Is there a program to create music by placing the notes and choosing the instrument that plays the notes? There was a program I downloaded from downloads.com but it was shareware and I couldnt save. Can someone help?

For midis I recommend you check out NoteWorthy Composer.

Link:
NoteWorthy Website

The trial version allows you to save each file a maximum of ten times. The registered version only costs $39, which is an extremely fair price these days (in software terms).

-The Preachy Travois

finale is excelant, but extremely expensive

Impulse Tracker 2 is the best I know. Completely free non-cripple ware. Very powerful, but hard to master. Imagine ST3 but WAY better. IT2 and loads of other trackers can be got from www.maz-sound.com

Hi OoMMMoO
Midi sequencers - You need a midi keyboard and a wavetable sound card for reasonable usage. The only useful output is into wav format. Midi sequencers have a lot of effects and are much better than trackers when it comes to non-linear (a lot tempo & volume changes) music such as orchestal or ambient. Most of these midi progs are expensive as well as the necessaery equipment.

Tracker programms - You don''t need anything but a sound card. Non-linear orchestral music is very hard to create and there are only few people in the world that can do it well. But these programms are free and their source format (xm, it..) can be used in games (Unreal for examples). Let''s talk about them.



Fast tracker 2(www.maz-sound.com) - A DOS shareware programm but without any shareware limitations. It''s xm format is widely supported. You can save your modules in wav format, the quality of the mixing is very high, interface is user-friendly and good for beginners. It has also a build-in wav editor. The last full version was released in 1996 or 97 but it''s still the best tracker + sample editor in one. Ft3 beta was released but it''s useless.

Impulse tracker 2.14(www.maz-sound.com) - A DOS shareware programm, you can''t save your work as *.wav unless you register. It''s it format is widely supported. The quality of the mixing is not very good, interface is not as user-friendly as Ft2 and it''s also not very good for beginners but advanced trackers can do much better music than in Ft2. The last version was released in 1997. IT3 is in development, no beta yet and I doubt that anything will be released in near future.

Mad tracker 2(www.maz-sound.com) - A windows programm that builds on the old but unbeaten Ft2 design. It has it''s own pack of build-in surround effects and so mt2 it''s quite unsupported format. The quality of the mixing is better than in Impulse tracker. I don''t know very much about this prog and so I can only say that the development continues and new versions are released.

Modplug tracker(www.modplug.com) - A windows programm with no limitations. It can save your work as it or xm, both formats are widely supported. You can also save your work as wav file. The quality of the mixing is compareable to proffesional wavetable cards (very high), interface is user-friendly and good for beginners but it slows down the music creation a bit. It supports VST effects that can be made by anyone so there is a big amount of high quality freeware effects on the net. It''s the best tracking programm to this date.


Final word: If you want to create a music for your game and you''ve never seen a tracker before, forget it and hire someone.