Beginner friendly Music Program?

Started by Racoon, Mon 20/01/2020 12:27:14

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Racoon

Hey there,

I would like to make some (simple) music for my games, but don't know where to start. So my question is: How did you guys get started?
Is there a (free) music program for creating music that is especially beginner friendly? So far, I only tried audacity, but its not really a tool for creating, but manipulating music.


cat

How do you want to create the music? Play an instrument and record it? Then Audacity is a good choice.

ManicMatt

I started on the first playstation, with music 2000, putting pre-made loops together. Super basic stuff. Not very helpful to you lol.

If it's on a Mac, Garage band is free. If it's PC, I imagine LMMS is still free. You might be able to find free music loops to use for them if you're not brave enough to compose notes yourself.

Cat, well that would be difficult to use Audacity if you wanted to create loops or record different instruments. if it's just an acoustic guitar and a mic then yeah I guess so.

Racoon

I tried using audacity like that, but I can't play many instruments that well and recording can be challenging. So I'm looking for a program where you can create sound without importing a record. But I agree, that otherwise audacity is a nice program for beginners.

Garage Band seems to be a really neat program, this is one of the few times I wish I had a Mac  (roll) LMMS was also in a list of free music programs that I found, have you already used it ManicMatt? Has anyone tried DarkWave?

ManicMatt

Darkwave would certainly be possible with LMMS, I made an album's worth of material before getting a Mac and Logic Pro X. You'd likely need to download free vst plug ins to get whatever synthesisers you want.

Here's a track I made in LMMS:

https://youtu.be/IhjpoTMcNXU

eri0o

#5
Racoon,

I can't really point a name, but more a category, have you looked into trackers? There are a bunch of cool free ones you can find around on itch.io and github if you browse. If you have already, pico8 ships a really simple one too, I don't remember if it can export it's files. Oh, and if you don't want to convert to ogg, which I still highly recommend, AGS supports playing from some tracker formats directly (at least I see Impulse Tracker here).

dactylopus

I got started with MuseScore, so I would recommend that one.  It's free and relatively simple.  Definitely worth checking out.

ManicMatt

Yeah Audacity is good for converting music files into ogg if the program you decide to use doesn't support that export.

Laura Hunt

Quote from: Racoon on Mon 20/01/2020 12:54:30
Has anyone tried DarkWave?

Quote from: ManicMatt on Mon 20/01/2020 13:02:41
Darkwave would certainly be possible with LMMS, I made an album's worth of material before getting a Mac and Logic Pro X.

Matt, he means DarkWave the DAW, not the music genre :P

I haven't used DarkWave so I can't say, but I would definitely like to recommend Bandlab Cakewalk. It's a professional DAW that used to be called SONAR and cost serious money, but it's been free for a couple of years already since Bandlab acquired it and has literally everything you'll ever need from a DAW. The only problem is that it's not exactly user friendly, but if you're looking to the long term and are willing to invest the time to get to grips with it, you'll have a program that you will never have to replace or switch over from because it can't meet your needs anymore.





ManicMatt


Danvzare

I'm not sure how useful you'll find it, but one of the simplest tools I found for making music was Bosca Ceoil.
It's very simple and easy to use, and perfect for inexperienced beginners. While giving you plenty of freedom to make your own music, instead of making randomized remixes of pre-made samples.

I also hear good things about MilkyTracker.
It may look complicated, but even I was able to make a terrible little song in a few minutes using it. And I both have no experience using it, and almost zero musical knowledge.

Racoon

Thanks for all sugestions and tips, I will look into it! :) Musescore and Bandlab are two programs that I did not have on my mind, that look promising. But I will also check out the other stuff you recommended.

cat

Quote from: ManicMatt on Mon 20/01/2020 13:54:56
Yeah Audacity is good for converting music files into ogg if the program you decide to use doesn't support that export.

I think the best way to convert to ogg is OggDrop. Can't get any easier.

ManicMatt

I haven't heard of that software, but if they already have Audacity, why add another software program to download?

cat

Because it's easier to use. I also have audacity, but if I only want to convert a file from wav to ogg, I just drag it on oggdrop and everything is done automatically.

Tampere

#15
I second every suggestion made here and also will also push MidiEditor as the simplest, most sensible midi editor you can get your paws on.

Gendgi

Oh I needed this! gonna check the programs mentioned since I can't play any kind of instrument ...  :-D Thanks!

arj0n

#17
Quote from: eri0o on Mon 20/01/2020 13:08:23
Oh, and if you don't want to convert to ogg, which I still highly recommend, AGS supports playing from some tracker formats directly (at least I see Impulse Tracker here).

Oh boy, Impulse Tracker!

I used Impulse Tracker (as successor of the great Scream Tracker) for a loooooong time and loved it.
Then I switched to SchismTracker, a free and open-source reimplementation of Impulse Tracker.
A big plus (if you're used to Impulse Tracker or Scream Tracker) is that SchismTracker works and looks almost exactly like Impulse Tracker.
It's available for Windows 32-bit, Linux 64-bit & macOS 64-bit. Highly recommended for Tracker Music freaks   ;)  :-D

SchismTracker can export songs to WAV, MWAV, AIFF & MAIFF format.

http://schismtracker.org/
https://github.com/schismtracker/schismtracker/wiki/Schism%20Tracker

SCHISMTRACKER:


IMPULSETRACKER:

Olleh19

FL Studio 11, they started changing so much in the later versions.
It's great you have a piano roll you program your stuff in then you throw it out in a playlist as a block of squares, then you have tools where you can cut and paste those squares around if you need too.
I think it's very easy to learn the basics in that program.

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