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A good program for making rock music?


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Is there any program that is really great for making full on rock music? I really am desperate for something that has great synths and actually sounds like a reasonable rock band with guitars, basses, and drums. Only problem is that I need it to be a windows program. Thanks in advance and if it costs money please do list its price.

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Is there any program that is really great for making full on rock music?

No, because software does not care what kind of music you make on it.

I really am desperate for something that has great synths

The best synths are never included in the program. Seriously, just see most of those as things that give you a taste of what's out there and to get you started.

and actually sounds like a reasonable rock band with guitars

Truly realistic guitars are those you play yourself.

basses

Ditto.

and drums.

Now that can be helped.

Only problem is that I need it to be a windows program.

That's not a problem. It just means no ProTools, no Logic and no Digital Performer.

I am not sure how to use programs that don't utilize notation software so what program would be good for these VSTs to be installed in?

Any program that can handle them. Just not every program uses notation; most of them assume that you have a MIDI keyboard controller hooked up to them. Notation is just in most cases a nice extra to have.

If you specifically want to compose using notation, there's http://www.finalemusic.com/Finale/features/default.aspx - but it will only handle specific VST plugins.

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the best sounding "all in one" rock synth I know of is ministry of rock by quantum leap. by "all in one" I meen guitars, bass, and drums included.

drums alone, I'd go with addictive drums. guitar alone, from what Ive heard, prominy lpc. Im actually ordering the clean version right now, for kontakt 2 (thanks agian for the help on that everyone!).

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sixto.exe. Best rock remixing program in the world.

...

Anyway, now for a real answer.

There is no one sequencer that's better for rock music; any half decent program will work for any genre you can dream up.

If you're looking for a sequencer, FLstudio, Sonar, and Cubase are all pretty popular.

If you're looking for something free, Reaper is excellent from what I hear. It's not technically free, but you can download a full demo with no built-in limitations, and it's pretty cheap to buy if you like it.

If you play guitar or bass and want to use live recordings in your music, you will need a decent audio interface. I believe there are some that will suit your purposes for well under $100. One you might try that's specifically designed for guitar is the line6 toneport.

If your audio interface doesn't have it's own amp-modelling software, you'll need a VST amp modeler. If you're willing to spend money on this, I HIGHLY reccomend Amplitube 2. If you want free options, I suggest you check out Sixto's guide.

If you do not play guitar or bass yourself, then you'll need the sounds for that. There are a number of free soundfonts at www.hammersound.net; you'll need a VST soundfont wrapper in order to use those. I use SFZ.

You can also find a number of VSTs for just about anything you can possibly imagine at www.kvraudio.com.

It's extremely difficult to get a fake guitar to sound real, and nearly impossible to do with only free stuff. Nevertheless, it's a good idea to experiment with free stuff before shelling out the cash for a commercial guitar library.

One thing to keep in mind is that there's a lot more to a guitar's sound than just the tone of the sample. To get a realistic sound, you'll need to humanize the part; add pitch bends, slides, and so on to make the performance sound less robotic. You can try running your sampled guitars (even the ones that already have some distortion) through a distortion and/or amp modeler VST.

There are probably other people who can be more helpful than I can in telling you how to fake guitars; I always use real ones, so I'm not really an expert on how best to use fake ones.

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sixto.exe. Best rock remixing program in the world.

srsly, if that existed I'd be all over it.

Some great suggestions have been made, so I'll just throw in my 2 cents for what I use on all my rock songs...

For 6 string electric guitar: Amplitube 2.0 or I just run my guitar through a POD.

For electric bass guitar: Hardcore Bass XP (awesome VST w/tons of great bass sounds)

For drums: EZ Drummer or Drumkit from Hell (which for some reason appears to be discontinued - new one on the way?)

I use EZDrummer myself, but when I can afford it, I'll get DFH.

As far as programs that run and record all that fancy stuff, I use Sonar.

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Free drum sounds are fantastic. The only reason anyone should get something like DFHS is if they really know what they're doing with live drums.

As for guitars, stick to free soundfonts with that as well. All the VSTi's for guitars out there are garbage. They all cost a shit ton of money and either sound completely fake and stupid (all but one of them...) or they sound okay but take up 60gb of your hard drive (prominy lpc, that one...)

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