Do you make music using the computer?

[PartisanEntity]

I am wondering, those musicians on Jamendo, say for example in the ambient genre. Do they make the music using real instruments, or is most/all of it made by mixing tracks together and adding effects?

I would be interested in playing around with music creation software for fun and am wondering what the possibilities/limits are.

--and yes I know my questions are naive but I think you get what I mean :)

[stijngysemans]

This isn't quit ambient music that I make but here is my myspace: http://www.myspace.com/stijngysemans

Created using Reason.

[PatrickMay16]

Certainly, I do. I make a lot of music using Rosegarden, timidity, audacity, and fluidsynth, in linux. And Wine is handy for running small little audio programs that don't have linux versions.

Some examples of what I've made can be found here: http://patrickmay2000.dmusic.com/

Most of that stuff was done using linux.

[Tundro Walker]

I used to use Sonic Foundry's (now owned by Sony) Acid Pro and Sound Forge series of software. Problem is, it's Windows-only, and was expensive (I only bought it because I got a really good deal on it.) It crashed a bit, though...annoying since I was using v4.0, and later v5.0.

Much Microsoft, it had a really annoying registration process. As in, you HAD to register. Basically, what I bought should have gotten me Acid Pro (loop-based music program), Sound Forge (sound editor), and Vegas Lite (video/sound sync program.) However, you had to register each one separately, or they stayed in a hobbled, state. For instance, Sound Forge...you could open up sounds in it, but couldn't save your changes UNLESS...you guessed it...registered the stupid thing.

Really ticked me off one time, because I had to re-install, and didn't have a modem/internet connection. So, I had to call to register. They gave me the third degree on the phone, asking why I had to reinstall, etc. I finally spoke with a manager and gave them a piece of my mind. Seriously, you pay $400 for some software, you don't expect to be forced to register it, and you don't expect it to be hobbled until you do.

Anyways, that's beside the point...

There's some program called Buzz Tracker (www.buzzmachines.com (http://www.buzzmachines.com/)), which supposedly can make some good music. A guy who makes music under the name "The Hamster Alliance (http://www.hamsteralliance.com/)" uses it, and he's done some really good stuff with it.

The good..

Program is free
Easily expandable using modulesThe bad...

Windows-based (que lastima!)
Not sure if WINE can run it

[jyba]

I've been trying to learn how to use Csound recently (it's in the Universe repository). It's a steep learning curve and I haven't finished going through all the tutorials yet but it seems to have limitless potential.

You create your own instruments and effects and then create a text based score for them to play. Here's a page with some examples of what it can produce:

http://freaknet.org/martin/audio/csound/index.en.html

[Tomosaur]

I make music - I do most of my own mixing on Ubuntu (since I tend to play the instruments myselves and record them.). All I personally 'really' need is a wave editor, and Audacity does this fairly nicely. However, I've recently been playing with synths and sequencers and so far haven't found anything I 'really like'. That could be, however, because I just haven't had time to check everything out thoroughly (it's the exam period, unfortunately). Rosegarden looks very promising, but I'm very interested in making my own synth sounds using some of the midi stuff available, but I'm afraid I'll need to take time out to learn everything I need.

On a related note - I'm having some real problems with Jack. If I use Jack to route audio and such - then the final sound is horribly muffled. It sounds like it's compressing everything into a very narrow frequency band, and in all honesty, it's getting on my nerves, since I can't seem to figure out what's causing it. I've messed around with various Jack settings, but to no avail. If anyone has any ideas on how to fix the problem, I'd be very grateful.

[Tom Mann]

I'm getting really excited about an addition to ubuntustudio (I'm using the ISO install off their site) call Wired (http://wired.epitech.net/), along with Ardour 2 of course :)

[Tundro Walker]

Groovy!

Thanks for doing this thread. I never would have noticed all the cool music production software in the repo's if folks hadn't mentioned it.

[OffHand]

With electronic music there are no limits.

[orange2k]

I use Energy XT2 to make music. Go ahead and try it - it is on Linux now, too!!!
The demo is fully functional, but doesn`t let you save projects. The full version costs only 39 Euros.
www.energy-xt.com

[PartisanEntity]

Thanks for all the info so far, I started this thread, because I am interested to know how groups such as Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada for example make their music, and how large a role computer software plays.

Of course they do not make music using traditional instruments, most of it as far as I can tell is the mixing of bits of sounds with the addition of effects.

Which made me wonder whether the audio tools available in Ubuntu and Linux can allow someone with sufficient knowledge and talent to make music of similar quality and style.

[Chrisj303]

With electronic music there are no limits.

Yes there are - your CPU.

[OffHand]

Which made me wonder whether the audio tools available in Ubuntu and Linux can allow someone with sufficient knowledge and talent to make music of similar quality and style.
The answer is no. You would need a Windows PC or a Mac to do that.

[Magnes]

I make music on my computer but I use Windows to do it (the only reason I have it). I'm going to test Ubuntu Studio some day and try to switch at least a part of my studio on linux (so I don't have to bother with the unstableness of Windows and the strange MSDN-AA EULA on which I have my Windows copy) - but the big STOP for now are VSTi instrument which I use a lot.

[xyz]

I sure do...how else could I afford a "recording studio"?
...except for the voice, some live drums but not much, a little keyboard.
check my sig if you care to.

[ReiKn]

Thanks for all the info so far, I started this thread, because I am interested to know how groups such as Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada for example make their music, and how large a role computer software plays.

Of course they do not make music using traditional instruments, most of it as far as I can tell is the mixing of bits of sounds with the addition of effects.

Which made me wonder whether the audio tools available in Ubuntu and Linux can allow someone with sufficient knowledge and talent to make music of similar quality and style.

My bet would be that the mentioned artists use still a lot of hardware synthesizers.. so if you've got the right hardware and the sufficient knowledge how to use them and appropriate linux software it would be possible. Even with sticking only to software and samples I wouldn't go so far as saying it would be impossible in linux but possible in windows or mac.

[Bungo Pony]

On a related note - I'm having some real problems with Jack. If I use Jack to route audio and such - then the final sound is horribly muffled.

I have problems with Jack as well. The playback is horribly distorted. It's sad because I was REALLY looking forward to using Ubuntu Studio to replace my Windows setup. I tried getting Jack to work with no success. If I don't use Jack, the sound is fine.

I really can't tell you how much I hate Jack after all of this. I wish there was a better alternative. Until then, I'll keep using Windows.

[jiminycricket]

ya'll filed bugs about JACK I hope! :)

[stmiller]

Thanks for all the info so far, I started this thread, because I am interested to know how groups such as Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada for example make their music, and how large a role computer software plays.

Aphex uses Reaktor 5 mainly, with tons of other stuff. There are many interviews with him out there, that get pretty technical. He was making electronic stuff long before software though. He would use all old-school analog synths and program that stuff himself in the synth. That guy is a computer genius.

I'm a full time commercial music composer as my day job, and use Csound and Audacity quite a bit. Just open up a A440 sine wav in Cecilia and mess around with the settings to dabble in Csound as a starter. It can do some crazy stuff!

I used random things from Csound, Reaktor, and Audacity to create this intro for a tv station:

http://www.scottmillercomposer.com/music/05-News_Intro.mp3

[stmiller]

Oh and check out these resources, for many people into Linux and audio:

http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/
(good mailing list)

and these:

http://linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-user/

http://music.columbia.edu/pipermail/linux-audio-dev/

[lapsey]

I used to.... until I started using Linux.

I don't have a midi system or any other expensive equiment but I would make stuff using fruityloops. Quite powerful, that was.

Now even just getting LMMS (unworkable, badly designed beta for years now) is really difficult. Tried using one of the JACK-based distros but that wouldn't even work out of the box on a live CD! Pure: Dyne is a joke.

It's pretty depressing.