2) Music Production and Recording Software
There are many excellent music production/recording software packages on the market for professional home studio music production. Visit any large musical instrument store that sells computer recording software and you may actually see a computer with speakers on display playing a mix from the advertised software of the day. Before buying your software determine the type or genre of music that your plan on producing and/or recording. Some genres of music require only computer virtual instruments, loops and samples while other genres will have both virtual as well as live instrumental and/or vocal parts which will be performed by a live person (such as: a guitar solo, a bass line, a horn solo or vocalist).
Look for music production/recording software that will have an on-screen virtual mixer, a recorder/sequencer, multiple effects, virtual musical instruments and sampled sounds. All software companies have websites containing computer system requirements for their particular software packages. Visit the various companies' websites for more information about their software, then do the research to determine if your computer has enough memory, CPU clock speed and a large enough hard drive to handle the software before you buy it.
There are many levels and prices of computer-based recording studio software packages (lite to full versions) which range from a few hundred dollars to a thousand or more dollars. Here are a few examples: Cubase Studio Recording, Cubase SX Version, Cakewalk Sonar, Cakewalk Sonar Power Studio, Expanded Pro Tools HD Accel Systems, and the list goes on. Many of the lite versions of popular music production/recording software can usually get the job done for home computer-based studios. Because most major recording studios will more than likely have the full versions of various software which are compatible, that is if you plan on releasing an independent CD. Most commercial recording studios will have Expanded Pro Tools HD Accel Systems along with some of the full versions of home studio software packages such as, Cubase Studio Recording, Reason 4.0, Ableton Live Version 7.0, Cakewalk Sonar Version 7.0, Acid Pro and Fruity Loops to name a few.
Phone a few local recording studios for information about which software they can accommodate and for software recommendations for your genre of music. Remember ....you can just take your external firewire hard drive containing your music files to a commercial studio to be uploaded to Pro Tools for a professional mix by an experienced engineer. Please do this if you are releasing an independent CD and hope to get radio airplay. This is very important! For more on this subject and other important music business information for Newbies... buy a copy of my book :)
One of the most poplar "music only" production software packages on the planet is Reason 4.0! A lot of big named producers use this one.
Reason 4.0 is good for music production and "making beats", but use it along with Cubase Studio Recording or similar audio recording software when recording vocals and/or audio along with your Reason's music mix. With it's "ReWire technology" Reason can intergrate into Cubase seamlessly for impressive studio production projects!
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