: I have a twelve year old musically inclined son, a midi keyboard and a 'run of the mill' computer set up. Without taking a second mortgage, I would like to purchase some software that would keep him constructively engaged. All suggestions would be appreciated and personally replied to. Thanks in advance

Suggestions...hmmm.. It really depends on a lot of
factors, such as what type of music does he want
to create. Having a midi keyboard is definetly an advantage. The best software in my opinion in your case is Propellarhead Reason. You can create full songs, and its relatively intuitive, since it has a superb hardware simulation interface. The sound quality is excellent, and you can integrate it with the midi keyboard. You can then arrange and mix all the tracks and export a complete song. It also has a wide range of styles of music that u can use Reason for.

If your son will do some audio recording and not just midi, you might want to get Cool Edit Pro. Its a great audio recording software. It has many effects, and it accepts VST plug ins (which are extra effects that you can download or buy later on in the future to add to the already existing library of effects, such as chorus, reverb, delay, EQ,....). Cool edit is one of the best when it comes to audio recording. Sound Forge XP might be better, but its customized more for the more experienced and professional user, so I would suggest cool edit pro.

I'll start with those programs, but there are many types of music software, so if you want a more specific kind of software or want more options, then let me know. You can also go to
http://www.hitsquad.com/smm where you will find a huge list of downloadable music software, divided by categories. You can download freeware, demos and sharewares, and have him test them and see what suits him best, before purchasing.

Hope that helps,
Hish

: I am trying to find a way to listen to my electric guitar through my computer. I can record and listen on playback, but can't get any sound when I just want to listen as I play. Any ideas?

You are talking about Real-time, I assume. There
are two that spring to mind that has real-time,
where you can play and listen to the processed
sound as you are playing.

1. Alien Connectsions ReValver
2. Dsound RT Player and their effects pack. (If you get the single effects, u'll only be able to do what u already do, but if you get the rt player, which they have a freeware version of, then you can use the effects, and a series of them real time. However, these are more like guitar pedals than guitar amps. Revalver would be more ideal for your question.
3. There are REALLY good guitar amps but mainly for ProTools such as AmpFarm, and there's also Amplee. Finally, there's FX Box, which is again more like guitar pedals than amps.

Hope that helps,
Hish

: Looking to edit out the extra sting of music at the end of track. Can I edit a song's length? And how?

: Thanks!

Yes, you can. I am assuming that the song is an mp3 or wave, or maybe on CD. The way I'd do it, is convert whatever it is to wave. There are freeware mp3 to wave convertors that you can download at www.hitsquad.com/smm and once its in wave format, you can then load it up in an audio editor such as cool edit pro, sound forge xp, and simply drag with ur mouse the part you want to take off and press delete, and then save it, convert back to whatever it was, and that should solve the trick. There are other ways, and this method looses a little of the quality depending on what are you converting from, but it should do the trick. You can also load the mp3 as it is in ACID Pro and cut it and export it as mp3.

Hope that helps,
Hish

: thats in a lot of hip hop songs today? What equipmentis used? samplers?drum machines? synths?

I am not sure I understand what u mean by the extended humming bass. If you mean to manipulate the sound like samplers and synthesizers do, I would say Reason is the program to get. If you already recorded a bass in audio format for example, and you want to EDIT it so it can sound like an extended humming bass, then its a whole different deal. In that case, playing with EQ, Reverb, and maybe the FFT Filter, can greatly enhance the bass. There are also effects that come with cool edit pro, I think its called Wave Hammer, that can enhance the bass in the sense of making it deeper, richier, sub-bassed, and with reverb, a little extension. I hope that's what you are asking for!

Hish

go to the support section of th creative web page, the drivers are there.

I can probably help you. I am also mainly just a guitar player, who makes the entire music and releases CDs, however I still have bands and other music projects on the side! ;)

You'll need to get a few very essential software. An Audio recorder, Multitrack editing software, and others that will contribute towards the drum, bass, and strings.

You'll need an Audio recording software, and my suggestions are either Cool Edit Pro, or SoundForge XP. What these two programs provide you is the ability to record you guitar and vocals to the computer as audio, edit the wave, with anything from sample bit conversions, to normalizing, to applying effects, you can also export and import MANY formats, including 2 of the important ones; wave and mp3.

You'll need a multitrack editing software, which cool edit pro sort of has, coz it offers 64 channels. However, I personally suggest ACID PRo 3, but people differ in their preferences here. Other suggestions would be Sonar, Cakewalk, Pro Tools, N-tracks,Quartz, Cubase, ... What these programs and ACID specifically can offer you is to be able to lay down all the recorded tracks, apply some more effects to them, arrange the whole song, loop - etc, apply master effects, and export the song as mp3 or burn the CD.

I dont usually use ACID for burning, I use adaptec for any kind of burning. Anyhow, my final suggestion is Reason, where you can create and make the bass, drums, strings, special effects, synth, and just about anything. Reason has excellent quality, you can export as wave loops which u can then easily insert in ACID and mix that with the guitar and vocal tracks with ease. With reason you can play around with ready drum loops to manipulate the sound, or you can construct your own loop through presets of drum kits or even load your own. You can also load up strings, cellos, etc and compose away. Its also very intuitive because of its superb harware interface simulation.

Hope that helps as a start. If you have any more questions, let me know.

Hish

First, dont mention 'cracked' in this discussion board. Real the warning site on top of the page. Modplug Tracker is a freeware tracking software. You can create any style of music. Its free, and you can take wave samples from other songs and somewhat manipulate them, plus it also accepts VST plug ins (chorus, reverb, EQ, etc..) which you can find many freeware of. That's the best suggestion that I have. However, you are still limited in the creation process. My real advise is to save a couple of bucks and get Reason.

Hish

If by lyrics you mean the vocal (singing) track, then there is no such software because its virtually impossible to seperate the vocal line without affecting the rest of the music. There are vocal remover programs such as AnalogX Vocal Remover, and I am sure there are atleast 2 more, but again they wont do the job right.

Hope that helps,
Hish

Yeah, I've only got a demo of reason 2.5. I've heard loads of people rant and rave about how good it is. but I keep getting some message say I haven't got the correct rewire system.

Please if anyone can tell me what I need I'd be most grateful.

MikEouT

any joy yet - im having same hassles - must be me

I'd love to help you on this one . . . I'm also looking for software to produce sheet music, and Capercaillie is also my favorite band, and I'm even learning Gaelic languages, but alas, I haven't found the answer you seek.
Just thought it was cool to have something in common with someone, and felt like dropping a note. I'll be sure to tell you if I find what you're looking for, if I can.

: DOES ANYONE OUT THERE KNOW OF ASITE WHERE I CAN DOWNLOAD A PROG TO COPY CDS AS IGET LOTS OF ERRORS ON ADAPTEC MANY THANKS CARLOS

: Please get in touch if you have a copy for sale or know where I can get one.