Free Music Creators?

there are no legitimate free music creator downloads.  if you have found any links to free music creator from cakewalk then they are pirated copies anyway and you'll find cakewalk users are typically very anti-pirate on the forums, so if you admit you download a "free" copy then you'll not get a warm welcome in the forums.  so I suggest you abandon that search for free cakewalk products - it won't do you any good anyway.

I did pay for my original Cakewalk Music Creator 3 at a store in 2006, btw.  Just started using it a couple months ago.

good!  and I'm not questioning you above, just warning you what you might run into on the forums if you continue telling people on the forums that you're looking for "free cakewalk software" - cause there are no free LEGAL versions and cakewalk users are quite loyal.

out of the years that I've been on these forums I've never seen anyone having a problem like you're describing without user error of some kind.  MC or other Sonar based prodcuts will not arbitrarily delete sections of a project without the user doing something to make it do that, so there must be something you're doing to cause it to delete sections of your project.

You mentioned "punching in" your notes.  this may be just a misunderstanding of terms, but puncing in means you're using a keyboard or other instrument to punch in a recording during a specific time in the sequencer.  if you're doing that then you might have your settings incorrect and that could cause you to erase certain parts of the project.  however, you also said you wanted to "write music without having to trigger external devices" so I'm not sure if you're using a MIDI keyboard or if you're creating MIDI tracks using your mouse or not - so you'll need to clarify that some more for more help.

My question would be, is there any other programs to write music with, without having external trigger devices, that does not sound like an Atari video game?  For FREE?  I don't use credit cards, debit cards or any of that, so paying for anything on the computer is not an option for me.

the sequencer program itself is not what causes the "sounds" to sound like "an Atari video game" - the sounds are due to the softsynths you use in the sequencer.  for example, in MC3 the main General MIDI softsynth was Edirol VSC.  Edirol isn't bad, but it's not the best sounding.  in MC4 the main GM softsynth included is TTS-1 and it's much better sounding, but it's still not the best sounds you can get.  in MC5, TTS-1 is the GM softsynth, but there's also a softsynth called SoundCenter that's used for "synth" sounds and it's pretty decent for synth sounds.  if you want realistic sounding instruments using MIDI, you have to spend a lot of money for them, like Kontakt Komplete at $600.

Yeah I am a "tad silly".  Frustrating when you lose music that took forever to work on only to have some kind of technical issue destroy everything you did.  I'll never be able to recreate what I originally did.  It's just lost forever.

(I have anger issues, we're not all perfect, but that's a separate issue that I would rather not get into here.)

I guess you get what you pay for.  I see I'm gonna have to save for a year until I can afford to but a real music creator program.  Hell, it be easier to just go into the studio and record.  I'm definitely not made of money due to the current great depression.

Sorry didn't know the stuff on those sites was illegal pirate wear or whatever.  Seems like if it was illegal, someone would bust someone for it, or at the very least shut the site down.  I never tried to download anything, as I never found anything.

I guess I'll just find another way to do my music or get out of the music writing biz entirely.  After losing all the work I did (apparently at my own hand even though I was careful/double-checked everything before saving etc.), and other reasons, it's just not worth it anymore.

Thanks for your attempted help anyway.

I'm outta here.

Andrew

One hour of studio time will cost you more than going to Best Buy and buying the boxed version of Music Creator 5..... I don't follow your logic... on that.... $40 will take you a year to save up for...I hope that is a huge exaggeration on your part.

You can get a decent studio going for a couple of hundred bucks depending on the soundcard interface you use.  I do not suggest using the lappy sound card, but that will get you started.

For anger management, I suggest a nice heavy punching/kicking bag.... It will take all and more of what you can throw at it.... the poor little DVD's can not.


Unless you have removed MC3, you might still be able to work with it.... although, maybe part of the problem  you described earlier could be attributed to the OS in the lappy not jiving with MC3.....  So if you have Vista... go buy MC5.

Wow - talk about a lack of dedication to the craft! In summary: I've got loads of music I want to sequence.  I had some software I bought years ago but never used.  I loaded it but can't get it to do what I want / don't know how to get it to do what I want. I don't want to spend any money and don't want to invest any time in the learning process.  So I trashed the disc and went to a music forum to tell everyone my story and how I'm immediately quitting. Nobody cares or wants to help me. Why is life so hard to me?

Weird.  No-one mentioned Reaper.  Not free, but you can download and install to see how useful it is.  But if MC is beyond your ability you may find Reaper a bit of a challenge.  You could always download the Sonar trial for 30 days.

Edit:"I tried downloading a few other free music programs, and they all suck."
Hmmm...  Are you sure it's all the software that is the problem?