affordable, good software?

Hello Charlie 🙂
I have used 3 Different Types of Software in Making my Own Music; Beginning with …..;
Magix Music Maker 12 Deluxe; which was Excellent for Basic writing of Tunes; and has the facility to drag in Samples from anywhere on your Hard Drive from its Browser; but it was quite Limited in the Effects department
Magix Music Maker 17 is now available for £90; http://www.magix.com/gb/music-maker/
I then moved onto ….;
Sony Acid Pro 7 which was more of a Complete Package; but much too Complicated for me with the way they organise their Buses; so trying to get an actual idea down to Completion was not an easy feat
Sony Acid Pro now available for £250; http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/acidpro
I then had a go at ….;
Fruity Loops (FL Studio 9); which is Excellent; if you get the hang of how to use it; i have seen and heard some Fabulous Trance Tracks made using FL Studio; there are Many Effects available; but the Piano Roll takes some learning;
FL Studio 10 Producers Edition available for 126 Euros
Ableton 8 Suite – As soon as I opened Ableton 8 and saw the Vast amount of Instruments; Audio and Midi Effects; the fact that you could Build your Own Instruments; Racks; Drum Machines; Synthesisers; with Ease; use as Many Tracks as you please to Write your Material; use Effects on Every Channel and Chain these Effects together; (and use it to DJ of course); and having spent months Committed to learning the Product I could not Reccommend Anything (other than Logic; but I don’t have an Apple) Better for Creating and Producing you Own Music; the Piano Roll (Arrangement View) is a Breeze; and you also have another screen called ‘Session View’ (which other DAW’s do not have); where you can Build your Track from Samples and Loops; it wouldn’t be Fair for me to direct you Away from this site; but there are Many Producers who give Instruction on how to use Ableton in a User Friendly Manner;
Ableton 8 Suite is now available for 549 Euros;
So to Sum Up; in effect; it is all about Price VS Intention Of Use (or could be);
If you are Very Limited on Price I would go for FL Studio 10;
If you wish to Own a DAW that you will Never Tire Of; then Ableton would be the Choice;
I Hope I have Helped you in some way 🙂

I’ve dabbled a little bit in production but nothing too serious and I would definitely say the same thing, Ableton has a pretty good workflow and you can totally customize it to your preferences. Other than that I would suggest the Intro version of Ableton – about $100 – gives you the essentials to see if its for you and you can upgrade for a discounted price.

I don’t know about you.. But there’s a software called Mixx. It’s free so that covers affordable. It only lacks capability to sync with certain controllers. I would totally use it if I can use my Mixtrack with it.

Lol, sorry, didn’t read the full post. I don’t know much of producing. I’ve never read on it.

Hi Charlie,

I have used and explored many different DAW’s in my past including Acid Pro, Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase, and more. After dishing out a fair deal of dollars I have resulted to using a completely free version of Ableton Live. It is simply the most user friendly DAW in my opinion and there is a sh!t load of free tutorials and content out there to get you started. You can download a full version demo off the Ableton website and it’s viable for 30 days. Once the 30 days are up, simply sign up again.

Cheers,
Trekk

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