The Score Magazine - Archive January 2017 issue! | Seite 37

Souvik Chakrabort y
AUDACITY
Audacity is one of the most popular and widely used
software in the indie music and movie scene. Not only it
has a surprisingly easy to use interface but also, making
samplings and exporting them in various formats like
WAV, AIFF, MP3 is breezingly refreshing. Audacity is
easily available to download and use, thus democratizing
the way how music has been stone walled through the
complicated mathematics of samplings and bit rates.
DRUMBOX
Drumbox could be your high school crush and if fiddled
well, it could well be the reason to fall in love with your
hidden talents. Why wait, indulge and see already. This
ware lets you assort various patterns into rhythms that
can well sell off itself as originally composed tracks.
Low pass, high pass filters, enveloppe ADSR powered
controllers and VCO generators. It works cross platform
across Windows, Mac and Linux and makes analog synth
emulation ultra fast
HYDROGEN
For a bit more advanced user it becomes extremely
important to understand and take full control of the
entire musical graph of the composition. Hydrogen on
the surface level is an out and out monster size drum
machine packed in a computer program. One can actually
layer both samples and patterns. It has a host of function
open to its user, that can tweak and twist the right way
of composing and experimenting the way an user would
push it to. Add to that, the tacky zing of humanisations
and swing options.
MIXXX
If DJing is your thing and you would compromise for
anything but professional quality, you are in game for a
tryst with Mixxx. The fun part about Mixxx is that it is
available from Apple app store and boasts also of being
the first open source software to be available widely from
Apple store. DJing taxes the creative juices to another
level altogether and you would want absolutely no snags
whatsoever. Mixxx is super fast. Add to that the spicy mix
of a powerful mixing engine and MIDI controller support.
Mixxx welcomes most formats with open hands like
WAV, MP3, FLAC, and OGG VORBIS to name a few, so
what else can you ask for.
SPEK
This software uses a spectogram to analyze music. Sounds
nerdily great, well it is. Its FFmpeg libraries boast of
a large volume of lossy and losless audio file formats.
Furthermore it uses multiple threads to fasten analysis.
Users can save the spectrogram result as an image once
the test has been taken. SPEK has well incorporated audio
signal parameters. SPEK is translatable into 19 languages.
It thrives on Windows and Mac OS X etcs.
SONIC BIRTH
Though these softwares make way for lot of innovations
and wild experimentations it necessarily limits the
extended use of the music across platforms. For this
there are advanced softwares like the Sonic Birth. This
is a software based on Mac OS X. SONIC BIRTH gives the
freedom of exporting in VST or Audio Units plugins. Thus
the user with additive and subtractive mixes of modules
can give birth to awesome electronic synthesizers and
audio effects. Sonic Birth is not the usual go getters
lucky charm but it is of a certain charisma that is for the
scholastic musician to tap in and explore.
MusE
MusE is largely a Linux based program. MusE takes the
average recording and sampling to a more streamlined
workflow. Graphical editing, importing several files,
toggling along with several monos and streos and toying
with the possibilities of realtime recordings. MusE is
fully action packed but is pretty low profile at the surface.
It digs in nicely plugins like the DSSI, LADSPA and VST.
ARDOUR
The teenager crush on automation of sounds, jolts to
another level with more apps like ARDOUR, which
compete to the level of softwares like Nuendo, ProTools
and this software clearly has the potential of beating
analog and digital tape systems. It gives more room
and power for blazing fast and error free Anywhere-to-
Anywhere signal routing. It has a fully functioning MIDI
multi track recording and editing facilities, coupled with
Transport Synchronization and Control Surfaces. With
Full Sample Accurate Automation the software packs a
punch like no other in the industry.
MuLAB
This offers power packed performances that juices
out enough of creativity in the simplest looking app
environment. MuLAB boasts of high functioning super-
fat oscillators with 300 selected waveforms. It has a
compelling multi core CPU support and unmatched and
uncompromised sound engines.The best part of MuLAB
is that it lets you easily automate and toy with any
parameter in the modular tree structure. MuLab is indeed
your little workstation functioning with equal repute in
both Mac and Windows.
SUPER COLLIDOR
As the name suggests, this is one amongst the ultra
performer beasts of today's musical scene. It has been
active since 1996. It is more of programming language
and it focuses largely on the aspects of the algorithmic
compositions rather than the simplified tweaking here
and there. So to master this monumental feat one has to
go up the ladder of a lot of researches and seminars and
workshops which are actually conducted to facilitate
more of creative pursuits this. software.
GARAGEBAND
Oh, how can be GB missed out from this list. Garageband
is again one of the most easy to use and popular music
creation software which has been used in the television
and digital video making industry all alike.
One can create great compositions with proper uses of
virtual Drummers, Flex times and multi take facilities.
The best part about Garageband is that it is future
proof, the gesture controls on this software gives one the
opportunity to control and use the software from their
remote devices like the iPad.
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