Making midi music from your computer at home

[Chaotic42]

Hey guys.

I was wondering what programs/stuff you use to make midi files on your computer.

A long time ago my computer came with a program called Deskmate that had a music program where you could place notes on a staff. It was very cool.

There's a program called "NoteWorthy Composer" which is similar. I've been playing with it today. Would you recommend it? It's $39, so I don't want to just order it without seeing if something better is out there.

Thanks.

 

[Chaotic42]

Anyone?

 

[crazycarl]

it's not exactly midi, but i use Buzz

 

[Ornery]

Cakewalk is to midi, what Excel is to spreadsheets.

 

[MartyMcFly3]

I use Finale... Pretty easy to use, although some of the samples are cheesy. Ive liked a lot of the results i've gotten though.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: MartyMcFly3
I use Finale... Pretty easy to use, although some of the samples are cheesy. Ive liked a lot of the results i've gotten though.

It looks pretty neat.

More polished than Noteworthy.

 

[Makromizer]

Finale is nice if you're into notation, if you donÄt care about traditional notes and are more the matrix guy try cakewalk, logic or cubase. Since the newest version, i prefer the last one (sx 2.0 that is), before I loved cakewalk but the vst and rewire implementation in cubase just rocks.
Also a very very nice piece of software (but more because of the instruments than because of the midi-options is reason (that's the name of the program). You can use reason together with cubase very smooth. That said, they're not that cheap, you'll have to spent quite some 100$ but there are often software-bundles with a cheaper version of the arranger (light versions of the expensive programs)
Logic is mostly for Mac-users, since Apple bought off emagic (developer of logic) there isn't that much released for PC.
But before you buy anything, try some demos or something, these programs are all far to expensive if you don't intensely use them. And they all offer a lot more than just midi, so if you're just going for midi you'll ay way to much.

Buzz also is a very funny thing, I wouldn't call it a very professional music development software, it's much more a very nice toy, you can have a lot of fun using it. It's a tracker. Anyone remembers Amiga-musicmaking-times?

 

[Chaotic42]

Well, I'm more into classical music. Lots of harpsicords, violins, etc. I like the standard notation.

 

[Makromizer]

Well, if you don't like electronic music, you can completely forget about buzz and mostly forget about reason.
If you don't do recording as well, forget about every program I wrote about except finale.
You're like my father, I showed him so many beautiful programs with so many possibilities but he just chosed that simple finale, cause of classical notation and stuff ;-)

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: Makromizer
Well, if you don't like electronic music, you can completely forget about buzz and mostly forget about reason.
If you don't do recording as well, forget about every program I wrote about except finale.
You're like my father, I showed him so many beautiful programs with so many possibilities but he just chosed that simple finale, cause of classical notation and stuff ;-)

Well, this is purely recreational. I'm going to have *very* little time to devote to it, so I don't really need anything complex.

 

[Makromizer]

Sure thing, complexity you don't need just sucks. But there are also a lot simpler programs than finale, finale may not have the possibilities in electronic music, but it's a real powerhouse program for professional notation. Unfortunately, I don't know such a program, I had some experience with them when i started making music using a computer but that's quite some time ago and no one uses these programs any longer.
But there must be a lot of shareware/freeware around that covers that matter. Well maybe you'll also be happy with finale, from what I've heard, the newer versions are pretty much customizable and you might get rid of clumsy overpowered interfaces.