Ask HN: What are your music prototyping solutions?

Digital trackers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracker_(music_software)

I have yet to find a faster way from idea to music. It's clunky to get into until you spend some time to learn the idea and build up a collection of music and wrap your brain around the entire concept, but it's a few decades old a very mature concept with tens of thousands of works created with this method.

Here's a site that streams tracked music 24-7 http://www.scenemusic.net/demovibes/

Some of it is quite good (thought the quality obviously ranges quite a bit though both talent and technology).

If you want to see the music with a visual production try http://demoscene.tv/

I've been working with a piece of software called MadTracker 2 for a while, but I'm about to transition to Renoise (MadTracker 2 is long since a dead project) which is available for Windows, OS X and Linux and is about as professional as a piece of software has any right being.

http://www.renoise.com/

In a rush I can crank a reasonable tune out in a few hours. I've heard of at least one major artist cranking out an entire album (vocals and all) in less than a week.

http://hunz.com.au/

Most of the modern trackers will let you render individual tracks to file for final downmixing.

Note: These are most definitely not intended for live performance, though a few folks have used them for that purpose.

+1 for Renoise. I've heard some awesome compositions made on it, and it's the natural evolution of demoscene trackers. For a sample, see the following video with the track 'Leandi' by Mosaik (a fairly known demoscene musician): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N-f4sSU75I

Thanks for comment. Tracker evolution is a good thing, but somehow recent works from trackers sounding like from DAWs/sequencers, with MBs of samples per instrument, etc. are not what I am looking in them. Back then you had .xm, several KBs total, with 4 tracks and listening experience could be ecstatic. Now you can have quality-wise perfect tune, more complex with dozen tracks, but the spirit is not there IMO. I am not saying that you cannot use trackers for some serious stuff, but for me they will be mostly only tools for old school projects.

Renoise is not a tracker, or pure-tracker-alone software, so it is kind of different beast.

Thanks for your comment. I am aware of digital trackers (I mentioned modplug), was even using FastTracker 2 back in the old days (but not for a long time). I like scene music, especially old school chip tunes.

I heard about renoise before. I'll maybe try its trial version, but I doubt trackers are really what I am looking for as they lack proper recording feature (at least the ones I tried). Check also the comment in my new thread.

Yeah, it seems like you might have more of a desire for live performance tools. Maybe even something simple like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miMM8R1CSM8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25VGdNU3nrU

which can produce really great results.

And once you're happy with the results, "record" the individual parts with a midi tool so you have the notes down someplace for recall later.

Thanks for your comment. Maybe you're right. These YT examples are really nice. Even though I can hum or sign accurately (thus this has clear advantage over playing), I am more inclined in getting track of my melodies early (i.e. what I am actually crafting, is it F#, G or G# scale, etc.), so I don't think voice-way is the right solution (maybe I'm wrong, as it would be more efficient assuming good recording and looping devices, still it's not that good for every kind of music), but definitely interesting one.

I use a little Akai LPK25 keyboard (fits perfectly right above my computer keyboard, so I just reach up a little to play) with seq24 for editing/recording MIDI notes and zynaddsubfx as a synthesizer on Linux. It's a straightforward, simple, and clean setup. Notes in seq24 are displayed in piano-roll format, and you can compose looping patterns that you can then combine into song patterns. I'll also use an electric guitar with jack-rack to mess around with ideas on and record stuff in Ardour with, or even tab it out in tuxguitar, since I can find my way around the notes on a fretboard a bit more easily sometimes.

I also bought a license for Renoise, which I use occasionally, but trackers are too involved for my tastes and I prefer a piano roll layout for editing notes. It does allow you to use your computer keyboard as a music keyboard though, and the layout isn't bad, but you're still better off using a small MIDI keyboard.

I used to use Cubase (got the full version in a box somewhere), but it's overkill for an amateur like me, and I don't even have a Windows PC or a Mac to run it on anymore. Maybe someday I'll buy a Macbook Pro or something.

http://www.akaipro.com/lpk25

http://www.filter24.org/seq24/

http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/

http://www.renoise.com/

Didn't know there is such USB keyboard (but I felt that there should be something like that). Thanks for informing me about it and apps I didn't know before.

Two octaves (actually almost three) I could easily get on computer keyboard (not that convenient, I know), so it doesn't look that useful to me, also because 2 octaves are not enough for most of two-hand plays.

So Renoise has computer keyboard as music keyboard mode? Good to know. I'll have to check it whether it works as I would like it too.

No problem, but I would encourage you to reconsider your train of thought.

The LPK25 is limited, but it's definitely more convenient for getting down ideas than using a computer keyboard, since once you have it set as the MIDI input device in an application, you can hit keys and play notes without having to worry about what application is in focus and what its keyboard shortcuts are. Computer keyboards also only recognize up to a certain number of keys being held down simultaneously (since they're designed with the assumption that you won't be pressing five keys in the same row at the same time) and don't provide velocity or intensity information, but you always get note intensity and velocity MIDI information out of a MIDI keyboard. As for the limited number of keys, you can shift the keyboard down or up entire octaves with the buttons on the left and then record the left and right hand parts separately in two passes. You can also look at it and see what notes you're pressing instead of having to translate between a computer keyboard and a musical keyboard.

So I'd say it's quite useful compared to having just a computer keyboard, and the small size means you're that much more likely to have it with your computer, even if your computer is a laptop and you travel a lot. Your argument that it only does what you could still do with a computer keyboard is like saying the virtual keyboard on an iPad is just as good as using a bluetooth keyboard, since they offer the same keys and basic functionality... so a bluetooth keyboard for the iPad is useless. But you'll probably still want to use that bluetooth keyboard with the iPad if you're doing any amount of writing, because it just makes it easier to type (and it frees up the screen space for what you're writing).

If you have the desk space though, Behringer makes some cheap gear that usually works fine, so go with a larger keyboard and check out the Behringer UMX610, which should work perfectly with Linux:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/672870-REG/Behringer_U...

You could even use such a keyboard for actual performances if you absolutely had to, but it probably doesn't play as nicely as your Casio, and you should probably figure out your latency problems in Linux. (To be honest, if I were doing anything music related on an everyday basis, I'd much rather use Cubase on a Mac. Linux software is a disheveled mess of parts that can fit together quite nicely, but can also cause a lot of hairpulling too.)

Finally, you probably don't want to hear this, but if you have time and energy for ear training practice, relative pitch recognition would make your life a lot easier and solve most of your problems. Then if you can work out what the first few notes of your song are and you figure out the key, you can figure out how to write down the rest pretty easily from there. Then you could use some of the score editing software, trackers, or anything else that people mentioned in the other replies.

As it is now, it sounds like most of your musical fluency is trapped away in the muscle memory of your hands, and that's the real source of your current problem, since it's the same as being able to speak and listen, maybe even read a bit, but not write anything.

Anyway, just something to consider. Good luck, and I hope you find something that works for you.

Thank you for this insightful comment.

You're right, music keyboard is obviously better than computer keyboard in all ways. I didn't want to argue opposite statement.

Behringer UMX610 looks more interesting, but it's a bit more expensive. Having my old casio, which has nowadays only one really annoying thing (less annoying is broken volume potentiometer, so only one speaker works above ~10% level) - clappy sound (don't know any good term for it) of its keys - I don't have real need for new keyboard (I don't intend to compose being outside of the home, but OTOH having small keyboard next to keyboard would be possibly convenient). It's still unknown about this casio's MIDI capabilities, i.e. whether they are working correctly. First thing I have to do in spare time is get some MIDI on USB interface cable (like Roland UM-1G, which is already more than 100PLN) and test my keyboard on it after years to see whether old problems are still here.

As I stated in response to troyal7562, I have some relative pitch recognition skill (not accurate) that combined with the knowledge of key indeed gives good results, but not good enough for real-time transcription-through-play.

Well, I can write, but not off-hand, that's the point. Also via playing you can develop and change your ideas further, so I wouldn't call this additional stage as trapping. Remember I am talking about prototyping, not crafting final version of some music piece. That is also why having it in my computer, when I can (or should be able to) easily alter, improve and combine my musical sketches, is that important. But surely having perfect sound recognition skill would ease all of my efforts.

If you absolutely can't spend money on anything, I'd go with PxTone for bare-bones prototyping. It runs on Wine. It is point-and-click tracker.

http://buzinkai.net/PXTone/tutorial/

It's an incredibly lightweight tracker or whatever, and comes with preloaded instruments (basic chiptune-ish sounds). But when you're prototyping a song or trying to get an idea down really fast, you shouldn't worry too much about the instruments or anything. PxTone is strong in this regard, it's VERY FAST and intuitive to just jot down a melody.

I find PxTone is great if I think of some short melody and want it sort of stored so I can come back to it later and maybe work with it on something more involved than PxTone.

Of course it's mostly useful for the prototyping stage. Any sort of recording with real instruments, or effects more than just panning/volume/reverb/echo/overdrive/portamento, you'll want to look elsewhere.

Thanks for your comment. Point-and-click is not what I am looking for (at least for input stage), but I'll look at it later. It's not that I cannot spend some money, but I would like to definitely avoid additional expenses (see also comment in my new thread).

Logic or Digital Performer on the mac, Cubase on PC. If you're very score-centric, Sibelius. Buy a quality audio interface with MIDI ports. Not cheap, but the only way to get genuinely high quality MIDI and score editing.

Trackers are a crutch for people without a musical education and simply aren't sophisticated enough. They represent music mechanically, using an abstraction that collapses in the face of something as mundane as triplets. There are no good sequencers on Linux. Lilypond does excellent engraving, but there's no Free software that'll prepare a score without endless hair pulling.

There's a delay column in Renoise that make triplets trivial.

The Lua API and users writing scripts, such as this "Fractional Notes Generator" makes it even more trivial:

http://www.renoise.com/board/index.php?/topic/28248-allow-fl...

I thought this was hacker news were people actually knew how to code? Musically educated in what? Last time I checked we're not troubadours performing occitan lyric poetry in the high middle ages.

Trackers aren't for everyone, some things are clearly not reasonable to do in them (recording a live band comes to mind), but the "musical education" and "crutch" comment is without foundation.

Musically educated in what? Music. Not genre-based electronic music, but music in it's broadest sense - from bebop to Bulgarian folk music, from Stravinsky to Stockhausen, from Abba to Zappa.

I write music for sync. I need things like timecode support, which is a weird niche thing, but also things like tempo and time signature maps, which aren't.

In a proper sequencer, I can play in a phrase, then instantly quantise it to any time signature and any tuplet I want. Septuplets in 9/8 are no more difficult than straight eights in 4/4. The grid in my piano roll display will conform to my chosen timing, as will the output of my score editor. I can draw in a series of gradual tempo changes to an automation channel, or extract tempo and groove from an audio or MIDI track to use as a tempo map. If that sounds like an exotic requirement, try arranging a piece in a tracker based around drums recorded without a click, or using a tracker to arrange a version of, say, "Anyone Who Had A Heart" by Burt Bacharach.

Trackers represent music in a way that is alien to people who can read classical notation and who have studied composition. Someone with a modicum of training can follow an orchestral score with dozens of parts, scanning the score in real time and picking out the harmonic progression and main melodic theme. That's simply not possible with a tracker, either using numerical or piano roll display. Not an issue if you make primitive electronic music, a cataclysmic failure if you deal with big, complicated arrangements.

Trackers are a toy. They're intolerably crude if you're a professional user who has deadlines to meet, but also intolerably crude if you're merely an amateur with musical training. Tracker users don't know what they're missing, overwhelmingly because they can't read or write music, have little understanding of musical theory and no experience of playing in ensemble with trained musicians.

Again, you are confusing "right tool for the job" with your silly prejudices.

Take me for example, I know Stockhausen because I studied him in my fine arts undergraduate degree in Electroacoustic studies at university.

To recap, the question was somewhere along the lines of "how do you prototype music, I have a casio?" not "how do you write a serialist score for a chamber ensemble?"

Even then, The Linux Laptop Orchestra based in the music department at Virgina Tech uses trackers. Of course this isn't the score to Star Wars and a house in Malibu; it is very left field stuff, but it can't be denied that this is serious contemporary practice for anyone in the know.

Regards,

Thank you conner_bw and jdietrich for covering topic a bit more deeply here. I am open-minded and I like discussions from various PoV. Even if I am only a guy with casio (somehow it sounded like a really lame thing, is it? :>), I happily get to know more about professional-like stuff, as I am perfectionist deep in my heart. But I also almost always try to find the most effective way of what I am doing (and often this finding part takes more time than doing the job, oh well...), like writing scripts for one-time task that could be done quicker by hand, etc.

Thank you for comment. See also the comment in my new thread. 549EUR for Sibelius 7 isn't cost I would afford for kind of hobby-like stuff, even though I heard some good things about it. There is also no Linux version (my main OS, but I have Windows). Does Sibelius really lessen that much your hair pulling efforts?

Great score editing alone is not what I need, but it's surely a nice feature to have. I heard some good things also about Finale or sophisticated SCORE too.

I cannot tell I am really educated music fellow (know basics, though, like triplets and many other things, what I really lack is possibly music composing theory and similar knowledge), so to some degree I agree with you about problematic over-simplicity of trackers in terms of proper music input.

I know that a lot of folks is still using Cakewalk Professional v3.01 (which is free!) for MIDI sequncing. If I get to MIDI stuff again, I'll have to revisit it after these 15 years. I remember I liked it back then.

http://www.simpilot.net/~richnagel/#cakewalk

Thank you all for great comments. I think I should add a few more words here.

In my case playing music (and recently composing) is just a way to break from daily activities or relax in spare time. I used to do it years ago and somehow this year I started doing it again. This is why I do not intend on spending money on it (like > 22$/30EUR/100PLN), just want to use whatever best free tools are out there.

By best in terms of music prototyping I mean the most effective ones:

- giving the possibility to quickly store my musical ideas, like by supporting input from playing on a computer keyboard (by "live performances", mind I used scare quotes also in starting message, I meant rather playing for recording purposes than for amusing of others than me in the room),

- allowing me to easily rearrange, tune and mix my crafted pieces.

Once again, literal score is not the purpose of music prototyping, but some way of saving the music sketches, overwriting and enhancing them, etc., just working on them (but doing it in a efficient manner) seems crucial to me, as otherwise I'll lost idea before writing it down or won't have enough time to tediously input it in clunky tracker/sequencer/staff editor/whatever.

No comment explicitly addressed my wish for rapid prototyping/transcribing (don't get me wrong, I am not complaining here just stating the fact), but I've seen some new app names that I'll try to test later and check how they fit (if at all) in my idea of composing/music recognition workflow.

Maybe I'll have to prototype my own tool for music prototyping one day. :)

If you have an iPad, check out: http://symphonypro.net.

The app allows you to create and edit sheet music. There's a built in keyboard and a real-time recording feature. If you have a Core MIDI compatible device, you connect it to your iPad and input notes in real time from that as well.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the developers

Thanks for slipping in. I don't have any Apple product.

(But I'll possibly buy some MacBook if there will be TrackPoint in it - sadly I feel it is quite unlikely to happen. I know there are others like me, though.)

the problem is finding a software sequencer you can get comfortable with. pick one and stick with it, and use it every day. don't give up on a track till you've spent an hour on it, as there's no better practice than finessing an idea you're not sold on to improvement (this will come in handy if you end up doing it for money). with an apt combination of keyboard shortcuts and smart combinations of presets, no amount of software will hold back your ideas from fruition. i use FL studio in this manner to great effect, and can have a 5 minute song assembled to some structure in about 30 minutes. from there it's a matter of EQ and balancing.

another option may be to use something like audiomulch or PD to create the sort of work-flow environment you need to sit down and start sketching.

Thank you for a good tip. Being good in anything usually requires spending some time on it. I'll possibly invest more time if I found that particular sequencer/tool that works as I would like it to and its workflow is convenient for me.

I'll check audiomulch later. What is PD?

PD is pure data, which is an open source clone of the (surprisingly) closed source MAX/MSP. http://puredata.info/

it's basically an open-ended programming environment for music/data/midi -- it's got a steep learning curve but disclaimers like that have no place on a site for hackers =)

Whoa, another interesting stuff. Thanks for explanation!

The best solution, of course, is to develop this "sound recognition skill". While the amount of work it takes get there is significant, the benefits far exceed the mere ability to transcribe what is in your head. Most people think that the ability is magic, so that whe you develop this ability, people will think you are some kind of musical genius. It is similar to how the computer illiterate respond to programmers.

I use pen and paper. Anything else is an (understanably neccesary) shortcut. I feel for the trees, but I havent found an iPad app that allows you to simply write on a representation of staff paper yet.

Thank you for comment. Developing such skill would be awesome. I have some grasp of intervals (far from perfect), but not scales, so I have to find the first tone to properly continue. When I find the scale, it's easier to follow the melody, but I can never go error-free on first play real-time.

Do you have any tips about learning this skill efficiently, useful resources, etc.? If I could at least improve in a short time, I would consider investing my time into it.

I understand (a bit) your feel about writing on staff paper. But I was never able to quickly do it and preserve acceptable look of my scores.

Another vote for the Akai LPK25 -- it's superportable, so it's easy either to keep right by your computer, or even to throw into a laptop bag and have along with you.

Personally I like Sonar (the current generation Cakewalk) on Windows as a software solution. I can't speak to Linux solutions.

I also keep some composition apps on my Android phone. If you really want to capture musical ideas wherever you are, a phone is perfect. I like Caustic and ULoops for Android, and I've also tried NanoStudio on an iPod Touch and found it quite nice.

Thanks for your comment. I don't have a smartphone, so I have to skip mobile solutions. :)

I have a Yamaha DGX-500 that I bought from a bloke at my office. It works great and is compatible with FL Studio. Saves about 5 songs, though.

Thanks for your comment. I know that some recent keyboards have memory for lot of songs, LCDs displaying recorded music and such, also USB port to store it on pendrive. It should be quite productive.

Ableton Live with the Session view is how I make my music. In fact, here's a stupid rough video of how I do my stuff.

http://www.bphogan.com/files/videos/livesession.mov

Thanks for commenting. Ableton Live is undoubtedly a great software. AFAIK it's not suited for rapid prototyping.

Here is some nice stuff. Just in case somebody haven't seen it yet.

Making of "The Prodigy - Voodoo People" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZYLp5uX9Yw

Did you watch the clip I posted tho? Using the session view, I can prototype really quickly by recording simple loops. I used to use lots of other tools, but I am so much faster with the session view. I can record things in parts and then move them around to see if I like what I'm hearing. Very organic.

Sorry, I did not, as I am short on time recently. I have done it just now in speeded up way and indeed, session view looks quite interesting and useful for music prototyping (assuming you already clearly know what to play, doesn't look equally good for trial and error method).

Thank you for being stubborn and convincing me about AL usefulness. I won't spend 350EUR on it, though.

No problem. And depending on the USB midi input controller you get, you might be able to get a free LE (limited edition) copy with it.

Good to know. Thanks for this remark, but USB MIDI controller with Ableton LE won't be cheap either. :)

Also quoting wikipedia:

As of version 6, Ableton also offers a stripped-down version of Live targeted at the non-professional market. It has limitations on the number of audio channels and effects and does not feature some of the synchronization (MIDI Clock, ReWire) utilities the full version has to offer. The current Live LE version is 8.1.4.

As part of the Able10 celebrations, Ableton introduced Live Intro as an effective replacement to LE. Registered users of Live LE can now receive a free upgrade to Live Intro. The current version is 8.2.2.

checkout an earlier thread! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3089010

Thanks for reference, In fact it inspired me to create this submission, as subject is not the same. (You missed my comment there, right? :>)

Guitar, voice, imagination. Next I write a few notes and lyrics on paper. Then I start to record for real...

Thanks for sharing your story.

Chord chart on paper. Play, improvise, revise.

I am a professional musician. For getting things typeset, I use Lilypond, and the two tools I use are vim and rumor. (https://launchpad.net/rumor) Very simple, but it gets the job done.

For live performance, I have a USB keyboard and several voices in Csound (http://www.csounds.com/) and run the whole thing through a keyboard amp. Cheap and effective.

Thank you for comment. Did not hear about rumor before. I'll have to definitely check this out, even though it's not suited for prototyping. I'll test Csound too.