Every computer musician needs to have in their collection of tools a audio editor to be able to see and edit the waveform of their sound files as well as record straight in via their soundcard from an external source. Audacity is an open source/free piece of software developed by a group of volunteers and distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

When you start Audacity you will see that it doesn’t look amazing and whilst some of the paid for alternatives have more features, Audacity has some amazing features which can certainly be a benefit to musicians and what Audacity does, it does well. Check out their feature list. Audacity is certainly a great add-on application for users of programs like Propellerheads Reason as they can then go and edit, cut-up and tweak samples. It may not have all the features and plugins of programs like Soundforge but it certainly can do the everyday stuff and I would certainly recommend it to musicians on a budget or anyone who doesn’t need those extra features.

What is good about Audacity

• It’s Free/Open Source Software
• Its fast (at loading, editing, zooming etc)
• Easy to use and simple layout
• Multiple operating systems supported

What is bad about Audacity

• I’m not keen on the look of the interface (Not that it matters)
• It is missing a few features of paid for applications (But it’s free)

You can download Audacity from the Audacity web site.

Everyone into Music Production loves more sound files to collect and adapt into their own music tracks and thanks to OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) they have available 10 Gigabytes of sound files available for you to download for free.

All sound files contained within the downloads are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License which means that you can share them and use them in your tracks as long as you attribute the author properly.

Full Details Here
Bittorrent File Download from Mininova

VSTi instruments (also known as Softsynths or Virtual Instruments) are plugins which are run by a VSTi host. A VSTi host which usually comes in the form of a sequencer and some of the most popular VSTi hosts are Cubase, Ableton Live, FruityLoops Studio and Cakewalk Sonar. The VSTi instruments add a new instrument to the VSTi hosts which allows for more and different sounds to be produced. If you can't get your head round it then the best way to look at it is to imagine the VSTi host acts like an operating system such as Windows which runs programs which are the VSTi instruments.

VSTi instruments come in different forms but are usually in the form of a softsynth, a synthesizer made in software as opposed to the classic way of making a synth in hardware. Some softsynths can be just as good if not better than their similar hardware versions as softsynths allow for unlimited saving space for presets and sounds as well as the ability to run multiple instances of a single synth allowing two sounds to be played simultaneously.

To allow for ultimate control over a softsynth it is best to use a MIDI controller which allows the softsynth to be used with a hardware interface. This allows for ultimate control of both playing and adjusting the sounds. Settings can be controlled on the screen using a standard mouse easily enough but playing the notes you want will be a bit more tricky.

The great thing about VSTi instruments is that they are cheaper than hardware and you won't have to find more room to store them in the place you use for music making. You don't need any extra cables, plugs or stands. The downsides are that they can take up a lot of system resources on your computer so lots of ram and a good processor are needed, especially if you plan on running multiple VSTi instruments at the same time.

VSTis designed for Windows come in the the form of a .DLL file and for the MAC a .VST file. This file needs to be placed or installed into your VSTis plugin directory or into an appropriately named folder within that directory. Your VSTis plugin directory can usually be set in the preferences of your VSTi host which will then be able to be located and load it up into its own channel ready to be sequenced.

If you don't currently own a VSTi host then I would suggest trying a small piece of software called Savihost created by Hermann Seib. This free software enables you to basically run a VSTi in a standalone state. Whilst this is not the most ideal way to run a VSTi host compared to a sequencer, it does allow you the chance to try out VSTi's before investing in a sequencer or to run them in standalone mode without loading up a full sequencer . To use Savihost just rename the Savihost.exe to the name of the .DLL file of the VSTi Instrument you want to use which should be located in the same directory as the Savihost.exe file.

Download Savihost


If you want to try out a brilliant and free (yes free) VSTi Instrument then you can't go wrong with The Claw from ReFx. You can download The Claw for the ReFX links below.

Download Claw For Windows
Download Claw For Mac
Download Claw Manual

You should hopefully now be well on your way that you can start using VSTis in your music, there are some great ones available and it opens up new doors to lots of new sounds.

Tutorial written by Edward Cufaude for Rhythm Creation

Last time I posted on Rhythm Creation was in February and I have now come back to it starting with a redesign and I have also moved over to Drupal instead of Wordpress which means that unfortunately I have lost all the comments that were placed but on the otherhand I can do a lot more with the site. I shall now start posting again and hopefully Rhythm Creation will be reborn and include loads more articles and tutorials over the coming weeks and months.

Posting Soon

Edward Cufaude

I was surfing around the web today and came across Songza, which I had seen before, but not taken much notice. But today I noticed a link saying…

“Want to promote your band on Songza? Learn more about our Self-Promotion Beta Program.”.

I don’t know how long this link has been there, but I thought that I would point this out as it seems musicians may be able to start to promote their own tracks by adding them to the Songza playlist and they may even come up in the recommended results on the front page. You also get the added bonus of links next to your tracks which you can control. I’ve added a few of my own tracks and wanted to let my readers know so you can make full advantage of it now.

It looks like they especially like Creative Commons Licensed tracks and these may have a slight advantage for the front page.