First Post! What I Use To Write Songs

For composing music I’ve been using mostly Make Music’s Finale. Finale is mainly notation software (for writing and printing sheet music, like for orchestra) but I use it cause it has really awesome GPO (Garritan Personal Orchestra) soundsets. You can hear some examples at their site. The orchestra sounds really are amazing.

Writing with MIDI software can be quite tedious and tiring though, you have to edit all the MIDI data and even then it still doesn’t sound realistic enough. I also write a bit with a real guitar, but I haven’t experimented with any recording.. and digital guitars sound TERRIBLE unless you’re doing like Hip Hop or R&B or something.

Speaking of hip hop and r&b, I got Fruity Loops a couple weeks ago to start learning how to make more modern electronic music (since this type of music sounds good when it’s not “realistic”). Well actually, the primary reason was for the percussion sets and samples.. Finale has great orchestra sounds but absolutely terrible drum kits; in fact, all it has are the basic midi ones. With Fruity Loops you can import wav files made by Finale and finish the percussion and add finishing touches(such has reverb and lots of effects).

Yeah, those are the two programs I use!