Com-Central.net

-S-

Do you know of any freeware samples of sounds for music creation..eg ..wind, song, waves.. numerous people singing notes like in Alan Parsons..etc..editing, mixing, overlays and recording..? I have Cubases lite, got it with my Creative Pro Sound Card card..it has a steep learning curve though. Getting back into music as COD 4 is starting to bore the crap out of me. Software with good help files that are easy for a novice like me to create with...?

Hammer

Hammer...yer not going to make them video's of you runnin around the woods naked and yodelling again are you?..I know Jel and Kit still have night mares about that.

-S-

No....I am going to add a sound track to it....

Hammer

Sorry Hammer, I've been away all weekend;
Drove 600 miles round trip to se Brit's Floyd tribute band; "Shine On" gig last night.
Am knackered and going to soak in a hot bath before catching some zzz's.

I'll have a look see what I can find for you a bit later.
Ther are sites which have these kinds of thing but the free ones tend to be a bit crappy - I don't have any stored as I use Reason which doesn't really need 'em.

[edit: Can't leave a muso' in despair... Something in THIS LOT might be of use.]

- 401RCAF_Hammer

-S-

No....I am going to add a sound track to it....

Hammer

No please ! i'd just got through therapy over that little escapade lol

-S-

what do you mean..?..the barn anmial was over the age of consent..!!

Hammer

- 401RCAF_Hammer

the barn anmial was over the age of consent

I saw it first!

-S-

Thanks for the help Shades. Was checking out the Reason site and it looks good. Seems to be much simpler to use than Cubasis. Downloaded the demo and going to checkit out.

Hammer

Personally, I think Reason's much better. pure chance that I went for it over Cubase but now I have, I prefer it ('FOR MY OWN NEEDS').
The demo's okay but there's more to it (patches from the manufacturer and user community) which you can't use with the demo. You also can't save any of your work, which is frankly ridiculous when it only works for twenty minutes before shutting down.
There are some drawbacks inherent to Reason which you may not like:-

1) There are no VST's.
Reason is entirely self-supporting. You can use it in conjunction with other app's ("ReWire" is built into Reason and other major app's like Cubase / Sonar nowadays) but it's designed to work on it's own, with no interference from external code. So there is little chance of the crashes / pops / stutters that affect other app's of this kind.

2) There are no direct audio in/outs.
If you wanted to overlay your guitar playing /vocals over a track you've written in Reason, it is possible but it's rather long-winded; You'd need to use it in conjunction with something like Cubase, or record them as samples and then introduce them via one of Reason's samplers (DrRex is probably the best method for this but you'd probably need to get ReCycle to turn it into a Rex file).

There are also many advantages to reason which the others don't have but, unless you're actually going to get it, there's no point in going through them as they'd require a minor tutorial in themselves.

If you're not using external sound sources (guitar, vocals, etc), Reason is by far and away the best option currently available. The instruments contained within it are better than most other packages of this type. Some individual specialist software synth's may be better, but they don't come with the rest of the studio. You'd need to buy something like Cubase and then VST them in. Very expensive.
Get Reason 4.0 - there is already a patch; 4.01 available for this version.
If you want to use external sources, don't get Reason. If I could still play me guitar, I'd be looking at Cubase.

There are lots of professionals using Reason, but mainly of the electronic/dance genre (The Prodigy, etc). If you want to hear some pro' rock demo's of it, check out my bud' (and mentor):-
Rick's stuff

There are also some vid tutorials of different aspects of it which include the new stuff which was introduced with Reason 4.0 last Autumn:- The new sequencer layout/function, RPG-8 (if you can't think of anything else to do), the ReGroove, (awesome idea to make things sound more real), and their new modular synth, Thor (He's a god, you know).

-S-

Interesting stuff Shades..no direct audio in/outs for music creation software..??. Sounds kind of stupid to me...lol..I am interested in the synth. and sample aspect of the software. My version of Cubase came with my sound card but as I said it has a steep learning curve for newbs like me. It also came with a desktop control that I can plug my electric guitar into and play around with the sounds. I have the VST software from the Cubase software bundle but havent touched it as of yet. Been away from music for a long time. I downloaded the Thor demo clip from the Reason site to see what it is about. Looks interesting.

Hammer

Sorry Hammer, I must have missed this reply.

Yep, no in/outs.
If Cubase is studio based package which includes some instruments, the Reason is instrument based software which includes a studio.
You can't plug your guitar direct into Reason, or record vocals.

It is possible to import them into Reason later but it's a rather long-winded process. Most Reason users wishing to do this, tend to use Reason in conjunction with Cubase, or Sonar, or one of that genre, using Reason as a sort of plug-in.

Reason doesn't accept any VST plug-ins.

There is a free demo of Reason you can d/l from Prop's site but it's not a good representation; It will only show you a fraction of what Reason can do, won't let you save your work, and shuts down after just 25 minutes.

With Reason 4 comes a device called ReGroove. It's not for me, but essentially it introduces 'feel' to your work. They've installed some templates of particular musician's playing styles (how they would play a particular note in any given phrase) which you can overlay to a phrase you've written and it will introduce those same human-like 'faults' which make it sound more realistic.

Hope that all makes sense.
Shout if you need more info.