Need New Seqencing Software

[Brandon Strader]

no more electronica no more fl studio anarchy anarchy

[Solaphar]

I like the staff view because it's what I've been used to for a long time (I played piano before I ever touched computer music) and I'm used to reading music in this form. To tweak certain properties of notes and such, I have been using the "event list", rather than the "piano roll". However, many of you seem convinced that the piano roll would be a faster way of doing this, so it seems I should learn to use it, even though every time I've tried it, I always gave up quickly and went back to the staff. I'll have to try harder to become accustomed to the piano roll.

In the end, as some have already suggested, I'll just have to try all the demos. I suppose there's no shortcut.

Thanks guys, I guess I can take it from here. Great tips and advice all around.

P.S. Also, I looked at Pro Tools 8 just now, and even though it looks pretty expensive, I might just bite the bullet and buy it anyway since it looks like it could be be a worthwhile investment. Depends on how much I like the demo.

[DarkeSword]

I like the staff view because it's what I've been used to for a long time (I played piano before I ever touched computer music) and I'm used to reading music in this form. To tweak certain properties of notes and such, I have been using the "event list", rather than the "piano roll". However, many of you seem convinced that the piano roll would be a faster way of doing this, so it seems I should learn to use it, even though every time I've tried it, I always gave up quickly and went back to the staff. I'll have to try harder to become accustomed to the piano roll.

In the end, as some have already suggested, I'll just have to try all the demos. I suppose there's no shortcut.

Thanks guys, I guess I can take it from here. Great tips and advice all around.

P.S. Also, I looked at Pro Tools 8 just now, and even though it looks pretty expensive, I might just bite the bullet and buy it anyway since it looks like it could be be a worthwhile investment. Depends on how much I like the demo.

Piano roll's advantage is that when you're writing, you don't get caught up in all the fluff of notation, like dots and flags and sharps and flats and slurs, etc. It's a much more production oriented method of sequencing music. It's also much easier to copy/paste/transpose/offset with piano roll.

I also feel that piano roll is a better way to write because you get a better visual sense of the intervals between notes and the durations (e.g. a major third actually looks bigger than a minor third, a whole note is wider than a quarter note, etc.); this of course is a personal preference, and I have written a lot in staff notation before switching to FLStudio.

Remember, when picking a sequencer, what's the endgame? Do you want to sequence something up as a mock-up for what will eventually be played by actual instrumentalists? Or are you actually sitting down and creating the performance yourself? With the former, staff notation is best, but with the latter, I think that piano roll would be a better choice.

[Arcana]

I like the staff view because it's what I've been used to for a long time (I played piano before I ever touched computer music) and I'm used to reading music in this form. To tweak certain properties of notes and such, I have been using the "event list", rather than the "piano roll". However, many of you seem convinced that the piano roll would be a faster way of doing this, so it seems I should learn to use it, even though every time I've tried it, I always gave up quickly and went back to the staff. I'll have to try harder to become accustomed to the piano roll.

FLStudio doesn't have a staff notation IIRC.

And yeah, piano roll is useful but you compose in whatever you compose in, I wouldn't exactly force yourself to write in it, but the piano roll is a good thing to know regardless since it's pretty much the standard for displaying music now. As mentioned it has it uses, mostly in production and other things like that.

An option for you also is to write music in Finale or Sibelius and then import it into a program of your choice for producing.

But if you don't like Sonar, chances are any "transition" to a new program is going to be awkward. Maybe it would be worth trying Music Creator 5 anyway just in case.

[Brandon Strader]

I wouldn't get FL Studio just for the piano roll though. The recording system for recording live instruments is, to say it nicely, lacking in FL. I would instead recommend a DAW that lets you record audio primarily but also accept a MIDI controller for recording notes into a piano roll with VSTs. Although if you're just starting out it's probably best to start with something like FL. You don't want to get in over your head before you can tell your elbow from an oboe.

[zircon]

Actually, I WOULD get FL just for the piano roll. The PR, sequencer and sampler tools are the best in the DAW world bar none. The audio recording isn't the greatest on earth but it's still quite usable... I certainly have no problem with it. But that being said, it's also trivial to get something like Audacity or REAPER as a free download, record your audio and then put it in FL where it can be more easily manipulated and processed.

I really think there is almost no reason to get Pro Tools these days when you could instead get REAPER, which is about as powerful, much lighter on CPU/RAM (it can be run off a 16mb flash drive) and significantly cheaper, with no required hardware.

I don't think FLStudio has had that stigma for some time though and also it seems unnecessary given that on this forum FLStudio is easily the most common sequencer.

Nah, it still has a stigma.

[Brandon Strader]

I don't like Reaper...

Having said what I said about FL earlier, I'm still using it for some collabs right now. It's a fine program if you're going to get into making electronic genres and don't have too much interest in making something like rock. Of course you 'can' record into it, but it's a very confusing system at least as far as I can see. I'm recording my parts in Cubase, bouncing down the wavs, and importing those into FL. I'm also going to be doing some bouncing down of FL waves and importing them into Cubase for this new collab. But uh, yeah... As much as I try to exercise the demons from FL and stop its destructive procreation, it's a pretty good program.

[DarkeSword]

He's asking for sequencing software.

[LuketheXjesse]

I really think there is almost no reason to get Pro Tools these days when you could instead get REAPER, which is about as powerful, much lighter on CPU/RAM (it can be run off a 16mb flash drive) and significantly cheaper, with no required hardware.

Amen.------

[Fishy]

I really think there is almost no reason to get Pro Tools these days when you could instead get REAPER, which is about as powerful, much lighter on CPU/RAM (it can be run off a 16mb flash drive) and significantly cheaper, with no required hardware.

Pro Tools is most definitely the best platform to use in a real studio, where you probably have at least a 48 track mixer attached to it and you have their HD DSP cards which are basically awesome. You can have hundreds of playlisted channels of audio to manipulate no problem. There simply isn't anything that does this better.

In the home studio however, its strengths are mostly wasted. You may as well get REAPER for the purposes of recording audio alone. It's workflow is a bit painful sometimes but its very efficient computationally. I often record guitars in REAPER then reimport them into Logic.

Just saying, Pro Tools has its place.

[The Vagrance]

Pro Tools is most definitely the best platform to use in a real studio, where you probably have at least a 48 track mixer attached to it and you have their HD DSP cards which are basically awesome. You can have hundreds of playlisted channels of audio to manipulate no problem. There simply isn't anything that does this better.

QFE

Seriously, its understandable if you're working on a small scale (home studio) and with minimal audio but its not like the only reason why people use Pro Tools is because of some grand conspiracy, its because it integrates the best with large studios while still being compatible with smaller formats (If I have a Pro Tools LE project and I want to go to a bigger studio to track things then everything still matches), is cross platform, and has one of, if not the best audio editing setups, which is essential for most tracking.

[Solaphar]

Hmm, okay, for the sake of not throwing away my cash, I'll give reaper a try and see if that would work out better than Pro Tools. Thanks for the tip zircon.

I guess I should be more patient in trying demos of all of these suggestions before rushing to buy one.

[avaris]

Pro Tools is most definitely the best platform to use in a real studio, where you probably have at least a 48 track mixer attached to it and you have their HD DSP cards which are basically awesome. You can have hundreds of playlisted channels of audio to manipulate no problem. There simply isn't anything that does this better.

In the home studio however, its strengths are mostly wasted. You may as well get REAPER for the purposes of recording audio alone. It's workflow is a bit painful sometimes but its very efficient computationally. I often record guitars in REAPER then reimport them into Logic.

Would have to agree. For the average OCR musician Pro Tools is not worth the money at all. If you are doing things entirely in the box, i.e. no audio recording, def look for something with the best piano roll that fits your work flow. FL prob has the best piano roll. If its work flow agrees with you it's a great choice. If not there are def alternatives. As always demo's are key. If you try out a demo for a product give it at least an honest week before you decide to spend your hard earned cash on something.

FYI Sonar cannot be resold.

[Brandon Strader]

He's asking for sequencing software.

Cubase's got a great piano roll!

There's a lot of programs with piano rolls... FL Studio is the easiest right under Cubase...

[zircon]

Yes I know Pro Tools is great in the studio. However this guy is clearly NOT at a studio and clearly not looking for a large-scale recording setup, so I don't know why you guys are going on about that. Hence why I qualified my statement, there being almost no reason to get PT over REAPER.

[Fishy]

Uh... I clearly said I agree with you, I was just pointing out it was never intended for home use because its strengths don't lie there. I only brought up pro tools at all because he was under the impression that everyone uses fl, when thats not the case practically everywhere else.

But yeah basically:

FL Studio: Fantastic sequencing/mixing capabilities and workflow. Not good for recording at all - AWFUL for anything with complex time signatures (unless thats changed at all?).

REAPER: Awesome for recording audio but very awkward sequencing.

Everything else (Sonar, Logic, Cubase etc) is basically an almalgamation of sequencing and recording that doesn't do either as well, but you can't have everything.

[LuketheXjesse]

REAPER: Awesome for recording audio but very awkward sequencing.

I still don't see why people think this. Elaborate.

[Fishy]

It's just very akward. Last time I tried it (admittedly a while ago) there was no way of editing the velocity of two notes occuring at the same time individually. Thats supremely annoying drom drum editing.

Modulation isn't particularly easy when compared to the other programs. I can't remember the most of the individual issues I had but it was enough to make me give up and go back to logic.

[LuketheXjesse]

If I was using my computer right now I'd show you pictures, but if you look closely at the individual notes in the midi sequencer, you can click a small white bar that adjusts the velocity of the note/beat. You can use that instead of the thing at the bottom and that should work fine.

Sorry if I explained that horribly. Anyway, I find sequencing in Reaper just fine, but whatever.

[Scrap McNapps]

If you are not feeling Sonar, then look into Cubase. You can also check out REAPER, Studio One Pro, and Ableton Live if you wanted to.

[Solaphar]

I was looking at this page a couple weeks ago and I thought, "Wow, if only I could find a non-Mac version of this". This section as well as the picture in it, especially left me wanting it.

As far as I can tell, that program has everything I want, but it's fairly expensive (which is understandable), and I'd be willing to shell out the cash for it except... I don't have a Mac. Nor do I plan to buy a Mac just for Logic Studio.

So, the search continues while I make do with some old programs. I actually haven't been working with music much lately, though.

[Scrap McNapps]

As mentioned before, Cubase has notation in it. You can also buy Silibus or Notion 3 along with the DAW of your choice if you wanted to.

[Rozovian]

*Sibelius

Here's Cubase's midi editors, including a score editor.

[wesl]

I also have a handicapped version of Live, and it looks daunting. Tried Reason for a few minutes at a friend's place, I didn't know how to do anything in it. At all. It takes a while to learn a new instrument. Or a new DAW.

If you spend a lot of time with Reason and Live, you'll find that they are a killer combination. I'm a music technology major at Bellarmine University, and those two programs were the focus of the spring semester. At first I HATED Reason, I absolutely HATED it. But now I use it nearly everyday...I'm in love with it!

Live seems really complicated at first, but you'll find out that it makes arranging and recording tracks very easy and very accurate, especially if you don't have a good audio interface and your dealing with recording delay, because moving your recorded audio to be on time with the rest of your audio is no hassle at all compared to other programs I've used for that, such as Acid.

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse here, but I feel like Reason and Live didn't get enough recognition here xD

[Scrap McNapps]

*Sibelius

Here's Cubase's midi editors, including a score editor.

Oops. Thanks

If you spend a lot of time with Reason and Live, you'll find that they are a killer combination. I'm a music technology major at Bellarmine University, and those two programs were the focus of the spring semester. At first I HATED Reason, I absolutely HATED it. But now I use it nearly everyday...I'm in love with it!

Live seems really complicated at first, but you'll find out that it makes arranging and recording tracks very easy and very accurate, especially if you don't have a good audio interface and your dealing with recording delay, because moving your recorded audio to be on time with the rest of your audio is no hassle at all compared to other programs I've used for that, such as Acid.

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse here, but I feel like Reason and Live didn't get enough recognition here xD

MAYNE Live is the business! Making music on Live for me is fun and easy. It SEEMS intimidating at first because the GUI is atypical, but when you go through the built in tutorials it's smooth sailing from there. I like how I can use a QWERTY Keyboard and use like a piano to input notes. I also find it to be pretty Hip-Hop friendly because of the Session View. And yeah combine it with Reason it's a potent combo and it's very easy to rewire the both of them.

Again LOVE Live