The current crop of music-creation software programs is so musically ‘intelligent,’ you don’t need to be.

Of course, not all of us have the time to score our productions, so we usually employ a third-party composer to come in and work his magic. However, without the budget for an orchestra, you might be curious about software tools for creating music. While you are undoubtedly up on the latest updates to your desktop editor, you're probably out of the loop, so to speak, when it comes to music packages.

First off, you should know that there's an amazing array of music software programs currently available. The deeper you dig, the more you'll find. This article covers the basics of getting started and a few directions to explore. I can only scratch the surface in this space, but fear not — look around a bit, and you'll no doubt get jazzed.

Although there are tons of programs designed for the professional musician, this article is geared towards video producers with little to no musical experience. The software programs covered in this overview are great even for those just starting out.

Many of the programs we'll discuss allow plug-ins in the form of DirectX. DirectX is the standard for Windows-based audio plug-ins, similar in concept to Adobe After Effects plug-ins. As with an NLE, you'll create your tracks in the primary program and then use effects plug-ins to alter them. With an NLE you might add effects to change the color or add a blur or some other special effect. With DirectX you could add reverb, a note smoother, noise reduction, or any of a wide array of special audio effects to make a track sound like it was recorded in a concert hall. Or slap and twist the pitch to create a new sound unheard by humans! Most programs come with at least a few DirectX plug-ins, and third-party programs offer even more.

Based on DirectX, DXi is the Microsoft open standard for soft synth plug-ins. Think of a synth as an electronic musical instrument — one that has its own unique sounds, effects, and characteristics. Then imagine all this in the form of a plug-in, one that loads into the program so you can use the soft synth's sounds as opposed to prerecorded loops. DXi is somewhat of a software version of MIDI instruments. DXi synths are available separately from a number of top audio manufacturers such as Edirol, Audio Simulation, Outsim, Sound Quest, and many more.

All discussed programs work with your existing sound card. Loops and samples are all prerecorded, so these days you don't need a device to create sounds. MIDI support is also offered with most programs, in case you want to mix sound from a MIDI instrument, such as a keyboard, with your sampled tracks.

Sonic Foundry’s Acid 4.0 is high-profile and deserves to be—you’d be hard-pressed to find a loop sequencer that’s easier to use and more powerful.

Let's check out some of the popular packages. By now you've probably heard of Sonic Foundry's Acid Pro 4.0 (reviewed in Video Systems, October 2002), a music-composition program based on loops. Typically loops are WAV files that are set to repeat, so their file size is fairly small. Programs such as Acid Pro play back the loops but also allow changing the tempo and the pitch in realtime. Once you have one loop track laid down, you can add another — and another and another — for dense, richly textured scores.

Sonic Foundry has cross-pollinated some of its programs and recently released Vegas 4+DVD, which incorporates a lot of the muscle of Acid Pro along with a full-featured nonlinear editor and DVD authoring suite. Vegas is great for those making the leap from video to audio, and Acid is one of the best music loop programs out now. It's how a lot of desktop editors have cut their teeth in the realm of scoring.

But there are more options out there. Syntrillium Software's Cool Edit Pro has moved up the ranks to become one of the leading audio programs. In addition to offering a full suite of editing tools, it's also a top-quality song generator with 128 tracks, 45 digital effects, realtime EQ and effects, AVI track editing, and support for 20 audio file formats.

Cool Edit Pro is indeed cool if you want to dig a little deeper into creating music. Its tools for slicing, dicing, and processing audio files are more robust than those of a lot of music-composing programs. The program provides what you need if you want to create loops yourself and then string them together.

If you like to get your hands on the knobs, Syntrillium sells an add-on control hardware box called Red Rover that works with Cool Edit Pro. The box controls levels, play, stop, record, metronome, and displays via an LCD read-out.

If Cool Edit Pro has more than you need, you may want to check out programs that basically score the video for you. One of the most popular such programs is Sonic Desktop's Sonicfire Pro. The software is especially handy because it allows you to import video files and view edited footage as your create your score. Sonicfire's key features include automatic generation of CD-quality audio, realtime previews, multiple-scene scoring, audio editing, sound effect support, and exact sync. Essentially you choose a genre of sound (dramatic, action, romance, etc.) from the included music, load your video footage, and then sync and time the music to the scenes.

The synching and adjusting the length of the cuts are the keys to this program. Sonicfire Pro intelligently expands or contracts the music not only to fit any shot but also to cue beats or hits to correspond to pertinent moments. The company also offers additional CDs of “intelligent” music with such titles as Corporate, Wedding, Action, Travel, and Documentary.

Ableton’s Live 2 offers a scrollable effects window, which allows you to navigate through a large row of effects.

As opposed to systematic song construction, many programs allow a more organic, free-form style of creating tracks while music plays. Live 2 from Ableton is one program that facilitates creative freedom. First of all, you can play a score and drop in new audio clips as the music plays. The new loops stretch to match the existing tempo and slide right in to the harmony. The program even has a private headphone send for auditioning clips, meaning that you can keep the music rolling while listening and deciding on new clips separately. Every move you make, from dropping in a clip to changing a track, is recorded in a timeline arranger. Live 2 supports unlimited takes on an unlimited amount of tracks, so experimentation and improvisation is highly encouraged.

With lots of high-end features, Sonar 2 from Cakewalk veers more toward the professional side. Get wildly creative with its loop-generating tools and its groove sampler, Cyclone DXi.

Other available music-creation programs combine the realtime aspects of Live 2 with editing tools and loop-based scoring. A notch up on the professional scale is Cakewalk's Sonar 2. The program includes its own groove sampler called Cyclone DXi, where you can load up to 16 loops and then cut, mix, mash, and merge to devise dense, rich loops from your existing clips. It's all compatible with Acid Pro, too, so you can slide in Acid WAV files as well as other audio file types. It takes a while to plow through the massive Sonar's features, which include drumbeat grid and pattern construction, special audio effects, and full support for DXi soft synths. DXi support makes Sonar 2 extendable, so in addition to adding loops you can also change the sound of the internal sound-generating engine.

Spectrasonics Atmosphere is a plug-in with 3GB of samples that can generate a dizzying array of lush, ethereal tones, swells, textures, and sweeps.

Some programs are all about internal sounds — in fact, some are essentially just synthesizers. For creating ethereal sound swirls, take a look at Spectrasonics Atmosphere, a VST plug-in (an alternate plug-in type similar to DirectX). Atmosphere loads into a host music program that supports VST, such as Acid Pro and Fruity Loops. The company used mroe than 100 sound devices to create 3GB of more than 1,000 unique sounds. Lush ethereal tones, crystalline glass swells, brooding ambience, complex textures, sweeps — they're all here. This is the package to get if you are not too keen on the techno beats running laps around your music software. Atmosphere is more the whisper of Enya that the thump of Fatboy Slim, so it's well-suited to dramatic documentaries and poignant narratives.

One of the best deals on the Web, Fruityloops is how a lot of people start creating music. It’s packed with features for less than $100.

Finally, if you want to dive in to music creation but the water seems deep, Fruityloops is a loop-based program for music creation that's packed with features for a modest $99. Fruityloops supports not only sampled loops but also MP3 and MIDI — not to mention VST, DXi, and DirectX. Packed with 30 plug-in effects, the program features a step sequencer for song construction, a piano roll for purists, and a lot more. Thanks to Fruityloops' Flash tutorials, it's fairly easy to get up and scoring. A $49 version leaves out a few of the high-end features. The software is amazingly feature-packed for the price and certainly worth investigating.

As you master your audio program, you'll probably want to expand and get some plug-ins. Just as in the video world, many plug-ins have developed into what could almost be considered full-featured programs. Some companies to investigate include Professional Sound Projects, Wave Arts, Wavemachine Labs, and Waves Ltd.

Professional Sound Projects offers many plug-ins that look and work just like hardware analog control boxes. Via software, their virtual knobs and meters lend the feel of working with musical equipment. PSP's plug-ins include controls for adjusting the stereo delay and phase of your tracks, extensive mixing from multiple sources, and one called PianoVerb which simulates the reverb created by piano strings. There's even a free plug-in that looks just like a professional VU meter.

WaveSurround Pro from Wave Arts basically allows you to envelop listeners' ears with music using spatial enhancers and crosstalk-canceling technology. Wave Arts also offers MasterVerb, which simulates the sound of different rooms such as studios, concert halls, and cathedrals. Renaissance Bass allows you to add harmonics selectively to enhance bass perception. Ultramaximizer is designed to increase the signal level of typical audio sounds without introducing audible side effects. TrueVerb bounces sounds and effects to different parts of the room for creating a large, enveloping sound canvas.

Wavemachine Labs offers Drumagog Pro, a virtual drum machine in the form of a DirectX plug-in. Not only does it cover just about every drum sound, but it also shows a short video of each type of drum as it's selected — great for us visually oriented video producers.

There are countless other plug-ins that do anything imaginable, audio-wise. A good online catalog of some of the more popular ones is available at www.audiomidi.com/plugins.

The beauty of all these programs is that you don't need any music experience. Really. The software is so advanced that even someone who has never written a song can create some amazing tracks. I got into scoring my projects quite a while ago, simply because it was easier for me to do it myself than try to describe what I wanted to a musician (read: control freak).

I am constantly amazed by the awesome set of tools currently available. Grab a package or two and start messing around, and you'll be taken aback by the wonderful scores you can create. The programs in this article offer a good start, but as you will see, there's a whole world of easy and powerful audio tools out there for the video producer.