What's the best bit of music software you've ever bought?

[matski]

Logic EXPRESS...

[charic]

I'm looking forward to getting protools in the very near future, I've not really tried Reaper but I've used protools in the past and I know I get on with it very well. Other than that Logic is my favourite. I also love reason for bashing out ideas, putting them through to guitarpro and then sending to the guitarist

[Doddy]

I've got logic studio which is great,but I don't use it that often.GarageBand is cool too.
My most used program though,is Sibelius 5.

[MrRatty]

Transcribe for transcribing
Audacity for recording and editing
Lillypond + Frescobaldi for writing

[Hutch82]

[size=3][font="Verdana"][quote name='51m0n' post='1242704' date='May 24 2011, 10:33 AM']I am pretty hard to please when it comes to a DAW, mainly because I was used to working on a desk with patchbays, and basically that lets you plug pretty much anything into anything - you may release the magic, or just the magic smoke, but you can do it.

The only DAW I have found that lets me do this is Reaper. Some of the grouping arrangements I come up with to help make a mix I am pretty sure you cant do in any other DAW at all.

For instance I can make a group at anytime, put in a track with a reverb fx vst, put in a another couple of groups of tracks then change the number of audio channels in each of those groups , then arrange the sends from the tracks in those groups to go through the different channels, and send all of theose channels to the reverb. Why would I want to do this? It solves one of the biggest headaches in using aux fx off groups, that when you change the level of the group fader it doesn't change the level of the track sends to the aux. This may not sound like much, but it is very very significant to me as it means I cna reuse a single instance of a VST for multiple groups, which in turn saves huge amounts of processing cycles :0)

For £25 that is simply staggering. Add in the superb fx it comes with, one of the best gates and certainly one of the best compressors (and multiband compressors) and an EQ that is sublime and you can not beat that particular package IMO.

The rest of the time I use almost entirely free VSTs, the Bootsy stuff is amazing (not that Bootsy!), Molot is a phenominal drum buss compressor, FishFillets are fantastic, SIR reverb is mind boggling especially since you can now get Eventide H3000 and Acoustica M7 pulses free to run in it![/quote]

Thanks for the heads up on Bootsy 51mOn being using Reaper for only 6 months and always experimenting with VST's and his look innerestin here's a link to his blog

[url="http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/"]Bootsy VST downloads[/url]

TuxGuitar is a good alternative to Guitar Pro [url="http://tuxguitar.herac.com.ar/"]TuxGuitar[/url]

and just starting to get my head round MuseScore [url="http://musescore.org/"]Musescore[/url]


H[/font][/size]

[51m0n]

Bootsy's VSTs are all superb, but NastyDLA is without doubt the best charcterful delay I've heard in a computer.

Some other good free VSTs are (in no particular order):-

TAL series: great plate reverbs, nice distortion fx, some cool dub style delays too.
G series: I use GMax a lot as a quick brick wall limiter
Jerome series: Some really nice 'quick and dirty' limiters/maximisers, PC2 a superb no colour compressor
TLS series: Excellent bunch of coloured compressors/limiters
FlangerHand: weird flanger thing, nice to automate
PushTec: clone of a Pulltech eq, kinda...
NU-tron: wannabe mutron
Voxengo: Some really useful free mastering tools (beeper, M/S, span)
Ambience: another very nice free reverb
bluenoise mydrumset: nice free vsti drumkit....

[BottomEndian]

[quote name='51m0n' post='1242993' date='May 24 2011, 02:34 PM']TAL series: great plate reverbs, nice distortion fx, some cool dub style delays too.[/quote]
Don't forget their synths too! The 101 and Juno models are great. And all free!

[charic]

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='1242997' date='May 24 2011, 02:39 PM']Don't forget their synths too! The 101 and Juno models are great. And all free, free I tell you! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee[/quote]

Fixed

[Skol303]

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='1242732' date='May 24 2011, 11:06 AM']Hmmm. Seems I should take another look at Reaper. I had a play with it a year or two ago, but it just didn't seem very "finished" on OS X. Most plugins didn't have their proper GUIs, it seemed to need a few little workarounds to get the I/O going... all the sorts of little things that put me off. I'll cast aside my memories of last time and try again. [/quote]

^ I'm running Reaper on my old laptop (OSX 10.4.11) and it does suffer from occasional crashes and other glitches - but then so do most DAWs that rely on 3rd party VSTs. It also has a habit of spitting out random, ear-shattering noise from time to time whenever the processor gets busy - seriously, very loud and possibly dangerous when wearing cans! - but I could be mistaking this problem for my own music?!

Generally speaking I'd say it's very reliable and well worth a look - it's still free to trial for 30 days anyway (and free afterwards, depending on your ethics), so no reason not to revisit it.

I still prefer Reason/Record on my desktop but Reaper does have some great plus points, as 51m0n has mentioned (nice list of VSTs too, btw!).

[GarethFlatlands]

[quote name='51m0n' post='1242993' date='May 24 2011, 02:34 PM']Bootsy's VSTs are all superb, but NastyDLA is without doubt the best charcterful delay I've heard in a computer.

Some other good free VSTs are (in no particular order):-

TAL series: great plate reverbs, nice distortion fx, some cool dub style delays too.
G series: I use GMax a lot as a quick brick wall limiter
Jerome series: Some really nice 'quick and dirty' limiters/maximisers, PC2 a superb no colour compressor
TLS series: Excellent bunch of coloured compressors/limiters
FlangerHand: weird flanger thing, nice to automate
PushTec: clone of a Pulltech eq, kinda...
NU-tron: wannabe mutron
Voxengo: Some really useful free mastering tools (beeper, M/S, span)
Ambience: another very nice free reverb
bluenoise mydrumset: nice free vsti drumkit....[/quote]

Thanks for the headsup, I'll have a look at them.
I'm using AcmeBarGig as a free guitar amp VST for quick and dirty demos. Pretty versatile and easy to use. I'd go to a proper head and separate cab sim but it's more than I need really.

[Russ]

On the subject of portable recording solutions, has anyone else played with Garageband on the iPad? F***ing awesome. I've been using it with the iRig guitar interface for recording bits and pieces, and it rules - no latency, great-sounding effects, and some awesome virtual instruments - the "smart drums" are fantastic, some of the synth stuff is amazing (complete with real-time parameter and filter adjustment) and the virtual guitar is astonishing - it even does palm-muting! Best £3 I've ever spent on a piece of music software.

Although, of course, you need to buy the iPad to go with it.

[JellyKnees]

Buy? Mmmmmm...if I was making any real money out of this music thing I might....

Nuendo is good...I've used variants of cubase for years and never seen the point in changing tbh.

[ShergoldSnickers]

[quote name='matski' post='1242745' date='May 24 2011, 11:25 AM']Logic EXPRESS...[/quote]
Have to agree. I did try Reaper on Mac OS X, but didn't get on with it for some reason. . I can see why others do though.
I find Logic nearly as instantaneous to use as Garageband, but far more powerful in routing, flexibility and general abilities.

[lowdown]

[quote name='JellyKnees' post='1243250' date='May 24 2011, 06:44 PM']Nuendo is good...I've used variants of cubase for years and never seen the point in changing tbh.[/quote]

Nuendo is just the post production version of Cubase, and in fact you have to purchase the add on pack to get the same amount of stuff you get with Cubase.
IE -the score editor and some of the Vst's/Vsti's. The Audio engine is the same.
Nuendo will give you the extra stuff to work with when using Video files, and as i said above - post production.
There is a huge price gap between the two - so just for recording and composing purposes, Cubase is the better option...
Unless of course you are working in Broadcast [and in that case you would know what i am going on about]
If thats the case forget what i have just said...


Garry

[JellyKnees]

Like i said, 'buy'??? The 'version' I had of cubase at the time was a bit unstable, the version of nuendo wasn't...I know they are basically the same thing, although I still think nuendo looks more business like, even though I now have a working version of cubase 5 too...

[51m0n]

[quote name='JellyKnees' post='1243377' date='May 24 2011, 08:10 PM']Like i said, 'buy'??? The 'version' I had of cubase at the time was a bit unstable, the version of nuendo wasn't...I know they are basically the same thing, although I still think nuendo looks more business like, even though I now have a working version of cubase 5 too...

[/quote]

Nice admission of guilt there.

There is no reason to be using pirate software for music produciton these days as there are so many cheap or free programs available that do the job as well as or better thna the expensive stuff.