what is trip-hop?

the styles of trip-hop

essentials

essential recordings

chord progressions

tips and tricks

triphoppin radio

links

contact me

Trip-hop essentials (for producers/musicians)

01 pianos 02 virtual pianos 03 synths 04 VSTs 05 sequencers 06 sample CDs 07 mics/efx

Sequencers/Arranging Software

Sequencers are basically essential if you want to make songs. Some of the more popular sequencers include:

Cakewalk Sonar 6 (for PC)
Ableton Live 6 (for PC & Mac)
Steinberg Cubase (for PC)
Sony Acid Pro (for PC)
Image-Line FL Studio (formerly known as Fruity Loops - for PC)
Propellerhead Reason (for PC)
Apple Garageband (for Mac)
Apple Logic (for Mac)
Digidesign Pro Tools (for Mac and PC)

Special Mention!
Cockos REAPER (for PC)
Designed by the creators of Winamp, Reaper ROCKS!!! $40 for a personal license, and only $200 for a commercial license. But, Reaper (even downloading the demo) does not expire, as Cockos Software trusts you will at least purchase a personal license, if you use it often. Reaper does everything the sequencers above do, just as well if not better, and WAY, WAY less expensive. It is fast becoming a force to be reckoned with, among music sequencers. I use Reaper for a lot of my music and plan on purchasing a commercial license as soon as I have enough money. Oh, and did I mention Reaper loads insanely fast (because the program itself is a TINY file?) Very cool.

The more expensive sequencers are all great programs. The least expensive ones include FL Studio 7, the "consumer-level" versions of Cakewalk (Sonar Home Studio, etc.) and Acid Pro. Sonar, Cubase, and the higher-end sequencers usually don't have a lot of built-in sounds or instruments.

FL Studio and Reason do have built-in sounds/instruments/loops, and are basically all-in-one programs (except you can't record external audio such as a guitar or a vocal into Reason), but you can "rewire" it to record audio (if you don't know what rewiring means, go to www.wikipedia.org and find out how to utilize it, as it is a very powerful program feature).

Acid Pro and Ableton Live are mainly designed for loop-based music (hip-hop, techno, and anything else that uses sample loops), but both (especially Live) are extremely powerful pieces of software.

Ableton Live is a favorite among MANY musicians. It's a LOT of fun, and pretty stable, too.

Choose which one you like best, and what best fits your budget. All of the programs listed above have "entry-level" versions of the programs, at a fraction of the cost, which can basically do the same things their big brothers can. You can download demos of all the software, and see which ones work best for you.