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| Making Beautiful Music | | By Gareth Branwyn for Screenager Central |
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It has become a clich‚ of our digital age that anybody with a desktop PC and a talent for music can become a star. That may be a bit of an overstatement, but anybody with a PC and the desire to make music can at least entertain themselves, their family, and friends. And if what comes out is actually good...who knows? |
Just a few years ago, creating your own digital music required an investment of hundreds, even thousands, of dollars (for software and hardware upgrades). Today's generation of computers are up to the processing tasks of music right out of the box and more and more music-making tools are available on the cheap. Here are some of the better tools currently available:
GarageBand ($49, as part of Apple's iLife package). It's hard to wrap your mind around the music-making power of Apple's new GarageBand software. With this program installed on your Mac (it's unfortunately Mac-only), you can instantly turn your home computer into a professional-quality recording studio. With GarageBand, you can simulate 50 different instruments, use pre-recorded samples ("loops"), add your own vocals, edit your tracks -- the works. Apple is also selling keyboards that interface with the GarageBand program, adapters for plugging in electric guitars, and other recording gear to use with the program. They're also going to be releasing a line of "JamPacks" (the first is already out), libraries of royalty-free samples, additional instrument, sound effects, and more.
This application is actually part of Apple's iLife package. For $49, you also get iTunes, iMovies, iPhoto, and iDVD. You can easily import your GarageBand tracks into these other programs, to create a soundtrack to a slide show, for creating a music video, or for burning your music to CD. How cool is that?
Acid 4.0 ($65, Sony Digital Entertainment). If you're on a Windows PC, then your best choice for (affordable) music-making software is the Acid family of products. Created by Sonic Foundry (and now licensed to Sony), Acid is a powerful "loop-based" music tool. The program comes with a library of existing samples that you can import into your own tracks, cut, paste, alter the tempo, add reverb, delay, and other effects. This makes it easy to get started right away, but Acid is also powerful and feature-rich enough that you can also add your own sounds by importing other samples, adding vocal tracks (by hooking a mic up through your sound card), and downloading additional loops through the program's built-in "Get Media" button. The program also comes with an interactive tutorial that's like taking a free workshop in digital music production. Some users prefer the older Acid 3.0, which is still being sold at stores like Amazon for only $25.
Live 3 ($399, Albeton). It's being called "Laptop Pop," "Click Pop," and a bunch of other things, but it's all about using a computer as a realtime performance instrument. And it is programs like Live 3 that are making this type of music possible. With other loop-based programs, you cut, paste, twiddle, and then press a Play button to hear what you've just created, so it's all done in non-realtime. Live 3 can work that way, or you can use it as a performance instrument. As you manipulate and move around parts of your track, it doesn't effect the beat, so you can grab and drop samples on the fly. The affect is extremely fun and addictive. You can spend hours lost in your jams. And Live 3 will record as you go, so if something great comes out of a jam session, it's captured for you. Four hundred dollars may be a lot money, but if you're musically inclined, have mastered loop-based composing, and want to take it to the next level, Live 3 is the software to have. It is both PC and Mac compatible.
$30 Music School ($30, Michael W. Dean, Thompson Publishing). If you're interested in pursing a career in music, or at least getting your music out into the world, this book is an excellent starting place. It takes you through the basics on what you need to know to create, record, distribute, and promote your music independently. The book also includes a CD with demo versions of numerous popular music programs, an interactive songwriting tutorial, and more.
If you've been watching this season's American Idol and thinking: "These people are horrible! I can make better music with both hands tied behind my back and a sock stuffed in my mouth" - prove it! Now you have all the tools you need to do so.
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