Resources for music contributors

Create music and sound effects for mainline or user-made content.

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Reese
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Post by Reese »

I have a question... I hope this is the appropriate place to put it (If not, I am sorry administration). Would Garageband be a decent program to use for making music? I guess I have found a few good loops, and I have a pastor that has maybe ten gigabytes of loops. Just wondering if there is another program that you would suggest.
Thanks for your time
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scienceguy8
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Post by scienceguy8 »

From my experience with GarageBand, maybe. The loops that come with it are not particularly suited to orchestral music. You will need new loops and either skills "typing" your music with your computer's keyboard or a MIDI or USB music keyboard. Even then, the simulated strings GarageBand produces may not be up to snuff, requiring an external MIDI synthesizer.

Can you create orchestral and symphonic music in GarageBand? Yes. Will it be up to the same standards as the rest of Wesnoth music? With a bit of work, maybe.

Maybe.
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West
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Post by West »

I believe I've said it before, but it's worth repeating:

You can't write orchestral music with loops.

Reese: in case Garage Band only does loops, the answer to your question would be no.
hiro hito
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Post by hiro hito »

West is right!

Garageband works with loops then you cannot produce elaborated pieces that Wesnoth need.

BUT, you can write midi file with Garage Band. Unfortunatly, samples are not so good... but you can install some applications (like east/weast samplers) as UI plug-in and create some good stuff!

But if you have enough money to buy this kind of plug-ins , i suggest you to change your garageband by another music application like Protools, Logic, Cubase, ect.....
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West
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Post by West »

To elaborate a bit...

If you create a song from orchestral loops, it is not orchestral music. It's electronica made from samples of an orchestra. Huge difference. Orchestral music involves orchestration, something which can't be done if all you have to work with is a set of sampled bars with a certain instrumentation. You won't be able to change anything else than the order of the various parts; you can't alter the instrumentation, write melodies etc.

Personally I have little if any respect for "musicians" who base their music entirely on loops. Using loops for drum/percussion stuff is fine, I even do that myself sometimes, but splicing together whole songs from nothing but loops? A monkey could do that. I'm not saying that working with loops can't be an artform in itself, but if a song doesn't have at least some percentage of actual musicianship -- if it's all cut & paste stuff -- it doesn't qualify as music IMO.

If you want to create music, learn to play an instrument and teach yourself (at least the basics of) music theory and composition. There is no other way.
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Blueblaze
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Post by Blueblaze »

Indeed, you won't be able to produce any decent classical music from loops. As well, using loops poses a serious copyright question, which is also why you should avoid them.
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Post by Jetrel »

Blueblaze wrote:Indeed, you won't be able to produce any decent classical music from loops. As well, using loops poses a serious copyright question, which is also why you should avoid them.
It's worth chiming in to note that apple makes a point of making all their garageband loops royalty-free. No disagreement on the other things, though.
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ael193
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Re: Resources for music contributors

Post by ael193 »

Could someone post some links to Free (and ones that don't need you to make an account either) resources for garage band. It came on my mac, and its the only music program I have. its good but you can only do so much with it. I know that you can add loops and even new instrument sounds to the program but I can't seem to find them anywhere.

the biggest problem with garage band is that it can't handle more than 7-10 tracks at a time if your trying to make heavy stuff. also it helps if you have a decent keyboard ( not a cheap 3 octave one like I have). its really frustrating if you cant make anything real grandiose with out it getting all fuzzy.
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marcusvinicius
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Re: Resources for music contributors

Post by marcusvinicius »

If it has vst suport you can try it:
http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php
It has a lot of free vst plugins.Anyway you can get a free scorewriter to mac like
http://ariamaestosa.sourceforge.net/

Site with mac resources: http://www.macmusic.org/

I don´t use mac to make music but I think those are good links.
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Skizzaltix
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Re: Resources for music contributors

Post by Skizzaltix »

Oh, neat--I wish I'd known about Aria Maestosa a few months ago.

So... Putting myself at risk of cluttering up a sticky, I have a question. I'm a complete n00b when it comes to digital composition, or any kind of composition, for that matter, and it's all very confusing--I'm not going to ask you guys to sit down and give me a full education in the world of electronic music, but up at the top West mentioned some "other places" that someone like myself would find more useful--Would you mind linking me to a few? I'm not at all familiar with these sorts of communities.
Thanks!
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marcusvinicius
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Re: Resources for music contributors

Post by marcusvinicius »

Free Tuba samples for kontakt on philharmonia site:

http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesounde ... rary/tuba/
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West
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Re: Resources for music contributors

Post by West »

Skizzaltix wrote:but up at the top West mentioned some "other places" that someone like myself would find more useful--Would you mind linking me to a few? I'm not at all familiar with these sorts of communities.
Thanks!
Sorry, I must have missed this comment completely.

Heh, actually, that was pure assumption on my part. After all, this is the internet. I was simply taking it for granted that there's a lot of noob-friendly music communities around. Can't say I'm familiar with any particular ones though (as I'm not new to music), but I lurk at kvraudio.com and northernsounds.com. KVR is quite tech oriented though, and NorthernSounds is a place where a lot of pros hang out -- which is why it's a useful place to keep an eye on -- but neither of these are likely to be a good place to start.

So I dunno. Anyone else have any suggestions?
PPH
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Re: Resources for music contributors

Post by PPH »

CTG is a nice community. It´s not specifically for noobs, but I guess noobs are welcome. Trax in Space is another one.

http://www.ctgmusic.com
http://www.traxinspace.com
Skizzaltix
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Re: Resources for music contributors

Post by Skizzaltix »

Thanks, guys--I'll be sure to lurk on a few of those now.
To be honest, I hadn't expected much of a response anyway ;)
Thanks!
abjjunior
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Re: Resources for music contributors

Post by abjjunior »

Is that possible to convert a emulatorX file into a sf2 file?
Thank you for the samplers!
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