A while ago someone mentioned SongFrame, a program that helps creating songs from scratch, storing ideas etc.
I downloaded the demo and had a go with it. Here's my review.

After downloading and reading (part of) the manual I started up the program. The GUI is nice and well laid-out. At first I had some trouble getting the audio and MIDI settings right, since my MLan-device was not selectable as audio-input. A work-around (using the VoiceLive 2 as audio-input) helped me to get started. SongFrame is created to get your ideas from your head to real music asap. It has a notepad to write lyrics, or parts of them. It has loads of chord-progressions from hitrecords of all eras. It comes with drum-styles and it has a melody-track (MIDI) and an audio-track to record your playing and/or singing. SongFrame supports a few VST's, but is not build to work with all VST's. Since SongFrame is not a DAW the developers do not intend to add extended VST-support.

I liked the library of chord-progressions and the drumtracks that are traceable to the original songs. Also the workflow is nice. You build a song with a sort of building blocks "intro" "pre-chorus" "chorus" "verse" bridge" etc. Once you filled the blocks with music, you set the blocks (they call them songbits) in order you want them.

As far as creating a song from scratch to music: I think SongFrame lacks a lot. Sure, you can scribble down some phrases, words or complete lyrics, lay out a basic drum and a basic chord-progression and even add some melody to it. But as far as capturing your musical ideas in a quick way, one is better off with a piece of paper, a pen and a guitar, piano or whatever. Creating a song in BiaB is easier and gives a much, much better result.

For those who want to find out for themself: here's a link to Tanager Audio

Mike
www.mikewever.nl