Music on my mac. How?
Ok, I'm thinking about getting into digital music. What would I need to start out? This will just be a hobby, so I don't need high end (or even medium end. Or is that middle??) I guess, I'd like to know what the bare minimum would be for a complete newbie. Is there any free software that I could just try out before dumping loads of cash? What type of system would I need? (I hope you tell me that a new iMac would work 
) Any recs would be great. TIA.
-t
) Any recs would be great. TIA.-t
Comments
<strong>You mean digitally recording some instrument(s) that you play, or creating the music entirely within your Mac (using software synths and/or software samplers and/or software effects processors)?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Creating the music entirely on my mac. Eventually, I'd like to record stuff that I play, but until I get good enough to be worth the HD space, I'd like to see what I can do with my computer.
Reason is a "virtual electronic studio" allowing you to emulate, in software, the function of a whole variety of hardware electronic music devices.
You can get it most places for $279 or so, and it will allow you to tinker & play around, and it will also grow with you to whatever extent you desire. You could create entire albums of material with nothing but Reason and a CDR drive!
You will probably also want to get a sound editor. And for this I would check out ProTools Free, which the cool gut has already mentioned. Great program for simple multitrack editing. And best of all, its free
And the suggested retail for Reason may be $399 but it's available at Guitar Center, Zzounds.com, 8thstreet.com, and audiomidi.com for $279.
<strong>But I have a hard time saying that every synth and effects unit I own is now obsolete due to Reason.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Your deff right about that, beginners and hobbyists can get away with just using reason, but for pro you can't rely on just reason. Just like final cut pro you still need a high quality camera to get pro results. I just meant it as it is replacing more and more gear every day, not all. Lots of people are on the whole soft synth thing but I still think nothing beats a good hardware synth. Reason excels as the tool u can use to bring stuff together in a way that makes making music fun and inspirational. But imo you still need to bring sounds into it and master the tracks outside to get the best results.
Sorry I wasn't being clear, I just love this app so much that i get carried away sometimes
Now you can just tell somebody "Buy Reason" and they can get started and see if it's something they're really into. And it's not like it's just beginner's software. I know a lot of fairly established musicians who are using it.
There are so many great audio apps for Mac, to the point that we can actually argue about which is best! Doesn't happen very often, except perhaps with browsers.
You can get a lot of decent stuff without paying a single dollar, too - there's a bunch of good audio freeware (Check VersionTracker), many software developers offer free demos or "lite" versions (See [b]the cool gut[b]'s post), and a bunch of industry standard apps.
I play my own stuff and use a bunch of different apps to record and put it together. I like <a href="http://www.bias-inc.com/"; target="_blank">Bias Inc.</a>'s products a lot, and Peak is now OS X compatible along with a couple of Bias' plug-ins. Peak LE is only $99.
I used to use Digital Performer a lot, but switched to <a href="http://www.emagic.de"; target="_blank">Logic Audio</a> a couple of years ago. Version 5 was supposed to be out (in both OS 9 and OS X flavors) by the end of January, but there appears to have been some kind of hiccup which currently goes unexplained on the website.
Digidesign's ProTools is excellent if you can afford the hardware, though I see there's now a "low end" portable solution in the <a href="http://www.digidesign.com/products/mbox/"; target="_blank">Mbox</a>. I'll reserve judgment until I can play with it in a store, but it looks like a nice digital replacement for my old four track.
Even though Digidesign makes a version of Pro Tools for Windows, I don't know a single person who uses it.
And of the various pro-level audio software companies, there are several (such as Emagic and Digital Performer) that either make exclusively-Mac programs, or at least emphasize their Mac versions over their Windows alternatives. Steinberg seems to be increasingly PC-centric, even as their status in the pro audio world begins to slip. And the only PC-only audio software company, Cakewalk, is seen as the only big software company that isn't REALLY pro-level.... plus they just released their first Mac product.
Extremely cool Mac-only progams abound, products like Metasynth and Xx and Max/MSP and Pluggo and Argiephontes Lyre and Thonk and too many others to mention.
The PC world has Sound Forge and ACID, two very nice programs from Sonic Foundry (and the only reason I keep a good digital audio card in any of my PCs), but that's about it. And there are plenty of Mac alternatives to Sound Forge (a simple stereo wav editor & processor), and several alternatives to ACID are finally emerging (like Ableton Live, which I just purchased).
It's a truly exciting time for audio geeks who are also Mac users. Now we just need OSX drivers for our audio interfaces, new OSX versions of DP and Logic, and we'll be all set!
Good to see Moogs? hero getting a mention, too.
Take the drum interface of Reason - editing one drum at a time in a loop? Give me a break! I takes me like 4 or 5 times longer to develop a good 4 bar loop in Reason as it would for me using the drum editor in Cubase. Plus, with the amount of free VSTi's available, you can probably develop a similar set of tools around Cubasis or the lower-end Logic programs for a fraction of the price. Then when you want to get more heavily into recording, you will already be familiar with the interface rules and tendencies when you want to upgrade.
Now it's time for me to look for some advice:
I've been using Cubase for about 4 years now, and I'm still stuck at 4.1 (which I still really like). I've considered switching to Logic, but my only experience with the demo of Logic 4.x was kind of frustrating. Is there a tutorial out there for Cubase users wanting to make the switch? Do you think it's actually worth it?
<strong>I actually don't really like Reason that much. I find the interface too cumbersome and real-world modelled. I like computer audio BECAUSE it has gone past the interface problems of the 808, 4 tracks, and Ensoniq samplers. Plus, all the reason synths sound kind of thin and digital to me, but I might be hearing problems that aren't there.
Take the drum interface of Reason - editing one drum at a time in a loop? Give me a break! I takes me like 4 or 5 times longer to develop a good 4 bar loop in Reason as it would for me using the drum editor in Cubase. Plus, with the amount of free VSTi's available, you can probably develop a similar set of tools around Cubasis or the lower-end Logic programs for a fraction of the price. Then when you want to get more heavily into recording, you will already be familiar with the interface rules and tendencies when you want to upgrade.
Now it's time for me to look for some advice:
I've been using Cubase for about 4 years now, and I'm still stuck at 4.1 (which I still really like). I've considered switching to Logic, but my only experience with the demo of Logic 4.x was kind of frustrating. Is there a tutorial out there for Cubase users wanting to make the switch? Do you think it's actually worth it?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Logic is a little difficult for anyone switching, but in the end it is just much more, well, logical. All of the the musicians I know of all varying degrees of skill and success are switching to Logic right now, and the pro-tools folks are just running it on top of their hardware. Emagic is doing some extrodinarily innovative things with 5, including the highly advanced automation and the photoshop-like history tab to be released in the first revision. It will be difficult at first, but well worth it in the end. Anyway, it comes with a manual.
It's all just a sneaky plot to get us all to spend more money buying different software...
geez, I love making music, I would love to incorporate my mac more than I do(the extent currently is I hit the record button in Soundstudio and play a track that I recorded onto my external mixer)
I have good equipment too,
akai MPC 2000
roland Jp8080
tascam portastudio
Stanton str8-100s
lexicon MPX-200
and My custom fernandes bass
problem is I don't have a good way to get it into the computer(midi)
I really got to get a midiman box, I wish I could afford a Motu box, but a simple 2x2 usb midi port SHOULD work just fine.
I just wish I knew more about midi in general, like I know alot about it, but something about it just doesn't click, just doesn't feel right or something.
and I'm too damn lazy to learn, I wish I could just do it.
I wish I had more money, and more time, and more patience and less obligations
ohhhhh
</rant>
BTW, Pro Tools Free is pretty darn nice, considering.