Wow, has it been a month already?

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Site News:

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Updates on the site has slowed down this past month, and this month is going to be similar with minor adjustments occuring. Why has that been happening? There is something that I have been working on that will solve alot of your music making problems and is taking some time to sort out, so please bear with me, but I can gurantee that you will enjoy!

Many thanks to you who have taken part in that little survey that was being conducted, and is always ongoing. I taken your considerations and what YOU want to see, and I am working on new additions that will appear in Technolite in the near future.

In the future, I will be looking for CD album reviews, and these will be hosted on this site. If you want to send a review of a CD that you enjoy then send it in to me at the email address at ther bottom of the newsletter. If you have a site, make sure you include a link.

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Hot Topic:

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When I looked through the answers to some of the site questions, one came up asking "any other music making software around"

Good question!

There are more music making packages out there then there are than most other media application. This is mainly because, especially with the trackers, most are non-profit coders who do it for the fun of it.

Trackers are the best starter, and ultimately, the best music making packages out there because they are being updated, for free, because they will have similar gadgets as high cost ones, and they give access to high effects through VSTs.

So please, try them out first, and if you don't like them then try another one, the best free one out there at the moment is Sk@le Tracker. It has most of the features from Madtracker, and you can save as a WAV as well.

The other music makers are higher in price and they are the "studio" packages.

Studio packages have a whole range of features, bolt ons and upgrades. You only need one package and that is it. Some bolt-ons include: sampler, drum machine, effects, synth, bassline etc.

The best 3 are the following:

Reason which can be found at = http://www.propellerheads.se/

You can download a playable demo that lasts for 25 minutes from the site. This has all you need to make music from the idea to the finish. It is extremly common and it gets the job done. The Prodigy used it in their "singles" album. The only problem with it is that it has a familiar sound...and its price.

Ableton Live, found here: http://www.ableton.com/

When this was released it was quite revolutionary, and if you want to make any sort of remix, or bootleg then this is the software for you. You can buy many manuals, but they have hidden some features for you to discover. It is a vast bit of software and primarily deals with loops.

FruityLoops, homepage: http://www.flstudio.com/

I don't particularily like the name, but the software is mighty powerful and easy to use. Most people who start in music have gone straight to this. It is easy, intuative and is a pro package in a beginners disguise.

My top pick?

Well, it depends what you want to use, I would be flying around FLStudio first and then Reason, however the demo of Reason is pretty good. And that is what I did, I downloaded all the demos and chose from there.

Which did I pick in the end?

Ableton...heheh...only because I am happy with Madtracker for my music making needs, and if I need to do some bootlegging or mixing, then Ableton comes into play.

If there is one thing that you will need if you get any studio package, is to get a USB Keyboard...it will be much easier in the long-run as all the packages have assignable dials that will assign to your keyboard.

My keyboard is an EMU X-Board25, with a free demo of Ableton Live :)

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Next Issue:

How do we actually use the VSTs to build us a track- with some demos?

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