favorite music software

[levir]

what does everyone find the most effective?
what is your output format: midi, mp3, etc?

I use synapse audio orion for easy piano rolls and several vst plugins like bleep for instruments, as well as ancient sonic foundry acid 4.0 (before sony screwed up milliseconds of latency each take) to arrange everything with added ambience and altered sound effects.

I'm interested in trying new things though and even discovering piano roll that was made for MIDI, instead of just having it as an option (less trustable...bad quality instruments and drumming with orion),

Obviously after hearing "How to Destroy Angels: Welcome Oblivion" want to get into experimental electronica again. hell, if anyone knows exactly what trent reznor uses, that would be even better. I know of all of the reznor/id software connections. It'd be badass to make stuff more like his, which is an off-and-on goal.

But yeah, what do you use is the general question. Let's share our knowledge and try new things

[Remilia Scarlet]

I *think* Reznor uses Pro Tools, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, when it comes to software, here's what I use:

• Cakewalk Sonar (primary DAW - I _LOVE_ this software)
  
• REAPER (backup DAW)
  
• Renoise (backup backup DAW)
  
• Reason (only when I need it for collaborations)
  
• Melda Production VST plugins
  
• GForce impOSCar 2
  
• Komplete 8 (includes Reaktor, FM8, Kontakt, Massive, and all that good stuff)
  
• Prophet V (I use this one the most)
  
• Moog Modular V
  
• Jupiter-8V
  
• Korg Wavestation VST
  
• SQ8L (free VST)
  
• Shortcircuit (free VST)
  
• Synth1 (free VST)
  
• SayIt
  
• Goldwave
  
• LAME
  
• Sonic Visualizer
  

I almost never work directly with MIDI files anymore, except when I'm using them as an intermediate format. Usually I just stick with Cakewalk's .wrk format until I'm ready for export. Then it's 96KHz 32-bit WAV. From there I go to a CD-quality WAV, then mp3 and FLAC.

[levir]

I love goldwave and forgot to mention it lol
I'll research sonar. I've heard of cakewalk and had an early MIDI version back in the day.

[Avoozl]

Yeah, goldwave is great.

[Ribbiks]

logic for srs business
easybeat for mid

[darkreaver]

Reason and FL Studio for electronic music.

Cubase for recording real instruments and vocals.

TabIt for midis (sucks, but I`m so used to it after so many years)

[188DarkRevived]

I use Sonic Foundry Sound Forge 6.0. It allows me to make all the necessary pitch bending for dodging the copyright filters on video sharing sites, and it also provides me with all the looping and fade-ins and fade-outs that I might require for personal pleasure. :)
Oh, and my preferred output format is an MP3 encoded at 192 KBPS.

[Ed]

yukib1t said:

• Cakewalk Sonar (primary DAW - I _LOVE_ this software)
  
• REAPER (backup DAW)
  
• Renoise (backup backup DAW)
  
• Reason (only when I need it for collaborations)
  
• Melda Production VST plugins
  
• GForce impOSCar 2
  
• Komplete 8 (includes Reaktor, FM8, Kontakt, Massive, and all that good stuff)
  
• Prophet V (I use this one the most)
  
• Moog Modular V
  
• Jupiter-8V
  
• Korg Wavestation VST
  
• SQ8L (free VST)
  
• Shortcircuit (free VST)
  
• Synth1 (free VST)
  
• SayIt
  
• Goldwave
  
• LAME
  
• Sonic Visualizer
  

I use almost this exact same VSTi set-up. I do all my sequences in FL Studio and re-wire out to Sonar's mixing engine.

Love FM8, btw. Fun little FM trick I came up with in that VSTi. Split a drum loop into three sends and isolate low/mid/hi frequencies in each one with the outputs of each turned off from the master channel. Use a peak meter in each one and link the output level value to the CC control variable for the level amount on each modulator wave. The drum loop now acts as a dynamic rhythmic modulator for the fm synth if played in sync with any notation sequence.

Using a mic input signal instead of a drum loop pattern gives you a slightly more robust vocoder effect (not as many distinct low/mid/high frequencies in the human voice).