8 replies to this topic

[coolgamer012345]

Hello everyone. I wanted to get input on what kinds of software and workflows yous use to make music (for quests). I've dabbled in a few, namely Anvil Studio and Musescore, primarily for making midi's, but I wanted to see if there were any other options that people use that would be worth me looking into. It is kind of overwhelming given how complicated music theory is, but I think with certain constraints it can be a lot more doable, so I want to figure out reasonable ways I can simplify things.

 

If it is of any help, I am wanting to be able to make music for quests (primarily my own quests) in roughly NES/GB style but I also don't want to pigeonhole myself if something sounds good. Thanks.

[Hergiswi]

i use finale, which is like musescore but sort of more complicated and also had development cancelled for it last year. definitely not worth using over musescore (especially since the guy in charge of musescore is making enormous changes with huge ramifications for notation software as a whole). i've also tried using cakewalk and briefly fl studio, but any daw can be a bear to learn without reading or watching a bunch of tutorials. i used to use a program called soundclub, which is woefully outdated now but still helps me visualize note durations and instrument ranges since it's basically a piano roll program.

 

there's a free program called famitracker that explicitly states that it's designed for NES-style composition, to the point where it would actually play on a real NES if you put it on a cartridge. i know that lots of people have had huge success with trackers, but for me, trackers are really unintuitive because i learned sheet music first. it's a very numbers-based program, so depending on how your brain works, it might be amazing or just frustrating.

 

anyway i'm fairly out of touch with a lot of music composing software other than these, so i'm also curious to see what pops up here

[Blackpaintbowser]

to make music I use garage band, but that's only on apple phones

[coolgamer012345]

i use finale, which is like musescore but sort of more complicated and also had development cancelled for it last year. definitely not worth using over musescore (especially since the guy in charge of musescore is making enormous changes with huge ramifications for notation software as a whole). i've also tried using cakewalk and briefly fl studio, but any daw can be a bear to learn without reading or watching a bunch of tutorials. i used to use a program called soundclub, which is woefully outdated now but still helps me visualize note durations and instrument ranges since it's basically a piano roll program.

 

there's a free program called famitracker that explicitly states that it's designed for NES-style composition, to the point where it would actually play on a real NES if you put it on a cartridge. i know that lots of people have had huge success with trackers, but for me, trackers are really unintuitive because i learned sheet music first. it's a very numbers-based program, so depending on how your brain works, it might be amazing or just frustrating.

 

anyway i'm fairly out of touch with a lot of music composing software other than these, so i'm also curious to see what pops up here

I forgot about this until now, I remember dabbling with FamiTracker a bit. I should check it out again, since I think I could probably wrap my head around trackers since I have very little sheet music background. I have seen online that the original FamiTracker is basically superseded by a fork called Dn-FamiTracker since the original isn't maintained anymore (?).

 

 

to make music I use garage band, but that's only on apple phones

I've heard many people use that, but yeah, Apple only which is unfortunate given I do not have any operational apple devices right now and probably will not (at least not for a while).

[Cobgoblin]

I use:

• Anvil Studio for MIDIs.
• LSDj for Game Boy chiptunes, though the process of converting an LSDj song into a .gbs file is a whole process that's not worth it.
• Logic for all other types of music.

[klop422]

FamiTracker is how the Zelda NSF was created. And, yes, original Famitracker is no longer supported officially iirc.

It's a little program, though it takes some work to get used to

[Rambly]

I use FL Studio for MIDIs using the FL MIDI Out instrument (outputting directly to Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth). It takes some finagling to get right, but I prefer the interface of FL Studio to something like Anvil Studio (I've gotten super familiar with FL Studio, and I'm more comfortable with piano roll than anything resembling sheet music since my knowledge of theory is super dodgy) and the MIDIs it outputs are okay. I still use Anvil Studio sometimes for editing.

 

I've used FamiTracker a little bit - it's a little more limited than something like FL Studio, but it's still not too hard to use.

 

I've also used AddmusicK to make my own SPC (SNES) music files - that's a fairly involved process and not something I'd recommend to people unless they really specifically want to make an SPC file (you have to type notes and instructions by hand into Notepad and recompile the song every time you want to hear it).

[darkhog]

I can recommend SunVox. If you have ever used Jeskola Buzz, the program is basically like it, but significantly less confusing.

[Mani Kanina]

The only program I've got a lot of experience with is Logic Pro, which was pretty good. But it's Mac only so even if I wanted to use it past my university days... that just ain't happening.

I messed around a bit with Reason many years ago, but I honestly didn't vibe with it that much. It seemed powerful but I honestly think it has a very backwards design.