Castle Paradox

Bagne · Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:23 am Post subject: Question to the composers

Alright, I'm can't help it anymore - I need to ask:

Comrade music composers,
What program do you use to write your music?

Do you use a MIDI keyboard?
_________________
Working on rain and cloud formation

Blue Pixel · Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 8:02 am Post subject:

I might be alittle bit out there, but I use an original nintendo gameboy, equiped with the program called LSDJ. Provides a good 8-bit sound, and if you dont have a gameboy, you can always use an emulator.
_________________

Baconlabs · Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 8:20 am Post subject:

I write stuff in Anvil Studio and sometimes make it sound a little nicer with some sort of MIDI-to-mp3 converter. But it's not working as well as it used to, so I'm out looking for a new program for all this. I might not even look back at MIDI after this.

8bit · Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 4:24 pm Post subject:

MPC 4000. Recognize.
_________________
Peace and love. Peace and love. No more autographs. Peace and love.

Bagne · Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 5:09 pm Post subject:

I finally learned some Anvil shotcuts...

It makes things way easier, but it's still not as quick as notate...

Oh well, I'm going to have to adapt.
I need to hear what the instruments sound like as I'm writing.
_________________
Working on rain and cloud formation

NeoSpade · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 1:49 am Post subject:

If you go into staff notation mode on Anvil, you (should) have a keyboard at the bottom, and if this is any help; you can switch that between being a guitar or keyboard with a right click option, if you hit a note it automatically puts it down, and holding Shift lets you do chords. Will this make notating any easier for you?

Bagne · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 3:20 am Post subject:

Yeah, I've found the piano GUI - maybe I'll just have to suck it up and use a mouse.
Maybe it's a learning curve thing, but I've found it quickest when I sing into the mic, even if the computer often picks up the wrong note, or wrong octave :-)
Alright, thanks - I'll give those a try.

I have two questions:

I noticed that you can bump notes around with the arrow keys. So sometimes I just enter the desired rhythm, and bump them to the right notes. This is considerably faster for me.
Is it possible to set Anvil to bump them chromatically? Right now they move in tones, and I often find myself "transposing" them to the desired note...

Also, is it possible to view the notes of more than one track at once?
I like to see the notes played by other tracks so that I can read out the chord progression.
_________________
Working on rain and cloud formation

Rimudora · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 11:41 am Post subject:

You can drag the notes up and down with your mouse instead of bumping them with the arrow keys. That will move the notes in half-tones instead of wholes.

Artimus Bena · Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 6:44 am Post subject:

I find Noteworthy far more user friendly than anvil, as far as the actual notation and orchestration goes.

But that doesn't really matter to me anymore, since I'm using Nuendo now.
_________________
SACRE BLEU!

|||Compositions!
|||Eldardeen Soundtrack!
|||Red Mercury!

Rimudora · Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 7:58 pm Post subject:

Don't you have to pay for Noteworthy though? The last time I tried it, it told me I had to register to save anything as a midi.

Bagne · Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 8:49 pm Post subject:

I've just grudgingly gotten used to Anvil ... although I still don't like how you can't see multiple voices at once.

Can you do this with Noteworthy / Nuendo?
_________________
Working on rain and cloud formation

Artimus Bena · Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:30 pm Post subject:

Yep, with noteworthy you can view like 10 tracks at a time, and zoom in or out. Nuendo lets you view 20 or so at a time.

Ah, yes, Noteworthy is shareware; you can only download Noteworthy 2, which doesn't let you save, but I'd be happy to send you Noteworthy 1. Noteworthy 1 has a save limit of 10 times, but I would just copy over my tracks to a new file and save again. I wrote three 30 minute soundtracks using Noteworthy, and the save limit never really bothered me. Definitely worth the extra minute when using a more user-friendly interface. Anvil was useful to me for quickly transferring stuff I'd written originally on guitar or piano, and for some the piano roll option is a plus, but that one-track viewing thing always made my teeth itch.
_________________
SACRE BLEU!

|||Compositions!
|||Eldardeen Soundtrack!
|||Red Mercury!