Softwares

This should go in the Droid section, but I will talking Windows and Linux also... AND it's software for the creation of music, and the discussion thereof, including the discussion of instrument and effect plugins, which could in a sense be considered the discussion of music in and of itself.

So, first up is Caustic. The Android app that tries to give us a lot of the features of Vader's favorite music maker, "Reason." I told Vader I was going to hit the 'get more' button in the instruments and see what happens. So, here's what happens: you get directed to a Google Play page with a bunch of plugins for instrument packs and synth devices, which is what we agreed was bad because those would be in addition to the cost of the app itself. I now believe it's a good thing, as about 1/3 of the plugins are FREE, and they are almost all from people other than the makers of Caustic! Which means regular joes can make plugins, so there will be more, even if the makers of Caustic don't update!

Further, watching Vader hit the 1 and 2 buttons to switch between sequences made me wonder if there wasn't an easier way to do all that. I could probably have just youtubed a tutorial, but I figured it out all by myself, so I MADE a video so I could steal some of the credit of discovery! Of course, by now Vader probably figured this out. 2 minute video. I start by showing that I have 2 "rhythm" tracks, then show how to put them together and NOT have to hit the 1's and 2's. Oh, and the video is crap as I held my cell phone pointed at my tablet.

Next up, I was demoing some instrument and synth plugins called VST plugins. I was showing them in Linux Multimedia Studio (LMMS), and we discovered that unfortunately the VST's do NOT work in Reason. This morning I did some searching for what softwares CAN use the VST's, and I found a site that not only explains exactly what VST's are, but also has a short list of software compatible with them! That site is: http://lumberjack.hubpages.com/hub/What-are-VST-Instruments

They do not list LMMS, but that's okay because I have read only some VST's are 100% compatible with it. They list two softwares that they call FREE, but one of them requires buying a license after 60 days of FULL functionality testing (Which is NOT bad!!!). The other is FREE, but is for Linux. SO, there are options out there for these high quality instruments!

And as a final note on the VST subject for now, I was demoing a pretty awesome guitar instrument VST, but it kept locking up LMMS. I put the same VST on my laptop, and it actually lasted about twice as long before locking up, so maybe it's a RAM or CPU issue? Anyway, there's an option to putz with the shape of the guitar pick, and Vader asked if it was possible to change the pick thickness. While testing on the laptop, I discovered that when you're adjusting the red dot on the pick, you aren't changing the shape, but the thickness AND stiffness! WOWEEE!! I have a sneaky suspicion Vader will be trying some of these softwares compatible with VST's in the near future.

Awesome find!!!! Twas wondering how they were going to handle that!!!!

WHOA!!! Just did a search. Found a blog where the writer is discussing options for FREE VST host software (did NOT know they were called hosts!). He mentions that a lot of people mention Reaper, but he reminds us that it is actually commercial software and requires a license. He then goes on to list around 20 (!!!) free VST hosts! I cannot vouch for any of them, as I haven't tried any of them, but he continues his article explaining which is his favorite and why... plus some info on some of the other ones. Helpful stuff for music creation there!!!

The link to his article is: http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2011/05/16/bpb-freeware-studio-best-free-vst-host-applications/

VaderXanth wrote:

Awesome find!!!! Twas wondering how they were going to handle that!!!!

Now I expect some phone music to show up in one of these threads somewhere! Good gravy, I find you the app, figure out the song functionality, the least you could do is create something!

If, like me, you prefer the freeness and cross-platform capabilities of LMMS, some of the users are being good enough to make a wiki page detailing which VSTs are KNOWN to work with LMMS, and under which OS's. Not a huge list, but you should be able to find something you can work with. Here's the wiki page:
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?title=Tested_VSTs#VST_effects

Okay, Caustic is tons of fun on phone and tablet. Even I, musical-creation-impaired, managed to lay down a funky track today (crap, that's what it was missing! Some FUNK!) I would share, but save/export is disabled in the demo, and my other option is recording it with my phone, which leaves a REALLY poor quality recording. Which is again a wonderful reason to do this stuff on a PC. But for some reason, it just seems easier to get a handle on through a touchscreen... I really don't get it.

So, while I was looking for some new instruments for Caustic on Google Play, there was the ever-present "check this app out!" and it was a 4 track sampler for android. Ok, wtf izzat? The description explained that you could use your phone to record audio samples from real sound makers (voice, instrument, etc), and export these samples to use in a sequencer. I didn't give a hoot until the last "screenshot" showed a guy sitting next to his phone, strumming on his acoustic guitar and having it record on the phone. Again, if you're recording samples at home, use a frickin microphone hooked to a PC!!!! BUT... if you're waiting for someone in your car, and you just figured out the perfect drum sequence with Pepsi bottle to steering wheel, and all you have is your phone... yeah. Excited? GREAT! Cuz I forgot the name of the app!

THAT said, I did some google searching (see my other rant on that subject in the computer chat thread), and have two pages just to get you started. They both list some apps available to make music on Android! Most of these cost money (under $5), and I don't know (yet) if there's any free demos, but I'm hoping we can use these two articles as a starting point to find more! Here they is:
http://android.appstorm.net/roundups/music-roundups/musical-production-apps-for-android/
http://www.squidoo.com/music-making-android

AND... based on my other rant, the first link is an article from September 2nd, 2012... so most of these apps probably still exist for this price!

Challenge accepted!!

Took about 2 hours to do. It's a small one. But before I post it I'd like to say that Camtasia kicked my ass yet again with it's damned camera control. ACK!!!

Anywho, on with the show!!

Holy Crap! I'm glad I listened to it again with real speakers before commenting! On the laptop, I completely did NOT hear the bass line! WTF iz up wit dat? Anyway, bravo and kudos! It almost... ALMOST, has a little holiday feel to it! And it's catchy too! You WILL keep it up! (oh, based on first comment... it didn't sound bad on laptop, just without the bass it has a completely different vibe, way more holiday or tiptoing through the tulips )

So over the course of 3 or 4 days of 'just putzing' I made several discoveries in Linux MultiMedia Studio (LMMS). Discoveries that COULD enable others to make tracks that stick to a beat, OR perhaps create tracks and loops to use in some other software. A couple items I did not mention in the video... that HUGE list of presets and samples in the left menu are LMMS out-of-the-box. None of those include any VST's or plugins I may have downloaded. Of course, I have no idea if Vader's soft of choice (Reason) has the same abilities, but I thought it was a pretty profound bundle of audio goodness I found!

AND... before I subject anyone to this, I apologize in advance for the audio. I did this on the laptop in the basement. The kids had problems understanding that I was recording something with my headphones on, and didn't realize I was trying to keep the audio clean from background chatter. Unfortunately, the furnace created enough background hum that my laptop mic made me very quiet, so when my video software recorded the system audio it was TOO LOUD. I normalized the audio right in my video software, and that left me sounding underwater (and still unscripted). The LMMS audio is still quite a bit louder, so... um... yeah.





Also, at like 2:50 I have my unscripted blabbing bass-ackwards (wasn't that the fish general in Return of the Jedi?!). I was actually trying to add presets to the song editor and didn't realize I had the beat/bass selected. That's why it was an accidental and shocking discovery. Hey, if I was an A/V pro I woulda wrote a friggin script. I'm sharing tips on free audio software here, not uploading a step-by-step on how to repair a cerebellum with duct tape and two pennies.

Very neat!! I'd classify yours as experimental!!

I do believe that I'm going to get LMMS and some vts's!!!

Also, Reason has many plugins, but the overall format is rather difficult to learn. My diddy was a 'press record, play keyboard, arrange notes' session. LMMS seems a tad easier.

In my opinion (since I have also used both programs in the past), Reason is geared more toward the professional-ish types who have the full assortment of real devices to MIDI into it... real musicians, if you will. LMMS seems to be more of your standard music making for those who never learned an instrument, or only have the most basic knowledge of beats and measures and bars and such (which is me, I think). OOOH...EDIT: NOT saying professionals couldn't/shouldn't use LMMS!!!

On a flip side, when I was mentioning trying to create a NIN-ish sound the other day, it occurred to me that perhaps a nice loop-based program would be the way to go. I seem to remember playing with one of those a long time ago, and it's a neat way to make music, but pretty difficult to create anything substantial outside of those loops. If you listen to NIN, it almost seems like a mixed sequence of loops, but since I found out about this thing with LMMS being able to load pretty much anything into a beat/bass track, it seems more possible to avoid the loops.

Point is, Reason has it's place, which is a more professional overall song creation tool for those who know music (probably a better "overhead" project/song manager for you also). LMMS also has it's place, which is kind of obvious I think, but it could also be a damn fine way for you to experiment with sounds, and if I'm correct, make your own loops and samples that you can import into Reason! It's a win-win!

WOWEE! (LMMS) In the beat/bassline editor, you turn on and off a beat per measure simply by clicking the gray "tombstones" to turn them bright green. Again, I accidentally made a wtf... I was trying to scroll down my list of instruments with the mousewheel, and made a dark green tombstone. As I continued mouse-wheeling, the green got brighter and brighter. I just searched for what that does, and it turns out it's for setting the VOLUME of individual beats! NEAT!!!

Awesomely, I found that on an LMMS wiki "tip of the day" page. I am including the link to it, because there's a LOT of useful stuff going on! I just learned like 5 useful things I didn't know! Here's the link:
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Tip_of_the_day