Friday, December 15, 2006

Friday December 15, 2006

Salutations All! We’re at the mid-point of December and nearing the start of winter (or summer for those in the southern hemisphere). In honor of Beethoven’s birthday, the weekly topic again turns to music and its making. The recommended music creation software of the week isn’t a single application, but an entire collection of highly functional music programs, plug-ins, and samples. All these goodies come bundled on the Computer Music monthly magazine DVD-ROM, which sells for about of $15 in the US. That right compadres, essentially everything you need to learn to make music on your computer is included for less than a couple sawbucks. The suite includes the Computer Muzys software studio and the CMusic sequencer, as well as some cool VST instruments and effects. In addition to all that gratuitous goodness, Computer Music also packs a whole bunch of loops and instrument samples onto each and every monthly cover disk. The programs run on Windows (CMusic requires Windows XP) or Mac, and are quite stable. If your local newsstand or bookshop doesn’t carry Computer Music, have a look on Ebay for back issues. The one drawback I’ve found is that the Computer Music programs are slightly less intuitive and easy to use than some others I’ve used. Having mentioned that minor bummer, I’ll leave it for you to try it or buy it.

This week’s picture was created using Project Dogwaffle
Click on the picture to get a full-sized view

The loops of the week were created with Orion Pro.

The website of the week is MythologyWeb, which as the name suggests is devoted to mythology, folklore, and legends.

Send your comments and feedback and I’ll read it all and respond to some of it.
Bye for now!