[MUSO] Songs from scratch?

[peterperv]

I've got about 30-50 songs that I've recorded onto Minidisc. These "songs" are only the basics - just acoustic guitar on their own. I now want to finish making these songs proper, like. on my own.

The problem is, I need to work on the drum track first (I got an A in Music Technology at A-level, so i think I know what I'm talking about) - and I can't play drums.

Basically, all I need from whores is a list of software/hardware/stuff that I can plug into my computer that will enable me to turn my simple acoustic guitar sound into a finished proper tune. The cheaper, the better.

When whores are making music, what do they use, how much does it cost and can I get some for cheap anywhere?

[Brainwrong]

Well this is what I do.....
Software used : Renoise & Soundforge

Plug your minidisc player into your pc via mic in (or whatever you have on your soundcard)
Record the bits (not too loud) with soundforge.
Save your guitar parts out as .wav files after normalizing volumes etc.

Open Renoise (great tracker style sequencer.)
Renoise is available at www.renoise.com
You'll need to purchase the full version in order to render your complete song to .wav - but you can do this at the end, it was about £30 when I registered and is a really good piece of software.
Now you can add drums etc (Renoise supports ALOT of tracks, I did a song using about 60)
Then render to wav
Load complete song into soundforge - master, normalize, eq etc
Save out as MP3
Post it here!! YAY

And fannys your proverbial auntie...

(I managed to get a cracked soundforge off one of the torrent sites)
Hope that helps you out.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I would personally recommend Acid Pro for multi-tracking, and Groove Agent for realistic sounding drums.
If you only have acoustic guitar then you're going to have trouble multi-tracking because the guitar will go out of time (I'm assuming you didn't use a metronome when recording them), so you're probably going to need to re-do the guitar stuff.

[sore bottom mum]

'Logic' if you've got Mac is great and easy to handle... other than that, you can pick up and old 4-track for £50 in Loot (that's what I did!)

On the adding beats tac, I'm always wary of attempting to use actual drum loops... they never end up sounding authentic, to me it makes a track always sound like it's trying to sound like something, rather than being that something itself. Using obviously sampled sounds/ electronic sounds I think always sounds a million times better.... or just forget the beat altogether, some songs sound much better with out this restriction.

[fanny splendid]

If you have a Mac, Apple's new Garage Band software seems very good.

[weekender]

This may not help your cause, but some of my favourite music threads on here have been where people have had ideas, and have found people who can just add something towards a song.

You've said you can't play drums - why not ask around if there's someone who can and wouldn't mind sparing you a bit of time?  I can't myself, obviously, but there may be people out there who have natural rhythm.  CaB's lacking in blacks, but there's probably some lurkers.

[Rats]

I suggest you all keep lurking. It'll be a long time before you're all sitting at the front of the bus round here, playing your bloody bongos.

[peterperv]

I'm gonna need a shit hot sound card too, aren't I?

Can anyone reccomend one?

Am I thinking that the Digidesign M-box is a good idea?

[mrpants]

Digidesign's MBox would be a very very good idea.  I bought the Digi002 a couple of months ago and found it a very nice piece of kit.  I also had a go on an MBox and probably would have bought that if I didn't want to mix with it (although it is possible to mix with the MBox with your mouse or with a midi controller).

I think you should get the MBox.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I'm gonna need a shit hot sound card too, aren't I?
?

Not really. I got one off ebay for thirty nicker and it does the job fine, although my mic is a bit quiet. you can always increase the volume afterwards though.

[9]

is it worth trying to download apps from those dodgy warez sites? I heard that they fill them spyware and general tat that's not supposed to be in there.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Don't go to warez sites, if you want to download the programs use Soulseek and Kazaa Lite. Check the filesizes too, generally the biggest ones are the real deal.