[goatnet]

Kinda hard to explain, but I'll do the best I can...

I'm not musically talented (I screw around on the guitar and piano) and lately I've been looking into getting more and more into creating music on my Mac. Mainly techno, but I've never created music on a computer before so I'm pretty unsure as where to start.

I looked at some midi keyboards, and some software.... I've got all these ideas in my head, but I'm too stupid to figure out how to transfer it to my Mac.

What exactly do I need software and hardware wise? I have a friend who plays bongo's that I want to sample some beats from, and loop what he's playing. But I have no idea where to start...

I'm trying to find out more information, so any help would be appreciated... Btw, any good websites for this? The few that I've found have sucked.

Thanks!

[Mr. Blur]

Okay....where to begin....

It would help to know what Mac you are using first of all, and also what kind of budget you are looking at for this stuff.

If you want to use a midi keyboard then you'll need some kind of midi interface - there are several out there from single in/out to multiple channel ones. If you're looking to record ("sample" someone's bongos then you'll need audio input as well...again, depending on the Mac you have and your budget......(this can really turn into a bottomless money-pit for your hard-earned $$$)

There is tons of audio/midi software out there....at the moment *most* is still OS 9 only although that is just beginning to change, and the change to X will probably start to accelerate once 10.2 is out.

Maybe check your local magazine shop for "Electronic Musician" "Sound-on-Sound" (a u.k. mag) or "Home Studio Recording" (or something like that...can't recall the exact name of the mag at the moment) - they always have lots of computer-related articles and reviews.....

There's a start......if you can give a little more detail as to your gear/budget/ambitions then I'll see what else I can come up with.....

[goatnet]

PowerMac G4 867 with 512MB ram. As far as spending budget, it's mostly a hobby so I won't go too crazy:

Midi keyboard & stand
USB Midi input
USB Audio input & Microphone
Software (which will cost me the most, I think)

I was looking into Storm, GrooveBlender, Cubasis VST and some others to get started...

[datawrangler]

If you are content to boot OS 9, the tools available are numerous. Despite Apple's claim that OS X is the best platform for music and audio production, very few hardware or software products for music production run at all under OS X, even in the Classic environment.

digidesign.com offers a FREE version of ProTools, their industrial-strength editor for digital audio and MIDI. It may take some time for you to master it, but the price is right, there are thousands of ProTools users online who may offer help, and the time spent learning will probably involve a lot of fun and creativity.

You will certainly want an audio input for this. An iMic is inexpensive, but I don't know if the latency is suitable for live overdubbing. Even so, you can get pretty creative with a cheap microphone and a sense of adventure.

Buy a copy of Keyboard or Electronic Musician magazine to get an idea of how to produce a composition and read the ads to see the tools available. There are plenty of CDs of audio "clip art" to be had.

Coordinating lots of MIDI gear gets complicated quickly - you might delay the purchase of a keyboard and MIDI interface until you've gotten up to speed on mixing audio tracks, especially if your keyboard chops aren't so good.

Good luck to you ... composing music on the computer is a HUGE time-sink, you'll spend many hours scratching your head but most of the time spent will be having great fun and exercising your imagination. And you can do it on the cheap if you're willing to experiment. Just ignore "the rules" and SAVE OFTEN!

[Mr. Blur]

As datawrangler sez....the free protools is a good place to start for software - hard to go wrong with *free.*

as for interfacing with the computer, have a look at Midiman - they have quite a range of audio and midi hardware, both usb and pci cards. Their M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card is pretty good...it's got digital audio in/out, midi in/out, and analog audio in/out all on a pci card....they also have drivers for OS X.

If you are just looking at basic hobbyist stuff, you might want to consider a Midi "workstation" type of keyboard - one that has midi sequencer built in. It's less powerful than most of the software based stuff but if you are looking to keep it simple, then it could be worth looking into. For keyboard synths, I am partial to Korg's stuff these days.

more later as i think of it......heheh....

And good luck with it all - it can be a helluva lot of fun once you are up and running......

[elucid]

new to mac and i have grand visions of what it may do to boost productivity. i've had an 8 track hd recorder and nothing but problems with it (faders don't work and to master you must bounce 6 tracks down to 2, 4 to 2 if you want good sound, most of what i do is layered and more tracks isn't a luxury or distraction but a necessity)
anyway, just thought i might restart this one for lack of a music forum

my question
i've been researching programs and trying demos to figure out what i want to go with, but nothing works.
cubase demo says it (couldn't open sound input) & (audio:couldn't create native audio engine) also OMS problems, what is OMS anyway?
protoolsfree won't work due to (DAE error -228 encountered)
also ableton live won't register any aiff or wav files when i open folders within the program

any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated