HI. Newbie looking for help on making music from scratch and other tips

Burning_Inside wrote on 8/9/2001, 3:56 AM
OK, i decided that i want to start making my own music in my free time and maybe one day get something published, cause I'm sick of having all these cool sounds in my head and not be able to make themr eality. I know acid 3.0 just lets you loop premade audio, but what i want to do is pretty much make my own sounds from scratch, and i was wondering if Vegas Audio lets you do this? I'm a total newcomer to this stuff, I have a whole load of stuff i want to get out and make into audio, but i don't quite know how to go about doing it. I'm basically just concerned right now with instrumental type things and maybe some slight voices i can put in just using my pc mic and editing it up and down to try and make it sound nifty. Although I would LOVE to sing on tracks, BUT I have no idea how to even go about that and i have no place to do it either. I was thinking maybe getting something to record my voice in my car and play it back on the comp and lace it into the track. That's the only place, in my car, that i could think of where I'd be alone not bothering anyone and can fully concentrate on singing. Anyway, any sort of help would be useful, thanks a lot.

Comments

Burning_Inside wrote on 8/9/2001, 9:33 PM
please?
theron3 wrote on 8/9/2001, 9:43 PM
Yes. In short, Vegas can help you do this. It is easy to use and if your not going midi crazy, it will "make you sound nifty". However, if you can only sing in the car -due to solitude and noise constraints- then I'd say find a happy enviroment where you can explore the power of the program (and yourself) first.

It would be possible to record your vocals while driving but, you'd end up with horrid vocal tracks and a bad "driving record".
All puns intended. Good luck
Theron
12StringDreams wrote on 8/10/2001, 7:14 AM
Wow, really starting from scratch eh? Got me thinking back when I was recording in my parents kitchen with a POS kareoke machine. I still have some of those recordings. I put them into Vegas not too long after I got it, mostly to archive them for future laughs. I was able to make them sound pretty good. I was shocked.
Moral of the story, try everything. If it sounds good record it, if it records, use it, if you don't like it, keep it around, someday you might.
I'm always willing to help anyone new to the recording/music world. I usually learn something in the process. My email is Tracy@12StringDreams.com if you would like to ask more specific questions..
Burning_Inside wrote on 8/10/2001, 6:09 PM
Hi, all i reeeally want to do first and foremost is make my own sounds from scratch first. Acid is a cool program, BUT, it doesn't allow you to make your own sounds from scratch, just loop pre existing ones. I just need an outlet to really let my creativity flow, and I'm hoping Vegas will let me do this. For instance, will I be able to take say, a violin for example, and make it sound however I want to, and make it do what I want, and can I even build just random sound effects or guitar solos? this is what I'm looking for. I can't play any instruments, but I know how I want them to sound, so of course the only way to do it is electronically.
Rockitglider wrote on 8/10/2001, 8:51 PM
If your talking about taking premade sounds of instruments and making them sound the way you want them in your head, it's going to be hard to do because your not experienced at editing. I would suggest staying with Acid untill you get that down to the point where you can cut up loops in there, it's easy to learn. Vegas is more geared to multi-track recording like recording an actual instrument, not recording off of someone elses playing. You can do that in Acid.
Your looking at spending alot of money for software that your not sure if you need it yet. I think you should take smaller steps and do alot of reading on recording, and maybe pick up an instrament and try to learn how to play it.
You can also try getting a sampling machine and making music like that. But again I think you should do some reading and research to find the best equipment for you and your money. There's a hell of alot to learn in this little hobby, if that's what it's going to be for you. But anyway Good luck with your new intrest and try to spend your money wisely.

See ya, Rockit
12StringDreams wrote on 8/11/2001, 7:35 AM
Taking an instrument and making it sound any way you want it to.
It sounds to me, if your not wanting to learn an instrument(s) as
much as you want to make music electronicy, you need to stick with
loops, and look into midi. With midi, you can program the notes you
want on a piano roll screen, then assign an instrument to those notes.
You can then add effects to those instruments. There are lots of free
midi sequencing programs, and if this is the route you decide on, the
hardware and quality are only limited by your checkbook.

Tracy

Songrwiter Loops.
www.12StringDreams.com
PipelineAudio wrote on 8/12/2001, 12:44 AM
"It would be possible to record your vocals while driving but, you'd end up with horrid vocal tracks and a bad "driving record".
All puns intended. Good luck
Theron"

OH MAN!!!! Im hurting!
too funny :) That may well be the BEST pun in history, even if only us technoweenies can understand it :)

Burning Inside, DONT give up acid. (and Im supposed to be straight edge!!!)
however you end up creating or modifying your sounds, acid is a very good way to sequence them, sort of like midi for non midiots.
As to making these sounds, your gonna have to start from SOMETHING, whether its some saples you get, or you or a friend playing and recording, or perhaps from a MIDI source.
Yes vegas is a KILLER creative tool, for completely altering the character of a sound, but youll also need a good 2 track editor. Vegas will give you the ability to add fx to sounds, has EASY built in time/pitch stretching, will allow you to make duplicates to be modified separately and you can copy tracks into your 2 track editor for things like REVERSE. Good fun to be had with reverse. Try applying reverbs on a reverse file then re reverse the reverb and bring it back into vegas! NUTS.

Oh the damage you can do with drumagog running as a dx plug-in on vegas. Put 24 of WHATEVER noises in drumagog then run it on one of your more percusive tracks! Then flange that! heheh you get the idea.

As to your singing. Hell, just sing, whether you are in private or not. Learning early on to make an ass of yourself will make it MUCH easier to get onstage, in case your stuff ever takes:)
Rednroll wrote on 8/12/2001, 12:10 PM
You're asking for a simple thing, but unfortunately you will have to do a lot of learning and spending some cash on midi gear. Midi is great because you can know very miminal about playing music and still create songs with a little editing techniques. Since you mention a violin you will have to buy a keyboard which has a violin sound, then you will have to play and edit that sound using a midi sequencer until the melody forms into what is in your head. Then you can record that onto your hard drive and transform it into something else using many processors. Other things that you can try to create sounds are programs like Rebirth, Reason, and Fruity Loops. There are many PC synth programs out there like these which do nothing but create sounds. Sound Forge even has a synthesis function where you can weird crazy sounds also.

Good luck and Good learning,
Brian Franz
Rahl wrote on 8/12/2001, 9:03 PM
Hey newbie,
Well Acid is a great tool, so is Vegas and Sound Forge. I actually use all three to create music. You mentionned that Acid was only good for pre fabricated loops, well why don't you make your own loops. I create my own loops using Sound Forge 5.0 (you can get Sound Forge XP cheaply), then Acidize them so I can run it through Acid. So basically I use Sound Forge as a type of sampler in some instances. Acid makes creating drum tracks an easy task. I usually put my effects in Acid. When I am done with this stage, I save the whole file as a WAV file then I dump that into Vegas so that I can add bass, guitar and maybe vocals. Then when I am done with that I return to Sound Forge for the mastering process.

I know this post wasn't much, but I just wanted to explain that you basically need Sound Forge, Acid and Vegas to make music work.

To learn more about the process, I would suggest (like someone else on the forum said) is to learn how to use Acid. Then move along to editing those tracks in Sound Forge... Then from there learn the art of multitrack recording using Vegas.

Good luck, and don't forget to have fun doing it.

P.S : I actually learned in college that a car makes an nice acoustic room to record vocals. I took a radio/journalism broadcast course, and they told us that a car can be used in the same principales as a padded room in a studio. So recording from your car might not be a bad idea after all. But I would suggest keeping your hands off the stearing wheel and your foot away from the gas pedal... Just to make things safe!