Free Multitrack Midi Composer?

[inverse_bloom 0]

Hi i was wondering if anyone had come across any good "free" multi track midi composers on the Internet. I have been looking for a while and have been meaning to ask on the trap for a while. Just wanted to mess around with one for a bit of fun.?

[truefusion 3]

I am not sure which ones you have tried out so far, if any, but i only know of Rosegarden. I can't vouch for it, but i hear it is good enough. Use of it will definitely involve reading some documentation, as far as i'm concerned.

[inverse_bloom 0]

Hey thanks for that Truefusion,Its actually not easy to find quality midi composing software on the net which is free. Apparently FL Studio is good if you can outlay a couple of hundred for the cause, but i cant so I'll have a look at Rosegarden after Ive obtained the latest version of Ubuntu. At the moment I'm coming up with a load of dependencies for version 7.2, which I'd rather not deal with.Cheers, again.

[rob86 2]

FL Studio isn't really just MIDI composing software. It's way more powerful than that. It's really good though of course, provided you can get it working on Linux, which frustratingly enough I can't! You may not be a guitarist, but Guitar Pro is an excellent MIDI composing software and there are tons of tablature files on the web. (.gp3 etc) If you're looking for a free alternative, TuxGuitar is pretty much the same thing, supports GP files but is free for Linux users! I used it to learn some piano tunes, and I sometimes use it for composing midis. It's designed for guitarists, with addons like guitar tuners, options like slides, bends, vibrato, harmonics, etc.. but if you happen to know what the words mean, this only means it's got more stuff to work with, if you don't you just avoid the extra buttons, it's not a problem. It's quite powerful software, the toolbar can be intimidating with a whole bunch of music symbols (Tupleto, Tied Notes, Piano Pessismo.. stuff like that). Don't let the Guitar in the name scare you off, it's good. Of course, you have to have some musical knowledge, either with Piano or Guitar. I mean, you have to know what notes are and stuff.. or you won't know what to click on to make music. FL Studio and LMMS are little more lenient here, they're relatively easy to use. It's a lot easier and faster to compose something in one of those two than any MIDI software, in my opinion.I don't use MIDI stuff often, so I can't really remember what all is out there. I had a few free ones on Windows, but not much on Linux, yet. Some aren't very impressive, and really just do basic stuff. Tux Guitar is much, much better. You might like LMMS, we've been discussing it in another thread here. It's meant to be like FL Studio but OSS and free. Not quite in the league of FL Studio, but not too bad for free software. It's a lot more fun than MIDI with better sound quality. Midi's are pretty dull sounding, MIDI technology has it's uses, for recording electronic drums, or from a keyboard.. but composing with MIDI.. not too great. If you do insist on using MIDI, add some reverb to the percussion, it improves the sound a little bit. It's still cheesy and fake sounding, but it's a little less cheesy and fake sounding. Maybe you can get sound fonts or something to improve the way Midi's sound? I'm not sure.. I never did too much with MIDI. Have you tried Hydrogen 2? It's an "Advanced Drum Machine" for linux. It deals entirely with percussion (obviously) but it's fun to play with if you like drums at all. Looks well designed. In all of the MIDI editing software I've tried, even Tux Guitar, percussion is a pain to do. You have to go make "chords" out of different drums, layering different "notes" (not really notes, but that's how it works in MIDI) and it's really annoying. Editing percussion in FL Studio is of course a breeze, you get what you pay for! Hydrogen 2 ADM's features would only be a small part of the stuff FL Studio can do.If you're feeling adventurous, there's an Indian Classical Music software called SwarShala which let's you compose Indian style music. The demo lets you use a few popular Indian instruments, it's not too bad for a bit of fun and learning. Personally I think it's pretty neat but there's a big price tag on it, so I've never tried the full version. If you're using Ubuntu, you might have to work a bit to get MIDI working unless you're lucky and it works already. I had to install TiMiDiTy I think before MIDI's would work.

[inverse_bloom 0]

Actually? i used to play a lot of guitar but 10 years ago. But anyways LMMS sounds like a good alternative, i might check out FL studio as well. What about a free real time guitar effects app? so far i've scoped out "Rakarrack Guitar Effects". Ive got a Morley Wah-Wah peddle and an old Digitech Rp-5 to boost the signal into a little into my? laptop.?I used to play a lot of gunners and Metallica songs so if i could achieve a sound a little like that, that would be awesome! (but probably unrealistic).

[rob86 2]

I'm not sure what kind of guitar FX apps are on Linux, I tried a few on Windows but I could never get them to work right, the latency was really bad and made it unusable. Maybe my sound card wasn't good enough. I've never tried Rakarrack.

[inverse_bloom 0]

Thats ok, thanks anyway. I'll check Rakarrack out with in the next week or so and post the results back here.

[truefusion 3]

You may also want to look into QTractor. Seems like a professional looking product, though only available for Linux due to audio framework dependencies.

[mahesh2k 0]

Some good MIDI composers i know:- Ablenton Live, i found similarity wiht Acid interface.- Reason- QTracker - HydrogenAlso Cubase is one to list but it is more expensive as many indie artists prefer this one. If you compare them with FL studio then i guess FL is much better than any other composer in the market.

Edited December 19, 2009 by mahesh2k (see edit history)