I personally use Musescore to create music and Audacity to edit the music. both free!
Musescore id really simple to understand, and there are many YouTube tutorials that help you if you don’t. It also gives you over 50 intruments to chose from, from teh classical piano, to the synths! Musescore is more of a note composition style, unlike FL studio and others, where they use more of a synthesia style. But, if you want, there is a feature, where you can make music with synthesia on musescore, although I’ve never used it. Musescore is free, but it comes with a cost: the sound quality is not that great (except for the piano).
This is where Audacity comes in. Simply export the song you created with Musescore as an mp3 and import it to audacity, where you can add effects like REVERB(my favourite!). You can also adjust speed and even add more “custom” instruments. I like to burp into the microphone and re-pitch the burp to make it fit into the music.
When I’m producing music, I’m almost always using LMMS, which is a free, open-source DAW. It has a little bit of a learning curve and the default sounds are kinda buns but overall it’s pretty good for a free alternative.
I currently have FL Studio Mobile. Wich isn’t the best but I was able to afford it but I have playback quality issues but it can really make sounds though when you render and export.
I need to learn music theory again tho any good YouTube channels that goes through it. I am a percussionist so I know my rhythm I just need to know how to do things like chord progressions or Melody’s that don’t sound percussive.
Oh boy music theory. I’ve been thinking about making a tutorial that covers the basics of music theory.
Ok think of it like this. You have your C major scale right? Which consists of C D E F G A B C. Every major scale is part of the circle of 5ths. The 5th note in every scale is the next scale in the circle of fifths. So the next one would be G major. Aka G A B C D E F# G. I highly suggest looking into this. Learning the circle of fifths and all of your major scales for starters. I know this by heart.
Every major scale follows the same type of diatonic chords. Major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished.
Take the C major scale for example. Musicians use Roman numerals to identify diatonic chords and notes. One very popular chord progressions consist of:
VI I IV I. Aka the 5 chord, the 1 chord, the 4 chord, then the one.
I know this is very confusing lol. I suggest looking into this.
If you ever want to collab on that music theory post, I’d be willing to help. I currently direct three different ensembles in my local area. I’ve had to teach them music from scratch.
It’s not confusing is just applying it sometimes is not the funnest for me atleast. I do know scales it’s pratically the first things I’ve learned years ago. Just when ever I try to make something nowadays it either sounds scary or smooth and calm wich is not what I was wanting but oh well.
Yeah chord progressions was usually the thing that would catch my off guard I’ll check out more stuff about it to maybe memorize good ones.
For now I’m probably going to be good at sound design for effects until you know I get my style.
I get a good sound but don’t know really how to transition well so just got to work on that and chord progression to make it proper.
Also thanks for the video and when my collage quarter is done I will be able to do music theory in collage also.
None of my schools 4th - 12th grade taught music theory in a class setting but when performing they on did like little references. In 4th they taught the basics of reading music and what to play and what crescendos were and things like that to be able to play.
My last and only questions is how long have you been making music. I’ve been doing it for 1 year occasionally on like a weekend for maybe like a hour. Also know any good orchestral/symphonic samples that are royalty free/commercial use and copyright free
I recently switched from Cubase to Mixcraft 9. Not as powerful, but considerably cheaper(as of the time of writing on sale for $75 from the normal price of $100) and with a lot of options for add-ons and the like. Custom patches are accepted, and it’s super easy to use. And if you’re used to using musescore, you can convert your musescore files into midi files, then upload them into Mixcraft for better VSTs, add-ons, and editing. I’ve managed to recreate some of my musescore pieces using it.
this was a good read , I prefer FL studio my self, but I also use free software in combination with it sometimes, so it really just depends on what sounds your going for.
@Chordily, first of all thank you very much for your tutorial, it looks really interesting! Second of all:
I’ve been thinking for days that Garageband as free software would be really interesting and easy (I’ve been playing around with it a bit), which it is. But (now comes the but part) unfortunately from what I read you can’t use it:
This is really annoying but that’s half the story with copyright software. Except if they ask you themselves, you are not allowed to use it before (and if they deny it, you are not allowed to use it either). So I just wanted to warn all the next readers, I once read a topic where a user was temporarily banned because he created a “Lego looking part”. So except for this (and if I’m wrong you may contradict me) this tutorial looks really good.
Message me on here or search through my previous posts for my discord.