Let loose, get groovy, make music with your computer. We explore the best music software available, including programs for MP3 and CD burning, sampling, learning an instrument at home, music notation, building a home digital recording studio, and more.

MP3 may be hot today, but it's only the most recent development in a long and constructive relationship between computers and music. Long before there was MP3, there was the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) standard, which lets computers communicate with musical instruments such as keyboards, drum machines, and guitars. With MIDI, a computer becomes a very precise conductor and performer, telling the musical device or sound card to play notes at a certain pitch, velocity, volume, and so on. The musical device does the actual sound generation. MIDI was perfect for an era of less powerful PCs. It let a generation of musicians record and compose music electronically, and, in fact, it's still an efficient standard for sharing music on the Web.

Enter the era of cheap, plentiful processor bandwidth and more powerful sound cards, many of which feature wavetable synthesis for more natural-sounding computer music. Today's home PC is a virtual powerhouse for home digital recording. It's easy to add recorded voices (and MP3 files) to MIDI tracks. You can compose music for home movies, print traditional musical scores, and create rich sonic textures that mix MIDI, sampled sounds, and live recorded performances. Songwriters can write songs and print them out in professional-looking scores as well as create demos that can be shared over the Internet. If you play an instrument like the guitar or piano, today's music software can make you a better musician. Best of all, even if you have no formal musical training, an entirely new category of samples-based music software lets anyone compose music with just a few clicks of the mouse. For probably the first time in history, you no longer have to study music or play an instrument to compose original tunes.

With today's music software, musical creativity no longer requires long hours of practice or lessons. (Though some software packages are aimed at users with at least some musical training.) The software highlighted here delivers a level of flexibility and control unheard of just a few years ago. These titles can make you a better musician and let you express your musical ideas, whether in traditional musical scores or in MP3 or MIDI recordings. Whether you are an experienced musician, enthusiastic dabbler, or someone who just loves to listen to music, check out these categories to see what today's music software has to offer.

MP3s and CD Burning

By packaging your favourite songs in MP3 format, you can share them with friends on the Internet. Better yet, you can burn your own CDs. All that's needed is a CD-R or CD-RW drive (like the Memorex CD-RW TwentyfourMAXX 24x10x40 or the Yamaha 20x10x40 CD-RW Drive) and one of the software titles featured here.

MusicMatch Jukebox Deluxe 6.0 is an all-in-one package that will get you to music on the Internet as well as let you convert audio CDs and then burn new CDs to preserve your collection. There's a nifty "jukebox" feature, which lets you create and store playlists of your favourite tunes. Another popular package is Nero 5.5 Burning ROM. Nero helps you overburn CD-Rs to squeeze more data on, write to multiple drives simultaneously, create bootable CDs, remove hiss from analogue recordings, utilise Burnproof technology, and much more. (Even if these terms mean nothing to you, rest assured that Nero Burning ROM performs the basics of CD-writing with finesse.) Our one criticism at this excellent product is that the depth of features may seem confusing for the beginner and the manual could be clearer, but the manufacturers have improved on the original interface so that it isn't too daunting. Steinberg's My MP3 3.0 aims to provide a total MP3 solution, with burner software for audio or MP3 CDs, player, hardware player suppoort as well as an 8-band equalizer, and real-time effects. Steinberg produces some of the best music software around, and it is used by many professional studios; My MP3 lives up to those high standards, both in terms of functionality and in terms of looks--it comes with some very nice skins for customising your player interface. It also takes advantage of the opportunities that the Internet provides, with built-in FTP and online artist and track recognition. A lower-cost package that concentrates on the essentials when when creating MP3 CDs is Data Becker's MP3 Wizard

For Macintosh users, Adaptec's Toast V5 Titanium is a tried and true CD burning tool that excels at burning data CDs as well as audio discs. This well-respected package even comes with cables to get your computer connected to your stereo system. For PCs, Adaptec's Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum is easy to use and a solid choice for your next CD-burning upgrade.

CD-burning for those with precious collections of vinyl is offered by Steinberg with Clean! Plus 3.0 and Clean! 2.0. These packages have tools to burn to CD your old scratched LPs, restoring the sound quality along the way. The Plus! edition also comes with a very good quality software phono pre-amp, which lets you record LPs straight to your PC, minimising noise. WaveLab Lite is included on both versions of Clean!, which can create sophisticated cross-fades and allows detailed editing of the music. Get it on CD 3.0 burns music, digitized images and videos, as well as data documents. It can burn music, data and digitised video onto the same CD, and it also includes Steinberg's music mixing software, as well as MP3 and WMA export. This is an extremely good all-round, fast CD-burning package, with enough interesting extras to make it very good value for money.

Sample-Based Loops and Grooves

Today you don't need to know how to play a musical instrument to create hours of original music. Aimed at the dance-music crowd, several newer software products let you create endless grooves without reading a note of music. Just drag and drop sampled sounds to create your own compositions. Sample-based programs put musical composition into the hands of virtually anyone. Whether you read music or not, this is a fun and innovative way to create new music.

For creating dance mixes in a minimum of time, take a look at Dance eJay 4, a truly easy-to-use package that lets you create dance music in only a few minutes. The Ibiza eJay Summer Sessions and Hip Hop eJay Superpack editions come with thousands of samples that you can combine and loop, adding sound effects like reverb and echo. See our range of sample libraries.

Learning a Musical Instrument at Home

While there's no substitue for a good teacher, if you're studying the piano or guitar, software can help improve your musical chops. Charanga's GuitarCoach introduces the basics of fingerstyle guitar playing both to novices and existing players who want to brush up their technique. In the same series, Electric GuitarCoach introduces electric guitar techniques--riffs, soloing and chord positions--and gives a graded series of lessons that build towards playing a selection of popular songs that include Black Sabbath's old warhorse "Paranoid" and the Bryan Adams' "Run to You".

Aimed at the beginning to intermediate guitar player, eMedia Guitar Method 2 (also available for Mac) packages several months of guitar lessons on a capable and appealing CD-ROM. You'll learn basic playing techniques for rock, blues, and country packaged in 60 lessons along with sound and video clips that illustrate essential techniques and tips that will help make you a more versatile guitarist. If you're building up a repertoire of songs on the guitar, eMedia Guitar Songs Vol. 1 (also available for Mac) is a fine choice. This CD-ROM features 21 famous songs by such greats as Elvis, Eric Clapton, Santana, The Who, and others, all illustrated in real time with guitar tablature and music notation. You can play along with an interactive band while you learn new songs. We especially liked the animated fretboard, which shows you in real time the right string and fret to play.

For aspiring piano players, Magix Piano & Keyboard Workshop offers an interactive tutorial for the keyboard, complete with 30 popular songs. You can play along with a virtual band too. This package is a great practice tool which can sharpen your music sight-reading skills.

Because electronic keyboards readily support the MIDI standard, consider the home recording packages below for becoming a better piano player. Not only can you practise alongside the computer, but you can record your playing to hear how you sound--a great way to hone your musical technique.

Music Notation Software

You don't have to be Mozart to want to print musical scores. Music teachers and students, songwriters, bandleaders, choir directors, singers, and virtually anyone else who reads music and plays an instrument can benefit from today's easy-to-use music notation software. Besides writing music from scratch, these titles also support recording music from any MIDI-enabled instrument. You can also play these scores on a Windows sound card or MIDI-compatible device. Any of the titles here will put you in control of composing and transcribing music that looks truly professional on any printer. (One note: the home recording packages below also support printing musical scores in addition to offering MIDI and digital recording capabilities.)

One package we like is PrintMusic 2000. Compatible with both Windows and Mac systems, it provides a fast and flexible system for creating and editing professional quality sheet music--a must for any composer.

Steinberg's impressive array of professional music software includes Cubasis Notation, which produces scores for vocals, piano and percussion. It can score 32 staves of notation per page, as well as four voices per double staff. With a good range of layout options also, it is one of the easiest to use and most highly-regarded notation software packages around.

Build a Home Digital Recording Studio

If you have a computer system, sound card, and a MIDI-compatible musical instrument, several software/hardware bundles can get you up and running with computers and music such as the MIDI Orchestrator Plus. Another affordable choice in this category is Data Becker's Music Centre Pro--this program features a capable MIDI recording solution along with a virtual-keyboard tool, plus a user-solid interface and plenty of online tutorials to introduce you to the world of MIDI sequencing.

Cubasis Go! 3.0 can process up to 24 audio and 64 midi channels is a cutting-edge title whose features include burning and mastering, Real Audio export and professional mixer and real-time effects. More Music Creation & Editing software

Rich Dragan is a freelance writer and dedicated amateur classical guitarist who's been composing with music software since 1991.

More Video & Music software