good keyboard recording program?

[cweb85]

So I want to record my songs off my keyboard for publishing on youtube, and I want it to create the sheet music as well. There are a lot of programs out there, and I wanted to ask what would be good for a beginner. I want to connect to my laptop via USB and;

1. record the audio
2. get the sheet music
3. possibly add very small effects, like a slight echo
4. mix it with video

Any suggestions? From what I see there aren't good programs that both make sheet music and record songs (unless you go with high expense packages). I'm looking to spend less than $150 hopefully.

Thanks for your input!

[ljkDICKJUSTICE]

if it's mainly keyboard, i would suggest FL studio, it's pretty good with midi.
i would also appreciate if you checked the songs on my page for your opinion!

[sorohanro]

Well, there are some really good free options around but keep in mind that if you want good quality on one aspect, then you should have a specialized tool for it.
There is no "all in one" solution that really offers quality on all aspects.

For writing music sheet, Musescore is one of the best. There are some tweaks to make it sound better, some orchestral soundfont libraries that can offer a more realistic feedback but this is a music sheet writing software, not a recording/ sequencing one.

There are many programs for making music/ sequencing/ recording/ applying effects, many of those posted in Newgrounds Wiki: Music and Audio Resources. FL Studio is quite popular around here, but it's not free, Reaper has an unlimited unexpiring demo, so, it's like free but if you like it you should buy it. MuLab is my main program and has a free version which is limited at 4 tracks and has a piano instrument and a quality reverb included, so, if you want just piano music, then...

[SourJovis]

At 11/23/12 04:19 PM, cweb85 wrote: So I want to record my songs off my keyboard for publishing on youtube, and I want it to create the sheet music as well. There are a lot of programs out there, and I wanted to ask what would be good for a beginner. I want to connect to my laptop via USB and;

1. record the audio
2. get the sheet music
3. possibly add very small effects, like a slight echo
4. mix it with video

Any suggestions? From what I see there aren't good programs that both make sheet music and record songs (unless you go with high expense packages). I'm looking to spend less than $150 hopefully.

Thanks for your input!

Recording audio and getting sheet music are two entirely different things.

Keep in mind that if you talk about recording audio, you need the actual audio output, whereas for sheet music you'll need midi output.

Also, as far as I know you cannot record the audio of a keyboard through USB, but my knowledge might not be up to date about that. There are microphones nowadays that you can connect directly to your computer through USB, without the need of a audio interface. Maybe it's the same for modern keyboards. Make sure the USB is the actual audio signal, not midi. If not, use an actual audio output. This will be jack plugs most likely. If jack plugs do not fit in your audio input on your computer (which is most likely the case unless you have a really advanced soundcard), use an external audio interface in between, and connect the audio interface to your computer through usb. Most computers have a mini jack audio input. The cheapest way to connect your keyboard to your computer is to use the mini jack in, and a cable with one mini jack end, and one end that fits into your keyboard audio output (an L and R tulip I think. That's the white and red one). Note that this will drastically decrease the audio quality.

To record audio, and process it, you can use any software you want. I heard Audacity is a good free one. If you want to spend money on it, Cubase, Soundforge and Protools are pretty good. The latter are probably too expensive and advanced for what you want to do with it. By no means should you spend more money that you need to.

Sheet music is a different matter. You'll need the midi output. On modern keyboards (less than 10 years old) you can probably use usb for this. You need software that supports midi to record midi too. Cubase and Protools are examples of these, as well as most other advanced DAWs. To get the sheet music however, you're better off with notation software like Sibelius, or something cheaper. Most if not all notation software supports midi. Do not expect to get nice sheet music just by recording off the bat. You'll need a lot of work to get recorded midi to become neat sheet music. As a matter of fact, I advice against recording the midi at all. Instead start writing out the sheet music in your notation program right away. This seems like a chore (and it is), but it's the fastest by far.

[cweb85]

From what I've seen so far, it seems that musescore and MuLab are good free options. I've downloaded them, but we'll just have to see how well they work. Thanks for the suggestions so far!

[summergreen3]

Is FL studio really works well for this? I will have a try

[gridcrawler]

At 6/13/13 09:33 PM, summergreen3 wrote: Is FL studio really works well for this? I will have a try

Bumbing old thread is fobbiden!