Composing music

[Caydr]

After buying my tablet, I thought something else was needed in order to bring some of the stuff I've been working on to life: Music. Original music, not remixes, not track editing.

I'd like to do it with a computer so that I can modify and tweak my music afterwards, and as I am a fair piano player, I thought I'd buy a midi keyboard and hook it up.....

The trouble is, I have absolutely no idea where to go from there. Buy a keyboard... what, does it come with a driver CD? Do I need a special sound card? What software do I use?

More importantly, why hasn't some genius realized that we already have a keyboard and should be able to map asdfghjkl; to various notes, then tweak the pitch and whatnot later? Seriously... why hasn't someone thought of that...

So are there any musicians around? Where do I begin?

[Dragon45]

There is a ton of audio editing software that maps QWERT keys to notes and vice versa, but if you're serious about music making and/or if you have prior musical experience, a decent electronic synth keyboard will get you far. I have a cheap 90$ Yamaha that has an optional attachment (probably another 20 dollars) that hooks into a standard PC's audio input port.

[tombom]

I think if you have the right software + connectors, all MIDI stuff works without drivers.

http://www.anvilstudio.com/ is pretty cool for a simplish free midi composing thing

[SwiftSpear]

It's really really hard for an experienced pianist to try to use zxcvbnm,./ keys for playing. Honestly, probably beyond the point of usefulness. Keyboard keys are also not context sensitive, so they won't play a softer note with a softer stroke, or vice versa. The other really really useful thing a midi player has that a keyboard doesn't is a pitch wheel. That little device alone allows you SOOO much control in terms of creating tones and modifying them.

Pretty much all midi keyboards come with drivers, and most don't need special sound hardware (but they will have system requirements listed on the box like any other piece of computer hardware). Audio suites like fruity loops, reason, or cuebase are set to work with keyboards pretty much by default, sort of like getting a wacom working with photoshop is really easy.

[Pxtl]

Well, it depends on the kind of music you want to make. For us mortals, I've seen some very good electronic-loop music made with FruityLoops (now FLStudio). I mean, it's no good for symphonic stuff or rock, but it does electronic music quite well - and realistically, if you're talking about doing all your composition on the computer, that's the field you should stick to.

edit: didn't read properly, didn't realize you were going to get a MIDI keyboard... although most composition suites (FLStudio included) will support a keyboard.

[SwiftSpear]

Well, it depends on the kind of music you want to make. For us mortals, I've seen some very good electronic-loop music made with FruityLoops (now FLStudio). I mean, it's no good for symphonic stuff or rock, but it does electronic music quite well - and realistically, if you're talking about doing all your composition on the computer, that's the field you should stick to.

edit: didn't read properly, didn't realize you were going to get a MIDI keyboard... although most composition suites (FLStudio included) will support a keyboard.

That's just about completely and utterly untrue. Pretty much all forms of music are now at very least digitally mixed and mastered. Obviously you can't replace a brilliant professional violinist with a synth and keyboard... but if you already have a brilliant professional violinist there's absolutely nothing stopping you from recording and using the samples and rifs in any digital composition. Digital mixing isn't magic, sure, if you want hyper accurate jazz music you're going to need all the jazz instruments and a pretty good talent for playing them, but for the first time in forever we have a tool that will fill in the blanks for anything we're missing.

You can definitely put together full orchestrated tracks with fruity loops assuming you have the right synths and samples. There are many artists that do. Of COURSE they don't sound as good as the real deal, but they also didn't take half a million dollars worth of talent and instrumentation to do. Reason and Cuebase are probably a bit better for digital orchistration, but they are still all digital.

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/147551