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In my cocos2d iPhone app I wanted to have in game music. But I don't want to use garageband! It is just dragging prewritten loops. I wanted to compose the music for my game. Is there software that I can use to write music, such as techno music? Not taking songs that were made by someone else and adding effects.

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You might want to edit your question. It doesn't really deal with Cocos2D or the iPhone platform; it's more about music composition on the Mac. I think there are Music Composition and Mac StackExchange sites; you might get even better answers there. Good luck with your game! – Wackidev Jun 10 '12 at 20:39
@Wackidev You're welcome to suggest edits yourself and those with enough rep will review the edits and approve or reject. Thanks. – Byte56 Jun 28 '12 at 17:30
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Coder404. I don't really understand the question, you seem to be asking how to compose music then you want make techno music? Isn't techno kind of pre-made sounds strung together? – Byte56 Jun 28 '12 at 17:32
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To be fair, lots of electronic music is based on synthesised sounds as well as samples. :) – Kylotan Jun 28 '12 at 19:09
I thought you were looking for an algorithm to computer generate random music... Maybe you should edit your question and its title. – danijar Jun 28 '12 at 21:38

4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

See my answer about doing game sound in general for a small/one-man team.

List of Digital Audio Workstation software:

List of tracker software:

By the way, you're doing it wrong. Garageband is only dragging prewritten loops if you use it that way. It comes with some virtual instruments that you can compose with using MIDI regions (or whatever they're called in Garageband). You can also take those prewritten loops, cut them up inside Garageband or Audacity into different notes and place those accordingly. This is called sampling.

Which one should you use? Whichever one gives you the best results. It's different for everyone. If you want me to recommend a starting point, try out both FL Studio and Renoise and see which one you like better, then you know which category of software to choose from.

Or just find a musician. Seriously. There are TONS of people who want to write game music. And they're usually pretty good, much better than you will be (assuming music composition and production is just a passive interest or hobby for you).

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@michael.barnett cool thanks! – Coder404 Jun 29 '12 at 14:32
up vote 2 down vote

Try abelton live - http://www.ableton.com/

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I looked at that a few days ago. Its just an application that allows you to make dubstep from songs that were already made – Coder404 Jun 9 '12 at 16:27
Or use this magix.com/us/music-maker – th3hous3 Jun 9 '12 at 16:29
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@Coder404 LMAO "It's just an appplication that allows you to make dubstep from songs that were already made." You could not possibly be more wrong; Ableton (like most professional audio suites) is a very sophisticated piece of software. There's no easy way to do this. Making music like that takes an intermediate to strong understanding of some very complex software. Any DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), such as Ableton, Cubase, or Logic Pro will allow you to do what you desire, but there is a long and steep learning curve. Making music is no walk in the park. – Aerovistae Jun 9 '12 at 17:21
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And where did you get the idea that it's just dubstep? You could make any genre of music with Ableton, really. How is it even possible for a piece of software to only allow one sort of music? As if it detects what you're doing and stops you if it doesn't like it? "Sorry! That sounds almost like trance with elements of classical. Removing file and restarting program." – Aerovistae Jun 9 '12 at 17:22
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@Aerovistae I couldn't Agree more – th3hous3 Jun 9 '12 at 17:23
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up vote 2 down vote

Actually, you can access the musical score in GarageBand and write your own music by positioning notes. There's no need to use only loops.

As of iLife '09, these are the steps for opening the score (they're needlessly complex in my opinion):

  • Open a new Loops project.
  • Create a new Software Instrument track.
  • Command-click in the new track somewhere to get a new empty area, and drag the bottom-right corner of the area to expand it.
  • Double-click in the green area. This should bring up a menu from the bottom of the screen.
  • Click on Score.

Now you can pick which notes to use and Command-click on the staff to insert notes, rests etc. This seems to work for any Software Instrument, so you could get an entire orchestra going right in GarageBand!

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thats awesome! Can you change the instrument so that you can make techno music? – Coder404 Jun 11 '12 at 14:00
Yep. I just tried it to make sure, and it seems to work with any Software Instrument in GarageBand. – Wackidev Jun 11 '12 at 14:55
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how about hawaiian music? – Coder404 Jun 13 '12 at 22:25
I'm not much of a musician, so I can't really say with certainty what types of music GarageBand is capable of producing. I'd recommend you just start playing around with it--there's a wide variety of instruments. I'd guess that most types of music should be easy to produce once you download the expanded media pack. – Wackidev Jun 13 '12 at 22:54
up vote 2 down vote

I suggest you use FL Studio. I used it, and it's pretty powerful. A lot of professionals use it as well.

It's an app where you can arrange sounds in patterns, synthetize sounds, import your own, and do a lot more.

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Fruity Loops is actually called FL Studio, and has been for almost ten years now. – Kylotan Jun 28 '12 at 19:10
Well, FL == Fruity Loops, right? It's practically the same as calling the USA "America", that's not the real name, but everyone does it... – Yannbane Jun 29 '12 at 15:40

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