Greetings!

[brewmeister]

Nationality: Asian-American
Hometown: Houston, Texas
Occupation: Student
Favorite Film Composers: Hans Zimmer, John Williams, and many others
Music Experience: Currently play the violin, going into my 11th year.

Hey folks- Brian here :)

I'm currently a high school student and have recently become quite interested in composition. Thanks to a great buddy, I have been infected with the composing disease. He introduced me to Finale Notepad and I found it to be a great intro to the world of composing. However, I'm looking for something more.


I am extreamly interested in EWQL Gold and have a question regarding it. EWQL is just a virtual orchestra, right? Does that means scores would have to be done in a seperate notational software? At first, I thought you could create whole scores on EW, but as I read more and more regarding this fabulous program, it seems like I would have to create pieces on a seperate notational software and plug in EW later if I would like to hear it played at it's best.

Are there any good notational programs that you would recommend? Are the costlier Finale programs worth the cost? I was extreamly interested in Cubase Studio 4 from Steinberg, yet seeing many negative reviews of it has put me off. Apprarently, it's extreamly buggy...:eek:

As a student, I'm on an extreamly tight budget. If two seperate programs need to be purchased, then I am screwed. :(

Notational software....$300....EW software....$500.....= ....broke composer. :D

Thanks for the help!

[fongi]

Welcome, you´re gonna have a ball here ! Chris :D

[Ignis Fatuus]

Hi! Welcome to the forum. Sadly, yes, you will need another piece of software. Symphonic Orchestra is a plugin (for three standards, VST, DirectX (sometimes shortened to DX) and RTSA, though VST is the most common of these)... so you will need an application that supports one of more of these standards. There are probably free programmes out there to serve this function. I can't name any but I know there are some for Linux so there should be some for Windows.

You can also run SO in stand-alone mode, where you can twiddle on your keyboard and sounds come from you speakers (as normal) but there is no way of recording or playing a pre-recorded piece in this mode.

PS: Many programmes will be buggy when they are released, Cubase 4 is extremely new so you can bet it will get better as upgrades are brought out. I however am happy with Cubase 3. Sometimes you just HAVE to afford these things :( I am a student too and I am skipping meals to pay for my kit :D

[brewmeister]

Thanks for the info, guys!

Happily, I already have Finale 2007 on order (found one at an incredible $200 ;) ).

Now, all I need is a good MIDI controller....hmm. I'll probably repost this question in the "General" area.


:)

Thanks for the help, guys!