Does anyone have used any kind of software which allows you to create music using virtual instruments? Which is good and affordable?
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FL Studio, Cakewalk, Reason, Cubase, Acid Pro 7, Reaper.
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Thanks! Checking them out right now 
Prices are big indeed. But music is important in games so itās worth it 
I use FL. I like it a lot.
Iāve heard good things about Reaper too, but I havenāt tried it.
Not virtual, but I recently acquired an icon ikey midi keyboard for approx $80. Iām looking at Mutools (free version) to use it with. Looks promising.
Iāve been using FL Studio in one form or another since 1998 when it was āFruity Loopsā, a cute little baby sequencer. On version 3 I bought the āLifetime Upgradesā deal and Iāve got free upgrades ever since (theyāre on version 11 now). Because Iāve been using it so long itās hard for me to recommend anything else, really. I hear Reaper is good (and free I think(?)) but Iāve never used it.
Heads up, Cakewalk hasnāt been called Cakewalk for well over 10 years. Itās called Sonar. Looking for Cakewalk you might not find what youāre looking for. Iāve used Sonar for about 12 years myself.
My friend moved off of Sonar and onto Reaper and says he loves it. Reaper is free for 60 days, and after that you can buy it for $60 I believe. Are any of those other options more affordable than that?
Iād stay away from the program āLogicā. Itās supposed to be ridiculously hard to learn and extremely unintuitive.
Acid Pro: Iām not sure if itās still being made or not? What OS are you on?
Yeah I never kept up with it. Just used FL since eons ago and remembered Cakewalk was the āother guyā during that time.
For those who donāt need pitch bend recording, I would recommend LMMS, as it is free, and is actually really nice to use, In my opinion. for pitch bend wheel recording, I do recommend going with something like ACID or FL studio if you have the cash. (Doesnāt fruity loops have pitch bend in it? :p)
Meanwhile, I might as well make a request for pitch bend recording on the LMMS forumsā¦ 
I might have guessed this wrong, but isnāt reaper geared toward dubstep makers? 
Um no lol. I know lots of people who donāt even know what dubstep is that use it.
Hehā¦ thought I got it wrong!
I do think though that some dubstep makers use it. (I think a couple of mixes noted this on YouTube, and thatās where I got confused)
Well why not? Any genre could really use any of these. They mostly all have the same capabilities and same sound quality. It just comes down to stuff like:
- What workflow suits you?
- Can you already do what you want in one program (in which case, why switch)?
Acid Pro has some nice arranging features for instance. Good for speeding up arrangement of songs.
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Actually, I will point out that making drum tracks in ACID took some time, whereas the same thing in LMMS took me a few minutes. That is thanks to the sequencing tools called ābaselinesā and made it easier for me to make some nice drum beats.
Of course, such a thing can be faked in ACID: just copy/paste! but I find having such a capability built-in was enough to have me sold. Plus, LMMS is linux! 
Itās a pain in Sonar too. But if you have plugins like EZ Player then itās really easy. I like Steven Slate Drums the best though.
Ableton Live Lite is free with practically any keyboard that doesnāt come with a lite version of Cubase.
@OP: If you are on a mac, look at garage band (for a start) and Logic. Both are relatively inexpensive, and garage band should come with a mac anyways.
I use Logic, āupgradedā to Logic from garage band. Definitely a steep learning curve, but itās great. Lots of great (paid) tutorials on macprovideo.com. Logic comes with quite a few synths, lots of samples, has its own sampler, and loads of plugins. That said, nowadays I rely mostly on kontakt and vsl, so I can probably use any daw.
If I had the $$$ Iād love to try cubase - expression maps look sweet - but in the meantime Logic is very affordable, and meets my needs. Iāve also trialed Digital Performer, itās great as well but again, $$$ and it doesnāt run as well as Logic on my old mac so.
Have fun! Oh, remember to check out vi-control.net for vi related stuff, get into the legato useful/useless discussions, which piano, dry vs wet samplesā¦ XD
LMMS!
Used together with Synth 1 and DSK Vstās.
Lovely sounds, lovely music!!
@BrandyStarbrite : FTW!
Also, for drumsā¦ GTG DPC 3! Awesome plugin, only caveat is that samples have to be 16-bitā¦
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