game music :/
like this one for example...
http://www.btinternet.com/~boyd1981/puzzling.mid