If you want the TL;DR version of this post: I'm a newbie to music production who is used to writing sheet music on Sibelius (orchestral, piano, jazz, latin, folk) & I'd like to get into producing and need help choosing a DAW and some sound libraries, up to max budget of £1,000 (~$1,300).

My current specs/equipment are at the end of this post but I guess I should say now I use Windows, so that rules out Logic Pro.


Otherwise:

Hi, this might be quite a long post so apologies, but I really need some help and I've found the users on this forum to be really knowledgeable (and kind with their time!) so, I thank you very much in advance.

Also I'm aware that a lot of the information I'm asking for is available out there & I don't want to come off as lazy by asking all this on here, but I have spent countless hours over the last few months trying to figure this all out for myself and I've really not made the progress I had hoped and I need to make some decisions about what to buy within the next 1-2 months.


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Summary
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In a nutshell, I'm a long-time composer (Sibelius), very comfortable with producing sheet music for live performance. I'd now like to start getting in to producing my own music i.e. creating music that is fit for putting on SoundCloud and the like.

The music I write varies a lot - jazz, latin, folk, rock/pop, classical, all sorts.

I have a little bit of experience with recording (Cool Edit Pro... don't laugh!) and I've been using Band in a Box for a little over a year and I'm pretty comfortable with it.

Other than that, I have very little experience with any other music-making/producing software.


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Choosing a DAW
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I've read a lot about these and figure I probably need to get one, I really don't know what is going to be right for me. I installed Avid's Pro Tools First (the free version) intending to follow the tutorials, but I've not been able to set it up. I just get a lot of error messages, which I won't go into now.

I would like a DAW which has an emphasis on ease of use and smoothness of workflow, though to be 100% honest I'm not entirely sure what that means. In an ideal world, I'd like to use MIDI files exported from Sibelius as my starting point, so if there are any particular DAWs suited to that then that would be good to know.

I was initially drawn to Pro Tools because it's by Avid, like Sibelius, so I thought there might be some cross-compatibility there, but as I've not been able to get it working yet I don't know.

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Choosing sounds
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I'm assuming that I'll probably be needing some extra sounds. Again, I've had a good look online and there is an awful lot of choice...

I guess to begin with I'd want a good general instrument sound set (orchestral). If I can afford anything else after that then I'd like to get some good horn (especially trumpet and sax) sounds. I've heard that Broadway Big Band is good but it's mega expensive!


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Basic Current Specs
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O/S: Windows 7 (let me know if you need my PC specs)
Audio Interface: Behringer UMC 202HD
Keyboard: Kawai ES110 (though I prefer to input notes with mouse/keyboard)
Software: Sibelius, Band in a Box 2020, Cool Edit Pro, Audacity
Software synth: Koolsoft Virtual MIDI synth (with a bunch of sound fonts)
Other hardware: A couple of SM57s, though I don't plan to record much


Please let me know if you need to know anything else and, once again, thanks very much!

Last edited by Mike02392; 01/12/20 07:48 AM.