I am looking for software that will fit in with the way I like to work, but have been put off by the rigidity of recording programs.

Rather than recording a performance like you would in a recoding studio, I want to use my computer to record ideas in a more creative way. Rather than putting down music I have composed and ready to record, I want to use it to capture musical elements and be able to move those musical building blocks around to create a final piece of work.

I want to be free to doodle on my keyboard and see where it takes me without being tied down, and have my computer store these ideas and allow me to play with them. I don't want to be tied down to BPM and a metronome.

In other words I want find software that can be part of the creative process than a mere recording machine.

Does anyone have any ideas?

What a shame you put this in PC Music!
It sounds as if you would be very happy with Garageband, which comes free on Macs.
On the PC I'd suggest you get hold of a demo version of Ableton Live, and learn how to use it.
It does pretty much what you are asking for, though not until you get a little way up the learning curve.
Cheers
Dave

Quote DARATCLIFFE:

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I am looking for software that will fit in with the way I like to work, but have been put off by the rigidity of recording programs.

Rather than recording a performance like you would in a recoding studio, I want to use my computer to record ideas in a more creative way. Rather than putting down music I have composed and ready to record, I want to use it to capture musical elements and be able to move those musical building blocks around to create a final piece of work.

I want to be free to doodle on my keyboard and see where it takes me without being tied down, and have my computer store these ideas and allow me to play with them. I don't want to be tied down to BPM and a metronome.

In other words I want find software that can be part of the creative process than a mere recording machine.

Does anyone have any ideas?

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Sure. Any sequencer will do this. If you don't want bars and beats, simply don't turn the metronome on. Don't make any quantise settings, either to note length/position or to segment length. Take the segments you record, trim them, copy them, edit and transform them, move them around...

Garage Band doesn't enable this any more or less than other sequencers, though it DOES come with a large library of clips for people who CAN'T create music but just want to paste together pre-recorded material. Similar libraries can be used in other sequencers. But it sounds as if you're beyond that stage and capable of playing your own musical ideas anyway!

I used to do this all the time using Cubase.

Just set it recording and off you go.

no need for metronome or anything , you can turn the monitor off if it distracts you.

then you have it all saved in a midi or audio track at the end and can do what you like with it.

I don't know if it's still being made but Tracktion used to be very good at this sort of thing. There is a free version of Acid (Acid Express) which might suit your needs, at least initially.

I think he means something you don't have to learn.

Joking aside he might like Reaper. It's cheap. It'd be as good as anything else.
As said, just turn the metronome off and Quantisation off and you can freely doodle.

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

I’ve done plenty of this as well, since I find working to a metronome tends to stifle creativity at the ‘early doodles’ stage.

The only problem you might have later on is adding further tracks to a doodle that totally unrelated to bar lines and tempo value - you’ll be able to play along well enough, but making timing corrections will have to be by ear rather than using all those handy quantise functions


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Martin wrote "The only problem you might have later on is adding further tracks to a doodle that totally unrelated to bar lines and tempo value - you’ll be able to play along well enough, but making timing corrections will have to be ny ear rather than using all those handy quantise functions"

That's what I was afraid of.
I was just hoping that some bright spark had written a piece of software that could take what you have recorded a bring it in to order.

Anybody want to take on the challenge?

Ableton is good for taking random jottings and turning them into usable loops alongside other loops.

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

By 'recording' do you mean audio or MIDI. Treatments and possibilities are very different!

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

By recording I mean Midi. Thanks

Quote David Ratcliffe:

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Martin wrote "The only problem you might have later on is adding further tracks to a doodle that totally unrelated to bar lines and tempo value - you’ll be able to play along well enough, but making timing corrections will have to be ny ear rather than using all those handy quantise functions"

That's what I was afraid of.
I was just hoping that some bright spark had written a piece of software that could take what you have recorded a bring it in to order.

Anybody want to take on the challenge?

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You seem to want this both ways. In a lot of software you can tap the tempo in a couple of seconds. A lot of accomplished and successful writers have learned to use the metronome along with all the other tools. The fact that they have persevered with the discipline has probably contributed greatly to their success.
Why challenge others when you aren't challenging yourself?

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

The beauty of ‘free form’ playing is that even if you think you’re playing to a reasonably strict tempo you’re likely to have slight variations during the piece (which is why the most expressive performances of both modern and classical music don’t tend to be locked to a click track )

On the other hand, this flexibility and expressiveness is bound to make ‘putting in the bar lines’ more difficult, especially as you may find yourself sometimes playing ahead of the beat and sometimes lagging behind it.

If I play to a metronome I do sometimes find myself playing one timing against another as well, or finding that subsequent overdubs shift the first beat of the bar somewhere else, which makes for some interesting feels.

The more you do of this sort of freeform stuff the more difficult it is to adapt it later.

One good suggestion form earlier on though is Tap Tempo - once you get a riff/motif going in free form see if you can stop playing for a couple of seconds to enter a Tap Tempo value and turn your metronone on to continue in this vein with all the barlines in the correct places - I find it easier to come up with new ideas in freeform, but am happier to play against a metronome once I’ve got going


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

I had a demo of a very interesting piece of software recently called ScoreCleaner (www.doremir.com, although unfortunately the site looks to be down at the moment). It can take freely played rubato MIDI input and intelligently create a meaningful score from them. Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?

Also if you get used to a metronome I find sometimes that having an idea last thing at night or shopping if I take 15 seconds out to log the bpm using my watch that it's easier to recall that idea later on. Then, if you don't want to use the met. all thru the song just use it for the count in.

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

This:http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=ara&L=0#Top

might interest you from a "free form" way of working. You do have to buy it and a DAW but it looks like a major new tool for all sorts of musical perspectives.

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

Quote David Ratcliffe:

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By recording I mean Midi. Thanks

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In that case

If I want to make a free form recording I do exactly that with the melody line, totally ignoring time signature, bar lines, BPM etc. What I then do is sneaky (and somewhat time consuming).

I make copies of the track in my sequencer - Rosegarden actually - then (in the copies) delete much of the melody but retain the structure. I then change the instrument for that track, and shift notes up and down (without changing their time) to create counter melodies, chords etc.

I will then play odd phrases against this for more expression.

As I work, I organise stereo position of tracks, mix levels and general dynamics. I end up with something that 'breathes' pretty much without timing issues.

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

Cubase has an option to toggle the time base off on tracks and I would expect other sequencers can do this as well. You can then adjust the BPM of the project to fit closer to what you have played and then if needs be make some adjustments if you want a more rigid timing. You can then toggle the time base back on if you need, or you could work the tempo grid to fit what you have played in already.

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http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

As always, it's horses for courses, YMMV, yada, and there IS something to be said about not using a metro at all. But as others have mentioned, learning to use a metro is a discipline, and I've seen many accomplished musicians who have undertaken this discipline, achieve great levels of freedom and feeling, even with it on. Drummers, kiborshniks, gtrists, etc. I know one drummer who has so much feel, it's not immediately obvious he's playing to a metro, but he is.

Metros can have a lot of feeling if you don't think in terms of strictly a click. A nice shaker pattern, for example, can keep you in time, assuming the shaker works musically with the song.

What's nice about midi played to a metro is that it is so easy to experiment with tempo later. There is a simplicity to midi, that to me , audio does not have. Yes, you CAN play with speeding up or slowing down audio, but it's much easier with midi. Using the metro means you have a quantifyable slate, tempo wise.

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Gear list: If you can't find it, grind it

Quote Sam Inglis:

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I had a demo of a very interesting piece of software recently called ScoreCleaner (www.doremir.com, although unfortunately the site looks to be down at the moment). It can take freely played rubato MIDI input and intelligently create a meaningful score from them. Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?

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The site's there now. Mac-only, unfortunately, though they say there's a Windows version in development.

I'll be pleasently (and very) surprised if it achieves anything useful outsde laboratory conditions. But let's see.

Quote David Ratcliffe:

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I am looking for software that will fit in with the way I like to work, but have been put off by the rigidity of recording programs.

Rather than recording a performance like you would in a recoding studio, I want to use my computer to record ideas in a more creative way. Rather than putting down music I have composed and ready to record, I want to use it to capture musical elements and be able to move those musical building blocks around to create a final piece of work.

I want to be free to doodle on my keyboard and see where it takes me without being tied down, and have my computer store these ideas and allow me to play with them. I don't want to be tied down to BPM and a metronome.

In other words I want find software that can be part of the creative process than a mere recording machine.

Does anyone have any ideas?

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Its important to know the software well, so it becomes extremely easy. If you have to spend a while figuring out how to move things around when you are creating stuff, it will sap your energy.

We aren't at the stage where DAWs are intelligent and can pick up what you are trying to do and help you build a track around it, but given current technology it can't be too far off. I'd dare to say it would be possible right now if someone was prepared to put the right amount of resources into its development. Imagine siri for logic ... but with a deep understanding of rhythm, harmony, musical genres ..

Most major recording programmes will allow you to record 'freehand' then build a grid around what you've done (the different programmes have various names for the process).

In Reaper it involves doing your thang then inserting tempo changes to match the metronome to your groove, keeping your notes locked to their 'time' position measured in minutes and seconds, or hours depending on your level of inspiration.

If you then choose you can lock the notes to the 'bars and beats', remove the tempo changes and have your notes fall into regular time allowing you to record and edit further.

It's not really complicated once you've done it a few times.

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Ohm's Law states, "Your PA isn't as powerful as you think it is".

Quote shufflebeat:

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Most major recording programmes will allow you to record 'freehand' then build a grid around what you've done (the different programmes have various names for the process).

In Reaper it involves doing your thang then inserting tempo changes to match the metronome to your groove, keeping your notes locked to their 'time' position measured in minutes and seconds, or hours depending on your level of inspiration.

If you then choose you can lock the notes to the 'bars and beats', remove the tempo changes and have your notes fall into regular time allowing you to record and edit further.

It's not really complicated once you've done it a few times.

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Not complicated, but make sure it's something you really need to do. If you're correcting a performance with sloppy tempo, it's often better to set up a click and play it again, in tempo AND with "feeling". If it's a good feel already, why MUST there be a click? We overdubbed successfully for many years without one - quite complicated stuff can be pulled off with a little practice.

Quote Exalted Wombat:

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Quote shufflebeat:

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Most major recording programmes will allow you to record 'freehand' then build a grid around what you've done (the different programmes have various names for the process).

In Reaper it involves doing your thang then inserting tempo changes to match the metronome to your groove, keeping your notes locked to their 'time' position measured in minutes and seconds, or hours depending on your level of inspiration.

If you then choose you can lock the notes to the 'bars and beats', remove the tempo changes and have your notes fall into regular time allowing you to record and edit further.

It's not really complicated once you've done it a few times.

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Not complicated, but make sure it's something you really need to do. If you're correcting a performance with sloppy tempo, it's often better to set up a click and play it again, in tempo AND with "feeling". If it's a good feel already, why MUST there be a click? We overdubbed successfully for many years without one - quite complicated stuff can be pulled off with a little practice.

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+1

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Ohm's Law states, "Your PA isn't as powerful as you think it is".