[Best Music Composition software?]

Your peanuts song sounds really good.

 

thanks!

 

I can't get a good free violin soundfont either - maybe its impossible to synthesize a solo violin or fiddle.

 

Not impossible. but very difficult to do with stringed instruments, especially the violin. The secret is to get multiple clean samples throughout the range of the instrument, ie; getting C3, C4, C5... then "layering" them, at least in the case of soundfonts, together. The issue is that the audio card can pitch the note quite well, but the "resonance" of the instrument starts to get wrong in the upper and lower octaves. By using multiple samples, the audio card can use the proper octave range and maintain both note and resonance. Another trick is to "loop" the sample so it can be sustained on longer notes without being "cut off".

 

If you're interested in creating soundfonts from samples, Vienna is a tried, true and free editing tool. http://soundblaster.com/soundfont/downloads.asp But be aware that it takes some time an patience to create a good soundfont, even if it's dedicated to one instrument.

 

BTW, that's why myupright bass sounds "muddy" in the peanuts tune. I'm still tweaking...

[Best Music Composition software?]

If you want to experiment a bit to get a feel of just how good midi+soundfonts can sound, grab this editor/player: http://www.saunalahti.fi/kru99/About_SynthFont.htm and this SoundFont: http://www.sccmusic.250x.com/sfont/genuser/intro.htm and have a blast.

 

[EDIT] Almost forgot this: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ a wonderful and free application for adding effects, mixing and post processing.

 

By way of example, here's a quick song I did in about 20 minutes. I grabbed peanuts.mid off the 'net, loaded it into SynthFont, assigned some instruments and saved it out as as 4 .wav files ( 1 per track). Next I imported the 4 tracks into Audacity, did a little fiddlin' about with levels, a touch of EQ and exported it out as a stereo .mp3. The bass line is a bit muddy, but hey, 20 minutes... http://www.northrim.net/jhouck/music/peanuts.mp3

Enjoy.

[AM Books - what's still needed?]

I'm with mtv65... a nice big heavy book! One that doesn't scrimp on interface details and uses terms that laymen can understand. A common lament readers had that reviewedboth the Animation Master 2002 books was that the authors used animation terms and phrases that beginners had a hard time with initially. I think the toughest decision on a book of this nature is how much to assume the reader knows about animation basics. Who is your target audience?

 

Perhaps a plan for 2 books, one that covers "Animation 101" material as a groundwork and uses A:M features to illustrate the principals; an absolute beginners book. And a second, more advanced book to follow, building on the first that develops more complex animation techniques and uses the A:M features to accomplish them.

 

As a corollary, I found this to be a good approach in the evening programming classes I teach at the local college, the first class is always basics and I "set the hook" and generate interest for my "advanced" class. It also gives me an indication of how many students intend to return for a second class early on...

 

Just my 0.02 worth. Thx.