Subject:Which Product?

Posted by: mikemanczur

Date:5/1/2001 7:21:41 PM

Can anyone recommend which product to get? I want to start
learning how to make House/Trance Music. I am kind of
confused between Sound Forge and Acid Pro. Do I need them
both?

Subject:RE: Which Product?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:5/1/2001 9:28:30 PM

Mike,

If you're looking to compose any kind of music, definitely
start with ACID. Sound Forge is primarily used as an audio
editor, not a music composer. It can edit and audition only
one file at a time, making it impossible to (practically)
compose music. ACID is unique in that you make songs using
bits, riffs, and licks (aka loops) to create compositions,
much like DJ'ing, but not in real time. It's practically
limitless in its power and intuitive control set. I've been
using it for almost a year to create all different genres
of music, and I absolutely love it.

Bottom line, if you want to edit audio, get Sound Forge.
But if you want to make original music, get ACID. Now,
Sound Forge makes a great addition to ACID (for
creating/editing loops), but it's not very powerful on its
own, in terms of making music.

For more info, go download a demo of ACID at:
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/download/step2.asp?DID=159

Or get ACID Xpress, the fully working (and free) slim
edition at:
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/download/step2.asp?DID=155

Also, take a tour of ACID at:
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/products/acidvideo_asf.asp

Listen to music other people have made with ACID at:
http://www.acidplanet.com/Lounge/lounge.asp

All this information should help you make your decision
quite easily. Write back to this forum if you have any more
questions.

Best wishes,
Nick LaMartina

Subject:RE: Which Product?

Reply by: timoheil

Date:5/2/2001 11:30:51 AM

If you really want to compose/write music instead of just
arranging loops, you should consider working with a MIDI-
/Audio-sequenzer like Cubase or Logic Audio (of course this
means that you will als need a synthesizer or a sampler,
either hardware or software-based). Otherwise you'll always
depend on the loops that someone else (and not you!) made.
Of course you can produce your own loops. But here we go
again: you'll need something like MIDI-sequenzer for this.

Sound Forge is not a choice in your case: it's "only" a
sample-editor.

Subject:RE: Which Product?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:5/2/2001 12:21:48 PM

Mike,

Be warned, however, that using Cubase or Cakewalk to try
and write house/trance is like trying paint a house with a
toothbrush... There's too much effort involved to get
anything productive done. Consider ACID to be an industrial-
sized air brush.

I assume, Mike, from your post that you're a beginner at
this, wanting to start creating the kind of music you've
loved for song long. Right? If indeed that is the case,
then let me explain a bit more about your choices. For some
compositions, like pop rock, classical, and vocal
arrangments, MIDI-based Cubase or Cakewalk is a sure thing.
Write musical scores, print sheet music, sing along, etc.
Great. But for house or trance, which relies heavily on
remixing, sampling, and beat matching, ACID is by far the
better choice. The G-MIDI voice set used in MIDI
composition is FAR too limited in making this type of
music. Plus, even if XG-MIDI or SoundFonts were your thing,
you'd have to endure a STEEP learning curve, not to mention
that you'd have to buy compatible hardware. Plus, I've
never heard any good MIDI trance. =) Cubase and Cakewalk
both have their places, but house/trance is definitely not
it. Stick with ACID for that.

Nick LaMartina

Subject:RE: Which Product?

Reply by: timoheil

Date:5/2/2001 12:42:11 PM

>The G-MIDI voice set used in MIDI
>composition is FAR too limited in making this type of
>music.

What do you mean with "G-MIDI"? Are you talking about the
General MIDI voice-set? Tell me any professional producer
who works with General MIDI voice-sets like used with
SoundBlaster cards etc.??? G-MIDI is for children.

Take a sampler and load it with House-/Drum-/Bass-/-Samples
for a beginning and then program you're own tracks. This
has nothing to do with General MIDI.

Maybe my attitude is totally different, but I do not
consider working with loops creative composing. And it
doesn't matter what kind of music you compose. House
producers, techno producers they all use MIDI sequenzers
(which also offer really powerful audio-features).

I mean: How do you create an individual bass line or piano-
riff or whatever with ACID? You'll always depend on loops
that come with ACID or other CDs. Your creative freedom
would be really limited. Of course you can also use loops.
But working loop-based only cannot be the thing.

BTW: I don't know if Cakewalk is used by professional
producers in the US, but here in Europe Cubase and Logic
Audio (ever heard of that one?) are the sequenzers of
choice for most producers.

Subject:RE: Which Product?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:5/2/2001 3:51:29 PM

Tim,

Whoah, whoah whoah.... Take it easy! Let me explain this.
There's no need to insult me here. Mark asked a question
concerning what program he should use to make house/trance
music: Sound Forge or Acid. It's very easy to tell from
this question that he's obviously new to this whole thing.
Knowing this, I recommended he use Acid and not Cubase or
Cakewalk for several reasons, all pertaining to EXPERIENCE,
not POWER:

1. Cakewalk and Cubase have steep learning curves. Not for
newbies.
2. ACID is very easy to use in the creation of house/trance
music. Very good for newbies.
3. ACID is far more cost effective from a CONSUMER level
(And maybe professional too. Who knows. It's all a matter
of preference). It has very few requirements to do things
effectively, vs. Cakewalk and Cubase which require a large
investment to do stellar stuff.

Yes, I know G-MIDI is for children. You mentioned MIDI
composition in your last post, so that's why I mentioned
it. I am not ignorant, sir. I know how samplers work, but I
also know how expensive they can be. Seeing as our friend
Mark is just starting out here, I'd recommend he spend a
paltry $60 on a "[non]-creative composing" tool rather than
several thousand on a sequencing setup. After playing with
Acid for a while, he'll either be satisfied with
his "limitations", or discover he wants something more.
Either way, it's a good idea to start low and work your way
up, don't you think?

As for ACID's creative "limitations" (and I scoff at the
word), I fail to see your point. From the way you speak of
it, you make it sound as if you've never used the program
at all. How do I make my own bass line or melodic riff? By
creating my own loops (or tracks) in Sound Forge. That's
why, in my last post, I told Mark that Sound Forge makes an
excellent ADDITION to Acid, since it allows you to expand
your possibilities. As G-MIDI is for children, so are stock
loop CD's. I am in no way limited to just them with this
program. That would be an absurd thought. I write my own
musical scores, sample the tracks or riffs, edit and trim
them, process the files using any number of effects,
arrange them in Acid, and even sing along to it. Yes, I
write original music and produce it using Acid. If that's
not original, "creative composing", then I'd like to know
what is.

I own Cakewalk, sir. It was my main musical tool before I
got Acid, but since then, it's just been another unused
sector on my hard disk. No, Acid's not for everyone, but I
in NO way find it limited. Perhaps we differ on that point,
but I will not budge from my position.

And another thing... You could have been a little nicer
about presenting your differing opinion. Why is it that
everytime some disagrees with someone else in these forums
they take it as a personal attack on their integrity? And
maybe I'm guilty of the same thing, but is it just
musicians? Or it is me? Either way, I'm sorry if I somehow
offended you in my last post, but I'm entitled to an
opinion contrary to yours, just as you are entitled to an
opinion contrary to mine. Let's all just loosen up a bit.

Smile everyone,
Nick LaMartina

Subject:RE: Which Product?

Reply by: timoheil

Date:5/3/2001 4:40:15 AM

>Whoah, whoah whoah.... Take it easy! Let me explain this.
>There's no need to insult me here.

Hello Nick,

I'm sorry if you felt insulted. I really didn't mean to
insult anyone. just wanted to make a clear statement.

>1. Cakewalk and Cubase have steep learning curves. Not for
>newbies.

That's true. It's definitely harder to learn how to work
with Cubase than ACID (I've never used Cakewalk, I'm a
Logic user but also know Cubase...and I don't like it BTW)

>2. ACID is very easy to use in the creation of
house/trance
>music. Very good for newbies.

True again.

>3. ACID is far more cost effective from a CONSUMER level
>(And maybe professional too. Who knows. It's all a matter
>of preference). It has very few requirements to do things
>effectively, vs. Cakewalk and Cubase which require a large
>investment to do stellar stuff.

You're right again. But on the other hand you cannot cannot
compare a sequenzer with all its MIDI, scoring and expanded
audio-features with ACID (which doesn't mean that ACID is
bad, it simply has a different feature set).

>Yes, I know G-MIDI is for children. You mentioned MIDI
>composition in your last post, so that's why I mentioned
>it. I am not ignorant, sir. I know how samplers work, but
>I also know how expensive they can be.

The EXS24 software-sampler for Logic is "only" 300 USD. And
it's definitely more powerful than e.g. an "old" AKAI-
sampler (S3000). And you don't need the full platinum
version of Logic to use it.

>Seeing as our friend
>Mark is just starting out here, I'd recommend he spend a
>paltry $60 on a "[non]-creative composing" tool rather
>than several thousand on a sequencing setup.

You don't need that much money nowadays. Get Logic and
EXS24 or Cubase and Halion.

>After playing with
>Acid for a while, he'll either be satisfied with
>his "limitations", or discover he wants something more.
>Either way, it's a good idea to start low and work your
>way up, don't you think?

You're right.

>As for ACID's creative "limitations" (and I scoff at the
>word), I fail to see your point. From the way you speak of
>it, you make it sound as if you've never used the program
>at all.

I tried the demo and was really impressed by the realtime
timestretching feature.
Working loop-based is simply not my prefered way of making
music. If I want to I can use loops with Logic, too -
except for the possibility to timestrech the whole song.

Regarding the creation of your own loops with SoundForge:
Maybe I got you wrong, but what do you do if you want to
compose e.g. an original bass-line with SoundForge? Do you
take single bass-note-samples and arrange them in
SoundForge? Wouldn't it be easier too just use a keyboard
or a synthesizer and play the line into a sequenzer?

>How do .... If that's
>not original, "creative composing", then I'd like to know
>what is.

If that way of working satisfies you, then it's OK. I just
cannot see how you can compose original melodies/Riffs
working that way.

>I own Cakewalk, sir. It was my main musical tool before I
>got Acid, but since then, it's just been another unused
>sector on my hard disk. No, Acid's not for everyone, but I
>in NO way find it limited. Perhaps we differ on that
>point, but I will not budge from my position.

Yes, we obviously differ on that point.

>And another thing... You could have been a little nicer
>about presenting your differing opinion. Why is it that
>everytime some disagrees with someone else in these forums
>they take it as a personal attack on their integrity?

No, I didn't feel offended nor did I intend to offend
anyone personally. I just wanted to present my opinion. And
if you e.g. mention G-MIDI, then all I say is that working
with a MIDI-sequenzer doesn't mean that you rely on the G-
MIDI voice-set.

Now let's go back to our PCs and make good music with our
prefered software.
And to Mark: Get ACID, it's definitely a great piece of
software...but Logic is cool, too ;-)

Peace and greetings from Germany :-)
-timo-

Subject:RE: Which Product?

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:5/3/2001 12:13:23 PM

Timo,

Hey, thanks for the reply. Sorry if I got a little snippy
there. =) I sometimes make a habit of surfing through these
pages when I'm in a foul mood, so sorry if I jumped down
your throat.

In this post, I just want to answer your question
concerning the whole bass line question so you can
understand what I'm doing. On occasions, yes, I've used a
bass pulse to create a line, but that's only with sub-bass
samples in which no articulation of transients were
required to add to the feel or authenticity.

Recently, I was working on a project with a student who was
writing a soundtrack for a promotional video that will be
shown to incoming freshmen next year. He wrote the whole
thing in Finale and asked if I could produce it for him.
For some of the instruments, my Yamaha PSR-280 worked just
fine (like a sawtooth or piano, as the the sample set for
the Portatone patch is pretty high resolution). We loaded
the individual MIDI tracks into ACID 3 one at a time and
exported them in their entirety in WAV format. In this
sense, we were using ACID less for loop-based creation, but
more for multi-tracking. However, as I'm sure you know,
guitars and voice samples in G-MIDI just don't cut it. For
that, we brought in a guitar player and a vocalist to
record their parts directly over the rest of the
composition. This way, we were granted a very clean and
authentic sound without the mess of arranging loops and
riffs to get the same effect. You're right, it's a whole
lot easier to just plug the line into the recorder and grab
the whole track, rather than just a note or two. I can
confirm this is more practical because it's what I do. =)
When sampling/sequencing is required to capture the true
essence of sound, not just a computer playing its best
guess, I'll always record the part in its entirety, not
just a riff or two.

So there it is. A comparison and contrast. I hope this
clears things up. Oh yeah... Peace and greetings from
America too! =) Best wishes to you and your music.

Regards,
Nick LaMartina