Sunday, August 27, 2006
Turage 2, Not as good as Fruity Loops, But Pretty Good For Free!
I downloaded Turage from Bram Bos the other day to try it out. Turage allows you to import loops and sample and sequence them into a song. It also comes with some loops to get you started. When you install the program you get two versions. One is free and the other requires you to pay to avoid the nag screens. The deference is that the free version provides you with a drum machine and a animated modeling soft synth to use along with your imported loops. The non-free version adds a virtual sampler and a fm synth also. You can try the non-free one without having to pay and you can actually save the loops you create and export them as wave files.
I created a loop using the drum machine that comes with the program. It comes with 808 style sounds already installed but you can import your own using the sample manager. You program the machine using a grid type interface where you click on the grid where you want the drum to sound. You can assign 8 drum sounds, (keyboard sounds are available also) to the grid and you can control the volume and effects on each individual drum by a mixer at the bottom of the screen. You can control the pitch and loudness of each individual note by right clicking on the note. As a result, you can program a drum loop complete with base line. You also have control over swing, quantize, and the number of measures in the loop.
Once you have your loop the way you want it, you can save it and use it as a loop in the loop sequencer. On the main screen you have 12 slots where you can assign loops. The volume of the individual loops are controlled by the mixer at the bottom of the screen. Once assigned, the fun really starts. Click at the end of the name of the sample and you can control whether it loops or plays as a one shot. Click on the fx bottom to the left of the sample and you can either add distortion or variation to the sample. The distortion varies in an amount you select by drawing a distortion curve on the grid in the distortion menu. The variation effect chops the sample into sections and allows you to reverse a section, reduce its volume, mute it, and/or move it. It gives you plenty of presets to try that have some funky effects on your loops.
The virtual synths produce analogue type sounds and use a piano role type of editor to create lines and chords. They come with several presets that sound interesting and it is fairly easy to come up with your own sounds. Once you have something you are happy with you save it and can use it as a loop in the loop sequencer.
To build a song go to the sequence mode. Click on a step and select the wave you want in the main section below the sequence section. Click on the next step and repeat. You can copy and past sections once you have them together. In the song I created for download, I used a drum loop, a drum loop I created with the virtual drum machine, and a brass lick I sampled from a song. I used the on board sample editor to trim and effect the brass lick to my satisfaction, then I exported the whole thing as a wave file. I normalized the file in Audacity and exported it as an Mp3. I hope this will give you a clear picture of what Turage can do for you. There are more advanced loop creation software out there but this one will do in a pinch when you are creating music on a budget.
If you are looking for Turage 2: http://www.brambos.com/tu2.html
Link to Turage Tour by C-Dub: http://www.4shared.com/file/3298544/faa60dd9/turage_tour.html
I downloaded Turage from Bram Bos the other day to try it out. Turage allows you to import loops and sample and sequence them into a song. It also comes with some loops to get you started. When you install the program you get two versions. One is free and the other requires you to pay to avoid the nag screens. The deference is that the free version provides you with a drum machine and a animated modeling soft synth to use along with your imported loops. The non-free version adds a virtual sampler and a fm synth also. You can try the non-free one without having to pay and you can actually save the loops you create and export them as wave files.
I created a loop using the drum machine that comes with the program. It comes with 808 style sounds already installed but you can import your own using the sample manager. You program the machine using a grid type interface where you click on the grid where you want the drum to sound. You can assign 8 drum sounds, (keyboard sounds are available also) to the grid and you can control the volume and effects on each individual drum by a mixer at the bottom of the screen. You can control the pitch and loudness of each individual note by right clicking on the note. As a result, you can program a drum loop complete with base line. You also have control over swing, quantize, and the number of measures in the loop.
Once you have your loop the way you want it, you can save it and use it as a loop in the loop sequencer. On the main screen you have 12 slots where you can assign loops. The volume of the individual loops are controlled by the mixer at the bottom of the screen. Once assigned, the fun really starts. Click at the end of the name of the sample and you can control whether it loops or plays as a one shot. Click on the fx bottom to the left of the sample and you can either add distortion or variation to the sample. The distortion varies in an amount you select by drawing a distortion curve on the grid in the distortion menu. The variation effect chops the sample into sections and allows you to reverse a section, reduce its volume, mute it, and/or move it. It gives you plenty of presets to try that have some funky effects on your loops.
The virtual synths produce analogue type sounds and use a piano role type of editor to create lines and chords. They come with several presets that sound interesting and it is fairly easy to come up with your own sounds. Once you have something you are happy with you save it and can use it as a loop in the loop sequencer.
To build a song go to the sequence mode. Click on a step and select the wave you want in the main section below the sequence section. Click on the next step and repeat. You can copy and past sections once you have them together. In the song I created for download, I used a drum loop, a drum loop I created with the virtual drum machine, and a brass lick I sampled from a song. I used the on board sample editor to trim and effect the brass lick to my satisfaction, then I exported the whole thing as a wave file. I normalized the file in Audacity and exported it as an Mp3. I hope this will give you a clear picture of what Turage can do for you. There are more advanced loop creation software out there but this one will do in a pinch when you are creating music on a budget.
If you are looking for Turage 2: http://www.brambos.com/tu2.html
Link to Turage Tour by C-Dub: http://www.4shared.com/file/3298544/faa60dd9/turage_tour.html
Friday, June 23, 2006
Rebirth is Pretty Cool!
Its been a while since I updated this blog. Been creating. To see what you can do for free on your computer, download my latest track. I did it using Rebirth and I am proud of it. I may add more parts to it latter using another program, Audacity. I mastered the track in Audacity, equeing some of the bass out of it. Check it out and comment.
http://www.4shared.com/file/2173149/cbcc99c2/grove_down.html
Its been a while since I updated this blog. Been creating. To see what you can do for free on your computer, download my latest track. I did it using Rebirth and I am proud of it. I may add more parts to it latter using another program, Audacity. I mastered the track in Audacity, equeing some of the bass out of it. Check it out and comment.
http://www.4shared.com/file/2173149/cbcc99c2/grove_down.html
Monday, May 15, 2006
I have discovered a place for you to store your music and other files so that you can link to them in your blogs. And best of all you get 500mb free storage. Go to www.4shared.com and see if they meet your need. To show how it works go to my file at http://www.4shared.com/dir/405938/f849c31d/sharing.html and download some songs. I have some music there from my step son, Devereau J. Williams to check out and some other tracks.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Since this is the holiday season, I decided to give something away. If you have a computer with a sound card (that should be everyone reading this) you can making hip-hop beats in no time for free! This is software that I use and I am very happy. They don't use a lot of computer resources. In fact, if you have an older computer, they will probably work just fine.
To start download HammerHead Drum Programmer and install. It is a simple drum machine with Roland 808 and 909 sounds installed. It also has some basic loops. It is a real simple program to use. There is also away to import your own samples and there is a tutorial that teaches you what you need to know.
After you have created your basic beat in HammerHead, you can convert it to a .wav file (check manual) and import it into another program called Moonfish so that you can layer more samples. Besides mixing in samples, Moonfish allows you to do some interesting mutilations to the original sample. You can created several sequences and then string them into a song, then exported that song as a .wav file. This final wave file you can burn to a CD or convert to an mp3 file and put up on the internet.
A more straight forward approach is to use Rebirth. Rebirth was a commercial beat box program that the manufacture has discontinued and is allowing it to be distributed free. To get the program click on Rebirth and follow the instructions found on that page and follow the links there to the Propellerhead homepage and register. They will send you a user name and password that will allow you to download the software. After you get it downloaded, you will have to unzip the file and burn it to a CD before it will work. You will have to have the program CD in the CD drive to make the program work.
When you get it up and running you will find that the program consists of two drum machines and to bass machines. The sounds are from the Roland 808 drum machines 909 and the TB-303 bass machine. You can use Rebirth to do the drum track as well as the bass and lead lines of your beat then export the final piece as a .wav file to burn use for a track in your audio recording program.
O.k. you wanna be hip-hop producers--you have some tools. Let's hear some tracks.
To start download HammerHead Drum Programmer and install. It is a simple drum machine with Roland 808 and 909 sounds installed. It also has some basic loops. It is a real simple program to use. There is also away to import your own samples and there is a tutorial that teaches you what you need to know.
After you have created your basic beat in HammerHead, you can convert it to a .wav file (check manual) and import it into another program called Moonfish so that you can layer more samples. Besides mixing in samples, Moonfish allows you to do some interesting mutilations to the original sample. You can created several sequences and then string them into a song, then exported that song as a .wav file. This final wave file you can burn to a CD or convert to an mp3 file and put up on the internet.
A more straight forward approach is to use Rebirth. Rebirth was a commercial beat box program that the manufacture has discontinued and is allowing it to be distributed free. To get the program click on Rebirth and follow the instructions found on that page and follow the links there to the Propellerhead homepage and register. They will send you a user name and password that will allow you to download the software. After you get it downloaded, you will have to unzip the file and burn it to a CD before it will work. You will have to have the program CD in the CD drive to make the program work.
When you get it up and running you will find that the program consists of two drum machines and to bass machines. The sounds are from the Roland 808 drum machines 909 and the TB-303 bass machine. You can use Rebirth to do the drum track as well as the bass and lead lines of your beat then export the final piece as a .wav file to burn use for a track in your audio recording program.
O.k. you wanna be hip-hop producers--you have some tools. Let's hear some tracks.
