Category: Jam Session
Hi guys,
So, I'm taking a music production class in high school for an elective. now, with that out of the way, does anyone know of any music production softwares? I heard audacity is good but... just need some more oppinions. thanks
Are you using a Mac or a PC? Audacitiy is decent, though limited in what it can do. It is pretty accessible though and I for one have created some pretty decent projects onit. Garage Band if you're using a Mac is also good. It also comes with actual virtual instruments, which is a nice touch, especially if you have a Midi Keyboard. You can also get itfor your Idevice of choice, and, especially for a beginning class in production, it would probably do you well, even if it maybe isn't as accessible as it used to be. Protools is industry standard for the MAC, but it's also pretty expensive. Quite accessible as I hear it,t hough I've never tried it myself. Reaper is fantastic, and is my Digital Audio WOrkstation (DAW) of choice. It's $60, but has an unlimited trial period where you can use all features free for as long as youlike. Good for trying it out and evaluating. It has third party Add-ons that make it quite accessible. It's by far the best bang for your buck, even if you pay for it outright.
I'm using a pc. and... it's got to be free... because I have no money. haha.
yeah, audacity seems cool. wait, reaper? ooo, might look into that!
Not familiar with reaper. Is that PC or Mac? Personally, I like GoldWave combined with MultiQuence. Both have very long free trial periods, probably long enough to get you through that class. GoldWave is stereo, or 5.1, and unless you need true multi-track capability, is your best choice. Totally accessible.
And if you're doing music production or really anything, multi-track capability will be really helpful. It's why I've never bothered with Goldwave personally. Reaper is on the PC and Mac. Again it's not free, but it's full-featured trial is pretty much infinite. It does have a steap learning curve, but it's got a great free pdf manual as well as a ton of user forums, blogs and tutorials.
I should point out, the really big advantages reaper has over audacity are its ability to have multiple items on one track which you can move around, and live effects monitoring. Essentially this means if you put an effect on a track, you can hear how it sounds in real-time. Audacity meanwhile only lets you preview it after you've selected your settings. Placing an effect on a track in Audacity also perminently changes the track, where as with reaper, it's easily undone if you don't like it.
Oooh I'm getting garage band as soon as I can afford it.
thanks Bill and Remy. your help is appreciated. I've now got audacity. and yeah, messed with reaper but... rofl... anyways, thanks
Glad it helped. Good luck!
Yeah, reaper's not really a beginner's best start perhaps. Heck I love it, and even I get overwhelmed by it at times.
lol. I'm trying out goldwave next just because I can. haha
question: do you need a goldwave add on for NVDA or no?
Does Garage Band have a virtual Hamond Organ?
Gold Waves works with all the screen readers. JAWS, NVDA, System Access. It is easies to use if you learn all the keyboard shortcuts. They are listed within Help.
But is it worth using if you're serious about audio production and mixing? My first piece of software was Soni Sound Forge, which is a single track editor much like Goldwave if I'm not mistaken. It was actualy quite accessible, but its nature as a single track editor certainly makes multi tracking very difficult. My very first project was done with it, and while it was certainly very decent for a first attempt, it definetly had limitations. I imagine Goldwave is a decent starting point though.
Gold Wave is also an excellent finishing software. I do my multitrack recording in MultiQuence, then once I have the mix just right, I bring it into Gold Wave for the pollishing, final editing and packaging.
here's another question. does it work with a midi keyboard? I've tried with reaper but didn't work for shit. tried it with audacity but nothing. unless I'm doing that wrong...
I don't know, never tried it. I'll have to chek.
No idea about goldwave, but reaper works fantastically with a MIDI keyboard. The trick with reaper is making sure each track is set to record from your MIDI keyboard, not whatever microphone you've selected. I use a midi keyboard all the time in Reaper.
ah, thanks. :)