Ever been sitting there listening to your music collection on your computer and thought “I could do that!”? Thankfully it’s easier than ever to make music of your own. We’ll show you some of the readily-available freeware and shareware to help on your path to musical world domination. Plus we’ll give you some ideas on what hardware you need to get started.
You can make basic music at home with almost no equipment apart from your computer and a few usual accessories: mouse, keyboard, microphone and speakers/headset. But if you want to compete with what you hear on the radio, you’re either going to have to be extremely clever and have amazing ears, or you’ll have to spend a bit of money to buy some better equipment. If all you want to do is have fun, then just hunt down some free or cheap software and get going.
HARDWARE YOU’LL NEED
• YOUR COMPUTER
You can create music on pretty much any computer that’s reasonably modern - the faster the better, and the more RAM the better as well. Recording audio files chews through hard drive space quickly, so make sure you have a large chunk free.
• AUDIO INS AND OUTS
Although you can use your regular built-in sound card for MIDI music creation, be careful using it to record your voice or instruments. It’s not so much the lack of quality, it’s the unfortunate way everything goes through the built-in Windows sound mixer - often ending up with you recording the wrong thing, or several sounds recorded together that you didn’t want.
If you are relatively serious about creating music at home, the first thing you should buy is a decent audio interface - the rule of thumb here is “don’t choose anything you can get from a computer store”. Look instead at music shops. Inexpensive, decent-quality options include the Presonus Inspire 1394 ($299 from www.oceania-audio.co.nz), the Tapco Link USB ($495) or even the M-Audio Fast Track USB ($249), both of which are available from The Rock Shop (www.rockshop.co.nz). The Digidesign MBox Mini ($599 or bundled with ProTools LE) is a great lead-in to a slightly more professional setup. On a different slant, for $549 you can get the M-Audio Ozone, a cool little MIDI keyboard that sports an audio interface as well. Firewire connections are generally considered slightly better than USB when it comes to audio stuff, but USB is still okay.
As far as how many inputs and outputs you need: if you’re just plodding away at home by yourself, you might only need one or two audio inputs, but if you’re in a band you’re going to need a whole lot more than that. When you purchase one of these types of audio interfaces, they usually come with their own little independent-of-Windows software mixer so you don’t end up also recording the various beeps and chimes that Windows likes to emit at inopportune times. As a bonus, they often also include some sort of free recording software in the bundle – for example, the Inspire comes with Cubase LE to get you up and going and the Tapco comes with Mackie’s Tracktion.
• MIDI
The universal language for creating music within the computer is MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). It allows you to use a MIDI keyboard to play various instrument sounds or drums from within your computer program. Although MIDI data can be generated from mouse clicks and sometimes even your computer keyboard, it’s much better to have some kind of MIDI device that you can actually perform on. You could buy the MAudio Keystation 49e for $249. If you already have some sort of music keyboard with a MIDI output on it, then you just need a cheap USB MIDI interface -something like the MidiSport Uno ($99) to get going.
• SPEAKERS
It helps if you can actually hear the music you’re creating. Make sure you have an adequate set of speakers, or perhaps you can tap into your stereo system to check out your mix once in a while. Another idea is to have a set of quality headphones to record with, as this will avoid speaker sound spilling into your microphone and ruining your awesome vocal take.
• MICROPHONES
Although you can use any old cheap microphone to record your instruments and vocals, the final quality will most certainly suffer. A $10 computer microphone is never going to approach the same league as a $5000 studio microphone. Something like the Joe Meek JM 37 ($199 from Oceania Audio) is a good deal.
SOFTWARE
Various programs have different approaches and features when it comes to what style of music you’re after. Some applications are designed for creating loop and MIDI-based music, which is great for making electronica, dance or R’n’B tracks. On the other hand, there are programs that are tape recorder substitutes, designed mainly for recording real instruments and vocals, which suit anything from solo artists to bands. Of course, there are also software packages that can do pretty much everything. Be aware that much of the free stuff you can download isn’t as well maintained as the stuff you pay the big bucks for. Freeware usually has a few bugs and, yes, you can expect the occasional crash. You definitely get what you pay for, but even the expensive programs crash every once in a while.Just remember to save your work often. All it takes is a quick search on the Net using “freeware” and “audio” to find thousands of software options. However, to help you get started, we’ve filtered it down to a few that work well.
REAPER
(www.reaper.fm)
This program is primarily based around looping sections of audio - you simply “paint” your loops along a track. It’s shareware, but for only US$40 it’s a bargain considering what it does. Overall I found Reaper quite intuitive to use. It took me about five minutes to grasp it without reading the manual, but even beginners will get their head around it after a short time. It’s quite powerful, with audio and MIDI recording capability, and has track automation plus easy ways of dealing with multiple takes – just in case it takes a few goes to get that perfect lead solo down. It was just over 2MB to download, and that included a demo song. In fact, the manual was a bigger download than the program. For uber-cool status, you can run Reaper from a USB flash drive. For a free piece of software it worked incredibly well. Don’t let the fact that it’s loop-based put you off using it for regular recording. Thoroughly recommended.
FRUITYLOOPS
(www.flstudio.com)
This is shareware and although you can’t save your songs, you can still create a final mix in mp3 or wave formats. FruityLoops started life as a simple loop-based program (and it still has that focus), but it has progressively added a richer set of features and extras including some amazing plug-ins and effects, cool synthesisers and drums. It now also includes audio recording. There are many well-known artists who have relied heavily on this program at some point in their careers, so although it’s a great toy to play with, it’s also quite a professional tool in its own right.
You can download the 77MB demo and if you decide to buy it, you can also do that online. The full version price ranges from US$49 to US$361 depending on what features you want. I recommend you check it out.
WAVEPAD
(www.nch.com.au/wavepad)
This is a cool little program that’s really aimed towards stereo recording and/or editing; that means no overdubbing of other instruments or takes. It would probably be more useful for recording yourself playing something live, jotting down a quick idea, or for editing the final stereo mix of your song before burning it to a CD. Wavepad comes with a bunch of handy utilities, such as a CD ripper and burner and a file converter. Recording into Wavepad is actually done by a separate little recorder utility. In fact, this whole system is constructed of little modules that have specific functions. Only the basic four are free and any other tools you try to use (such as Mixpad or 12Keys) you’ll have to pay extra for. My antivirus application freaked out a bit while installing this program because it displayed Trojan-like behaviour, although I think it had something to do with the way it automatically downloads extra tools.
AUDACITY
(audacity.sourceforge.net )
This awesome piece of free software is not only an audio editor but can also record. At its most basic level you can simply plug in a microphone, or (if you have the proper hardware) you can record up to 16 channels at once. Audacity can also do multi-track recordings just like most professional software. This powerful piece of software will record at 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit (high quality) with a sample rate of up to 96KHz.
Audacity has easy editing features and an uncluttered workspace. It can import and export most commonly-used audio formats ranging from .mp3 to .aiff. It also comes with a bunch of plugins such as basic reverb, bass boosting and noise reduction.
Audacity will even run on computers with very low system specifications (like 128MB RAM and a 300MHz processor), but a more modern computer with a large hard drive and expanded RAM would be useful. If you are a true beginner to computer audio recording, there are Audacity help and tutorial files available on the Web site. This is a great piece of software that everyone should try out.
KRISTAL AUDIO ENGINE
(www.kreatives.org/kristal)
A well-presented program that has been around for eight years, Kristal’s sole focus is recording audio, so don’t expect any MIDI tools here. For a free program, Kristal is powerful, yet very simple to use to produce good results. It allows up to 16 simultaneous tracks and follows a similar format to the commercial software ProTools, with a wave edit screen and separate mix window.
It comes bundled with four useful plug-ins: The Kristal Multi-Delay, Kristal Chorus, Kristal Reverb and the Kristalizer, which is essentially a dynamics tool that can be used as a limiter or to create distortion.
Some people have reported bugs when using certain plug-ins that cause the program to crash unexpectedly. Other than this, the only negative I found was the lack of automation facilities. Kristal would be great for someone who isn’t terribly interested in the MIDI side of things and just wants to start recording their music. Completely free and weighing in at only 3.5MB, this is definitely worth a try.
START CREATING
Play around with a couple of these programs to see what suits your needs best. If a program just isn’t working for you, try another one – each has its own way of operating and at the very least you’ll pick up extra knowledge as you try each one. Don’t despair if you have trouble operating a program properly; they usually come with reasonable documentation or a help menu where you can find solutions to specific problems. Plus there’s a swag of tutorials and more general techniques available online.
Don’t forget: there are many people you can learn from - either in one-on-one lessons or at training courses. Check out the bulletin boards at your local music shop. Educational centres like the Music and Audio Institute of New Zealand ( www.mainz.ac.nz ) also run short courses in Logic Pro and Digidesign ProTools. While this may not be exactly what you are looking for, they should be able to point you in an appropriate direction for your needs.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
www.presonus.com/computerrecordingbasics.html
JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT
These simple online music applications are good if you just want to play around.
• www.songbirdnest.com – An open-source desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up.
• www.8notes.com/extras – Free tools, converters, chords and fingering charts, and more.
• www.mattonestonia.com/music – Music, sound effects and loops CDs.
• live.popforge.de – Rhythm composer. Music tools to download (shareware/freeware):
• tinyurl.com/yuvta5
• tinyurl.com/2j2h2x
• tinyurl.com/yrbtzk
• www.audiomelody.com
• www.mymusictools.com
• flashcooker.com/?q=node/32
• www.programurl.com/music-tools.htm
• www.analogx.com/contents/studio.htm
JARGON BUSTERS
Plug-ins – This is a type of effects unit that can be inserted into a program to change the sound of a voice or instrument, eg: compression, phasing, echo, reverb, chorus, flanging, distortion. Plug-ins come in different formats that are compatible with different programs. The most common on a PC are VST, DirectX and RTAS.
Audio Instruments – These are plug-ins that emulate various synths, samplers and drum machines, including some amazingly accurate recreations of vintage instruments.
Samplers – This is a type of instrument that uses captured or recorded audio as a source for sound generation. Some better known full versions are Native Instruments’ Kontakt or Battery. You can purchase immense libraries of samples on DVD.
Loops/Looping – Looping is the process of repeating a chunk of audio - say a four-bar loop - over and over. For example, instead of an entire drum track being recorded, you only need a few bars to build up your track. Many programs come with their own library of royalty-free loops. You can also purchase more loops from the program makers or from thirdparty suppliers.
mp3, wav and aiff – Most programs create a final mix in one of several audio formats. mp3 format is small in size, making it handy to upload to the Web or put on your mp3 player, but it removes some of the sound during compression, and once it’s gone you can’t get it back. If you want to create a CD, you would use the higher-quality .wav or .aiff files. Professionals go one step further and use 24-bit .wav files instead of the regular 16-bit.
WHAT THE PROFESSIONALS USE
Digidesign ProTools - The most common piece of software and hardware used in recording studios around the world. Steinberg Nuendo – A studio-oriented audio recording program that competes with ProTools.
Cubase SX - One of the standards for professional homerecording, along with Cakewalk Sonar.
Sony Acid - For loop-based composers, where you “paint” loops along the tracks.
Apple Logic Pro - Popular with composers and songwriters due to the massive amount of free plug-ins and instruments included. Very powerful, but has a reputation for having a steep learning curve. Mac only.
Steinberg Wavelab - Popular for mastering final mixes.
MAC USERS
GARAGEBAND comes free with most new Macs and is very easy to use. It’s up to version three now and has become quite slick. It has backing loops, MIDI instruments and audio recording, so you can readily create most forms of music with it. Garageband song files can be opened in Logic Pro or Express for further, professional, treatment. Audacity is also available for Mac.