Hello All, My name is Matt and I have been doing midi composition for a good year or 2 now. I have just recently graduated from high school and I am now studying music at VCU. I was curious to find out what the next step from midi composition is. My aim is to create music for games, myself, and maybe small software companies etc. Im not really looking to get rich at it im just personally getting frusterated with the limitations of midi when I hear soundtracks in games like Morrowind and Neverwinters Nights. Im looking to get up to that point but by steps. Not jumping in and buying a good 3-4 thousand dollars of equipment and software. I''ve already attempted to go to some of the sites listed on this Forum and that basically just blew my mind away with so many acronyms I don''t understand. If any of you could share your knowledge with a newcomer like me I would be greatful. Any software/tutorials etc.. would be just as helpful. Thanks for your time in reading this.

Hi,

My personal sources of inspiration - and therefore the definition of the level I want to compose at one day - are games soundtracks like the ones you''ve mentioned, and it''s true that midi really doesn''t compare to that. What I''ve done is going the sequencer way; I use software that allows me to ''plot'' in each occurrence of an instrument. From there, the only thing that decides the sound quality of the compositions is the quality of the instruments I use. Therefore, I''ve built up an archive of wave recordings of actual instruments - you can find a lot on the net for free, or you can buy collection cd''s with tons of instrument samples.

A good sequencer program is ''Reason'' (the one I use), but I''m sure others can recommend equally good ones.

Whether this is a good step for you depends on whether you''re comfortable with the ''plotting'' method when composing, or if you want to actually play the pieces that make up the compositions, either on your keyboard or on actual instruments that you record.

This is what I do, and I have no clue whether it would work for you, but I agree that to actually compose for games, you''ll need to move on from midi.

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Looking for a music composer for your game? Go to my page to listen to samples of my orchestral pieces and find info on how to contact me.

Currently I compose the music (midi) with Finale and Sibelius. I''ve been working with both programs sense there release (finale was late middle school) But I really started picking up with the composing the last 2 years. Anyways I''ve heard some about reason. Could you explain the ''plotting'' method as I think I''ve tried this before with a trial version of cake walk and it confused me tremendously. From what i saw was you would have boxes and each box represented a certain amount of seconds in the music or something and you could place instruments etc.. to come in. This was very... busy for me.

I plan on heading this way not really performing the music or hiring people to do it as of yet. But are there any programs where you can convert a composition file that you''ve done in midi and then upload it into a sequencer/synth or whatever and then assign instrument samples to overwrite the midi sound. Is this possible? and if so with what program. Thanks again.

What you want is Gigastudio which will load instrument sample libraries into RAM and play back your midi data with realistic sounding instruments using any compatible sequencer and sound card. You can get many good sample libraries at soundsonline.com. Some are very expensive, but many nice people also have made free libraries that you can download from their sites.

Simplified, what this comes down to is:

-open Gigastudio
-load instruments into midi channels in Gigastudio
-open sequencer
-open midi file in sequencer
-set midi channels of sequencer to use respective Gigastudio channels
-play/record using preferred RAM-efficient recording software

And you can compose in the sequencer with the instruments playing through Gigastudio as well, thus you never have to use the horrid wavetable synth of your midi card again!

I use Cakewalk for a sequencer, and since I’ve been using it for the past six years, I’m pretty fast at the "piano roll", which is the thing I think confused you. While nothing will ever replace actual notation for composing, the piano roll is a much, much more efficient way to input note durations, articulation, and velocities for the tedious things. Then if I want, I can import the midi file into Finale, fix everything up, add dynamics, etc. and print an orchestra-ready score.

This is what I do at the most basic level.

Thank you Sil I have added this to my ''research'' list. The only difference between reason and giga that I see right now is reason has a huge ass library attached to it. I see giga trying to sell the librarys seperatly it is unclear if they offer an extensive library like reason or not.

I will check the other site out later tomorrow. Thanks again.

Most of the libraries for Gigasampler/Gigastudio are made by independant companies. Gigastudio even comes with a program that allows you to create your own. I''m not sure what you mean when you say Reason comes with an extensive library. Does this include high end orchestral samples?

quote: Original post by Sil
What you want is Gigastudio which will load instrument sample libraries into RAM and play back your midi data with realistic sounding instruments using any compatible sequencer and sound card

They''re loaded using your HD space. It just uses RAM to actually play them back.


Also, the downfall to Gigasamples is whether or not your soundcard is compatible or not. Say, if you have one of the Creative Labs soundcards, you can''t use a Gigastudio(Because creative labs is run by a jackass that wants you to buy soundfonts).

Still, a Gigastudio requires quite a powerful computer with alot of HD space(because Gigasamples are quite large).



Anyway, I prefer hardcore sequencing using Cakewalk Pro Audio 9. I''ve been using it for over 5 years(have 9 years total sequencing experience) for sequencing. Alot of people I know struggle with it at first, but I constantly pestered them and helped them out with it until they got used to it. Now they can do much more with MIDI. Still, for a VG, the only time MIDI sounds good is if you have a custom Sound Bank(usually DLS) for the MIDI Playback Device to download sounds/samples from.

Anyway, I forgot what I was going to originally say in this post because somebody is bothering me. If I said something that isn''t entirely correct, then correct me, because I''m still technically a n00b at music in the VG Industry.


My Site

sil - from what I read from the giga site. It seems as though they provide some libraries but didn''t go into it like Reason did. (not debating your program just trying to decide whats best for myself) It comes with Orkester 2.5 as well as a full library of sound samples etc..

As a college student im trying to spend the least amount of money while getting just about everything I need software wise until I can afford getting some hardware.

In general what im looking for until mid this year is a possible free program that has limited features but allows me to learn the process of composing something in midi format and then transfering it over and using instrument samples convert it to somewhat real audio. Basically I want to feel comfortable with what im doing before I spend 100''s of dollars on software.

Can any of you suggest a free program that is like Gigasampler/Reason? Yes I know things don''t come free in this world but some people are nice . If not I guess I can try the Reason demo once I get back to college next weekend.

By the way I would like to hear more opinions on these 2 products pros and cons. I already read through both FAQ''s and information with the 2. It sounds like with Gigasampler im gonna have to buy a new hard drive, 512mb ram, and a new sound card because I have a Soundblaster Live! . So this seems like it will take me above the price of Reason.

Thanks to those that have posted and to those that may post there advice and experience with these programs or other programs.

Zack - explain the definition of sequencing. Can I upload a midi file into the program and then use samples like Giga and Reason or not? Thanks.

Sequencing is putting notes in order, with the correct details (pitch, length, etc), This is basicly what you do when you create a MIDI file. Sampling is the application of waveforms to those notes.
At least that''s my idea of it. Sampling can also refer to the act of recording a "sample", which is then used to give a sound to a note.

I have reason, and it is extreemly good, and extreemly expensive.

I do recomend you give something like ModPlug Tracker a go before you dive into Reason or other software. For a few reasons: 1) it''s very much free, 2) it is very good experience, and will give you an idea how more complex samplers work, even if you never have to use it for production work, 3) if you''re doing music for games (or even if you''re not), then MOD and its sister formats are of excelent quality, while being significantly smaller than their compressed counterparts (MP3, Ogg, etc). Basicly all samplers can export wave data (which can then be compressed) if you need it, too.

Intresting Trivia: The original Unreal used MOD files for music. If you''ve never played Unreal - then trust me: the music was absoulty supurb. If you want to get an idea of just how good MOD can sound, go and download some MODs from the internet - there are several sites where artists can host them for download.

In reality, MOD is basicly like using SoundFonts in your MIDIs, only the samples are self-contained.

All decent samplers can import MIDI (this includes Reason and ModPlug). From there is is basicly a matter of assigning instruments, inserting any effects, and then mixing.

I noticed you had a problem with buying new hardware? Reason is incredibly fast considering what it can do (and works just fine on my SBLive). I only rarely overload my 600Mhz, 128M RAM system, and that''s usualy when pulling samples from page (hard disk) memory (because I made a 200+ sample songs ).

Reason also comes with more samples than you''ll probably ever need (including those orchestral ones), and with many fully programed instruments, to speed things up. I''d suggest that if you ever needed something really specialised, you''d probably be being paied heaps of money so could afford to buy or record it.


So that''s my recomended plan: Get ModPlug tracker and find some samples on the internet (ModPlug can also load Sound Fonts, which saves you scouting for samples), see what you think, have a muck around.

Then, if you want to move on, select a more advanced sampler (if it''s isn''t obvious enough, Reason is my recomendation).

If you want me to send you a demo of orchestral stuff done in Reason (not mine, but sounds bloody fantastic) and/or some great sounding MOD files, send me an email (russell _at_ qldnet _dot_ com _dot_ au).