need Music and sound effect dev software

[joshex]

I decided to ask here, this is kinda a request for information please read carefully.

I'm looking for advice on free music generation software with built-in virtual instruments (because I do not have any music dev hardware, and do not have a quiet place to record anything from, so telling me to record a real instrument and modify it just is not going to work for me, society is noisy, and I have no talent with real instruments and don;t want to have to buy every instrument under the sun just to be able to use them in game music).

When I first messed with game music way back in the days, I got midimaker, and I'm looking for something like that (with built-in digital instruments) I do not record ANYTHING and have no midi devices, I prefer point and click virtual instruments.

But, midimaker has multiple limitations: you cannot "bend" instruments from one note to another(like you cant have a note carry from A to G in a smooth transition) and you can't have notes fade in and out over a given length, and naturally the virtual instruments included are really really 8-bit game sounding.

So yeah I'm looking for free software with high quality virtual instruments, and where I can elongate and bend(smoothly have the note transition from one note to another note over a given length) notes and fade them in and out at specified lengths.


Software I have found:

I found TuxGuitar. which does practically everything I said above, it's free, the virtual instruments are higher quality than in midimaker, and it can bend notes and fade notes in or out. However there's little control over note length; because the software was built for real music, it only allows controlling note length by either connecting shorter notes, or using a whole note, when connecting shorter notes; bending the curve of a note is only valid for that note not for connected short notes, same for fade in and fade out. it does not allow you to mix whole and shorter notes (or any mix of note lengths) in one Measure, and if you use like a 1/8th note to hit a very short note, you MUST use 8 notes in that measure. it also will not allow you to place notes lower than the bar (so if you want to go lower than it's minimum, then tough beans). these are my greivances with tux guitar and why I'm looking for something better.

writing digital music in tuxguitar is timetaking and grueling.

surely theres a better software, something like I've described. does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[woody554]

looks like you're looking for midi, but there's no reason for that nowadays when everything is well synthesized and there's a million free plugins (way too many, you end up hoarding them and then barely using anything) for many many free DAWs.

Reaper is one that gets recommeded a lot. technically it's not free ($60 I think?) but you can use it forever in trial mode. waveform is another one, but I found it somehow klunky to use myself (skill issue, I'm sure). there's loads of others, just google 'free DAW'.

for making music being slow/fast, that's probably something that's more a reflection of your music skills than anything else.

 

[joshex]

looks like you're looking for midi, but there's no reason for that nowadays when everything is well synthesized and there's a million free plugins (way too many, you end up hoarding them and then barely using anything) for many many free DAWs.

Reaper is one that gets recommeded a lot. technically it's not free ($60 I think?) but you can use it forever in trial mode. waveform is another one, but I found it somehow klunky to use myself (skill issue, I'm sure). there's loads of others, just google 'free DAW'.

for making music being slow/fast, that's probably something that's more a reflection of your music skills than anything else.

I think I tried reaper before and I was asking people on reaper's discord "wheres the built-in virtual instruments?" and they were like "there are none, you must record", I could be wrong, do you know if reaper has built-in virtual instruments?

I did search for a free daw before asking, but the descriptions of the free versions didn't say anything about virtual instruments being supplied(most had features I didn't want "all your music is stored in the cloud automatically, it shares with youtube and facebook effortlessly, you can record anything to it, it hooks up to all your favourite digital instruments, it has lots of knobs and dials and sliders for editing your recordings" all the stuff I don't want.. I have tried installing a bunch of them before, I know I tried reaper and either I couldn't find the virtual instruments or they didn't come with the free version, so I ended up with tuxguitar. I was hoping by now things have changed.

I'll look into waveform and try reaper agian, and try some (which are offline) that show up while searching, but I kinda doubt it. anyways keep suggestions coming please as I am leaning towards belief that reaper waveform and the others I can find when searching for them will likely end up being virtual-instrumentless and be back in the same bad loop "Just record your own instruments" me "No, I have no instruments and too noisy an environment. thats why I want software with instruments in it." = back to using tuxguitar.

I was asking because with all the developers here I thought someone might know of some software that fits this niche.

perhaps I am rusty with music design but... the interface in tuxguitar is meant for people writing music sheets for them to follow allong on with their guitar, not for people like me making digital music with a mouse.

 

[woody554]

I am leaning towards belief that reaper waveform and the others I can find when searching for them will likely end up being virtual-instrumentless

so music software for the last 20-30 years generally works through using VST (virtual studio technology) plugins, each of which are their own product often from another company and perform some kind of function like a synth. drum synth, guitar synths, a general synth etc. it's basically a standard for plugins so everything fits together. there's a million of these, and a lot of them are free.

the music software usually comes with a bunch of its own in-house VSTs for like drums and general synths, but often also a vast number of others, like up to hundreds.

so you insert these VSTs on a track, and that's it. like lets say it's a guitar synth. -then you usually add notes onto a piano roll with a mouse, or connect your midi-keyboard and use that to play the notes in in real time. then you put effects on the tracks, move things around and do whatever you do. and when your masterpiece is ready you render it out into a single file like an mp3 or whatever you need.

in reaper you add vsts (ie. the virtual instruments) from insert/virtual instrument on new track, and to access piano roll you have to first create a midi block on the track (it takes its own place as a block like a waw sample would) then click it to open the piano roll into its own window.

if you have several different DAWs (the music software) they can all use the same VSTs, they just need to be shown where your VST-folder is. most VSTs install into a couple of historical locations so mostly your DAW will already know where they probably are. but if you installed them to another disk or something then you need to add that location as well to see the VSTs in your DAW.

 

[joshex]

so music software for the last 20-30 years generally works through using VST (virtual studio technology) plugins, each of which are their own product often from another company and perform some kind of function like a synth. drum synth, guitar synths, a general synth etc. it's basically a standard for plugins so everything fits together. there's a million of these, and a lot of them are free.

the music software usually comes with a bunch of its own in-house VSTs for like drums and general synths, but often also a vast number of others, like up to hundreds.

so you insert these VSTs on a track, and that's it. like lets say it's a guitar synth. -then you usually add notes onto a piano roll with a mouse, or connect your midi-keyboard and use that to play the notes in in real time. then you put effects on the tracks, move things around and do whatever you do. and when your masterpiece is ready you render it out into a single file like an mp3 or whatever you need.

in reaper you add vsts (ie. the virtual instruments) from insert/virtual instrument on new track, and to access piano roll you have to first create a midi block on the track (it takes its own place as a block like a waw sample would) then click it to open the piano roll into its own window.

if you have several different DAWs (the music software) they can all use the same VSTs, they just need to be shown where your VST-folder is. most VSTs install into a couple of historical locations so mostly your DAW will already know where they probably are. but if you installed them to another disk or something then you need to add that location as well to see the VSTs in your DAW.

so vsts are virtual instruments. this is very helpful information, and yes it has been like 20 years since I used any music dev software, so this is all confusing for me. not the way I would have thought sound dev programs would evolve.

20 years ago, I imagined something like midimaker with a digital scale rather than piano roll, you click frames at locations on the digital scale and colored blocks representing the instrument used at current on that channel get placed, then if you hold and click and drag (even to a different note on the scale) then it'd form a vector curve representing the falloff/rise ( linear progression), and other vector curves could be applied from frame to frame on an instrument's channel for things like volume control, bass, and even blending into a different instrument at a rate based on a curve etc. I imagined instruments being editable by soundwaves represented as vector curves with precision modification(typing the X, Y of where the node and it's handle pointers should be) of selected high and low point curve nodes and their angular handles, subdivision of curves and basic rotation of handles, handle delinking for sharper sounds, scale and translation on a node selection basis on X and Y axies.

to me that's my perfect vision for the future of sound dev software. it obviously is not the vision of the current software devs lol.

that asside, looks like I'll have to do more research into vsts, in the old days I just had like 30 instruments, oos and ahs, scifi, guitar, electric guitar, base, electric base, violin, flutes, recorder, trumpets, piano, bagpipes, accordion, organ etc.

nevertheless, the information you provide has been helpful in understanding modern software and what's available if I don't want to start up my own software project lol.