software

torqdj

just trying to get an idea of what people are using

what software are you using to produce your music and what style of music are you producing


ive dabbled in reason for making prog house, only really starting to want to get into the production side of tings now

chordtype

I'm using Ableton Live 8.
A lot of people here seem to be using it or Logic I think.
As for what style I'm producing I'd say minimal minimal.

thrush

torqdj wrote: »

just trying to get an idea of what people are using

what software are you using to produce your music and what style of music are you producing


ive dabbled in reason for making prog house, only really starting to want to get into the production side of tings now

if you're not really settled with a DAW, try renoise. mad cheap, excellent support, and has a totally unique and quick workflow. if your used to the piano roll way of doing things it can be a real head **** to get around though...

Rthr

torqdj wrote: »

just trying to get an idea of what people are using

what software are you using to produce your music and what style of music are you producing


ive dabbled in reason for making prog house, only really starting to want to get into the production side of tings now

Hello thar!

I seem to have plumped for the unpopular DAW choice of Sonar (Cakewalk as was), but I care not as it does everything I need it to faultlessly. Well, faultlessly until I need to collab with someone who uses Cubase that is... I use version 6 but it's up to 8 now.

Within that I tend to use just StylusRMX for drums, Sylenth1 for analogue synth emulation (and an astonishing job it does too), Z3ta+ for anything Sylenth doesn't do, Spook Keys - a free VST for theramin-type sounds (find it here http://www.simple-media.co.uk/music/vsti/vsti.htm#spookkeys with a whole bunch of other quality free sonic goodness) and Garritan Personal Orchestra for strings.

As to what I do with it - Anything I can that takes my fancy!

workaccount

torqdj wrote: »

just trying to get an idea of what people are using

what software are you using to produce your music and what style of music are you producing


ive dabbled in reason for making prog house, only really starting to want to get into the production side of tings now

All the different software solutions all do the same thing fundamentally. I'd say you should try and download Demo's of a few of the applications mentioned in this thread to find out which one you like.

Reason and Ableton are quite intuitve. I haven't used Cakewalk. Cubase is easy too (maybe stick with Ableton or Reason if your designing your sound with software VST's). Reaktor has a steep learning curve - I tried it before but havn't yet had the opportunity to really have a good go at it. Pro tools - I haven't used this but it's forte seems to be mixdown stage - it's got very good tools designed for this process. I know that some pro producers design their sound and lay out their ideas in Ableton (or any of the others mentioned) and then do their mixdown in pro tools. I actually have a demo of pro tools at home - I'll have to give it a go one of the days.

Fruity loops is another one - don't know much about it really - it wouldn't be a the top level. I think you can get some good sounds of it but I think it looks abit unprofessional.

Give Ableton a blast first - it's very popular and very good for putting ideas together quickly - has plenty of effects and a good synth built in.

I'm into producing myself but have only really started to apply myself properly recently. I'm into everything really, techno, house, tech house, minimal so I could produce anything that sounds like one of them.

Oh forgot to mention Logic but that's for mac users - I'm not a mac user.

seannash

workaccount wrote: »

All the different software solutions all do the same thing fundamentally. I'd say you should try and download Demo's of a few of the applications mentioned in this thread to find out which one you like.

Reason and Ableton are quite intuitve. I haven't used Cakewalk. Cubase is easy too (maybe stick with Ableton or Reason if your designing your sound with software VST's). Reaktor has a steep learning curve - I tried it before but havn't yet had the opportunity to really have a good go at it. Pro tools - I haven't used this but it's forte seems to be mixdown stage - it's got very good tools designed for this process. I know that some pro producers design their sound and lay out their ideas in Ableton (or any of the others mentioned) and then do their mixdown in pro tools. I actually have a demo of pro tools at home - I'll have to give it a go one of the days.

Fruity loops is another one - don't know much about it really - it wouldn't be a the top level. I think you can get some good sounds of it but I think it looks abit unprofessional.

Give Ableton a blast first - it's very popular and very good for putting ideas together quickly - has plenty of effects and a good synth built in.

I'm into producing myself but have only really started to apply myself properly recently. I'm into everything really, techno, house, tech house, minimal so I could produce anything that sounds like one of them.

Oh forgot to mention Logic but that's for mac users - I'm not a mac user.

fruity loops is actually pretty good.alot of big producers use it as there main daw.

i use logic and love it.i make tech house:D

vinylbomb

I use Ableton as "sketch pad", then Rewire it into Logic 9 when I want to polish stuff up, or mix it.

Although to be honest, if you have Ableton 8 suite, it is nearly sufficient to get completely pro results (and its not dependent on a Mac either if you arent into them)

Komplete 5 (since upgraded to 6) completes my sound arsenal.

Edit: mainly slightly tech house/breaks is what I end up with for my efforts.

Quiggers

I use ableton live7 for sample based ideas, cubase sx3
for midi and synth based stuff. but most DAWs can do
everything you need, they just have different workflows.

Ableton live does seem to be used by more and more people and
has the advantage that you can gig with it, i'd hate to try and gig with cubase.

ED E

Learning fruity loops myself, real intuitive.

Neurojazz

I'd seen Fruity loops ages ago (very early versions) - so couldn't ever really comment on it until seeing it up close recently in depth.

It's still gimmicky, has graphical nonsense happening for no reason - so eating the cpu unnecessarily and may unorthodox methods, references and cramped GUI. Some VST are graphically cut off visually with no way of seeing the whole VST (no scrolling) on laptop or smaller monitors.

Very bad coding, sloppy work.

It does enable people to make a complete song, but i would say test out demos of other DAW to see what's on offer.

Ableton covers an awful lot of areas with some amazingly simple solutions to complex tasks for example.

Reason is the most robust, but closed off too 3rd party software.

I can't comment on logic, i only used older versions.

Cubase, stable - but nowhere near the fun for writing that ableton brings.

I was recently asked to do some work that would have been near impossible in Cubase and ableton sat there and just complied.... there's a video on the net with someone who turns around and says 'If people knew what this software did, *everyone* would be using it' - after 24hours with it, i can completely understand that statement.

seannash

Neurojazz wrote: »

there's a video on the net with someone who turns around and says 'If people knew what this software did, *everyone* would be using it' - after 24hours with it, i can completely understand that statement.

im not sure about this one to be honest.
ive used it,loved it,was pretty competent with it but i can do everything it can do in logic.
i do think its very easy to understand for a beginner but im not buying into the hype about it anymore,especially since i stopped using loops
all opinion of coures

Neurojazz

seannash wrote: »

im not sure about this one to be honest.
ive used it,loved it,was pretty competent with it but i can do everything it can do in logic.
i do think its very easy to understand for a beginner but im not buying into the hype about it anymore,especially since i stopped using loops
all opinion of coures

Yeah, i think it's a great tool for certain situations - i think of it like a swiss army knife and still have Cubase for big stuff - for me it fills a large space

When i first used logic (can't even remember the version - but was around the time of cakewalk 9) - i couldn't get into it - but i'm sure it's all grown up now, and would like to see it running one day to see what's going on there.

seannash

i do think its a different way of working but they seem to be stuck on trying to be different.they should impliment some of the basic feature other daws have(although they might have done on the last version)

Neurojazz

seannash wrote: »

i do think its a different way of working but they seem to be stuck on trying to be different.they should impliment some of the basic feature other daws have(although they might have done on the last version)

I've only dipped in so far in ableton, so don't know what's missing that i'd use in cubase yet... the initial time saved / man hours has been massive for myself - but it's being doing small bits of work and not full pieces yet - will be good to see what it can do

Anima

I'd seen Fruity loops ages ago (very early versions) - so couldn't ever really comment on it until seeing it up close recently in depth.

It's still gimmicky, has graphical nonsense happening for no reason - so eating the cpu unnecessarily and may unorthodox methods, references and cramped GUI. Some VST are graphically cut off visually with no way of seeing the whole VST (no scrolling) on laptop or smaller monitors.

Very bad coding, sloppy work.

It does enable people to make a complete song, but i would say test out demos of other DAW to see what's on offer.

I don't think thats very accurate to be honest. Most VSTs and DAWs these days have more than necessary graphical bits tacked on. Sure aren't there some Wave's plugins that require a GFX card to render 3D ****e? Anyways, I don't think its excessive and it doesn't take much CPU either.

As to the unorthodox methods, what do you mean? I don't see a problem with doing things differently. I like the layout of FLStudio. It's very modular, perfect for electronic music.

Dunno how you can say it's badly coded as well. It's never crashed on me and it runs very efficiently. It sounds like you went back using it with a particular mindset of what it used to be. It's completely different from before.

Neurojazz

Anima wrote: »

I don't think thats very accurate to be honest. Most VSTs and DAWs these days have more than necessary graphical bits tacked on. Sure aren't there some Wave's plugins that require a GFX card to render 3D ****e? Anyways, I don't think its excessive and it doesn't take much CPU either.

As to the unorthodox methods, what do you mean? I don't see a problem with doing things differently. I like the layout of FLStudio. It's very modular, perfect for electronic music.

Dunno how you can say it's badly coded as well. It's never crashed on me and it runs very efficiently. It sounds like you went back using it with a particular mindset of what it used to be. It's completely different from before.

How many legal DAW do you use/own?

I'm just commenting from the angle of using things like Cubase which is very bland, ableton even blander graphically - ergo, less cpu cycles being used - not the VSTs - so sorry if that caused misunderstanding.

It is a case of whatever floats your boat, any only a lucky few are able to analyse these sorts of situations because of actually owning many types of computers (macs, pcs, lapppies) and many DAW to test them on.

It's not going to matter in a year or 2 as people will have so much power that the cpu efficiency won't matter a jot.