Synthtopia readers – can you help another reader out?
On a recent post on binary beats, didjeridoo player Tom Lange writes:
I’m exploring binaural beats myself, hoping to incorporate them with my music. Starting as an acoustic musician I’m facing a steep learning curve but I’d love to get a small midi keyboard and Gnaural or something like that to produce the beats and mix it all in with my didjeridus and gongs and such.
Any recommendations for an electronic music newbie? Programs or keyboards? Got a Mac, Mbox2 with protools le and a bit of garage band experience.
Tom’s interested in incorporating binaural beats into his Sonic Massage, but he’s an electronic music newbie.
What do you think the best way for him to expand into electronic sounds would be, especially if he wants to experiment with binaural beats?
Impress me, guys!
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Tags: binaural beats, Macintosh, newbie, reader questions
6 Responses to “What The Best Mac Application For Getting Started With Electronic Music?”
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I’m on Windows, so there’s a lot more options available, but there’s an online binaural beat generator:
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~bbl2/GnauralJavaApplet_signed.html
Set the Manual Base to about 50-60 and prepare to get beaten.
You should be able to use Soundflower from Cycling ‘74 (free download) to route audio around, so Gnaural can be used for the binaural beats – run it in Safari, and then route the audio over to Garageband. If you want to try generating them yourself you might try ChucK or Supercollider if you’re a programmer, or any number of free Audio Units plugins – Green Oak Crystal might serve you well.
Other DAWs you might like are Ardour and Audacity (a personal favorite – really excellent for nitpicky editing). Both of those are also free.
You may want to take a look at Tracktion3. It’s the easiest DAW that I’ve ever used & still has a ton of features if needed.
I’ve just started checking out Numerology, and it’s very different from other software I’ve used, which is very inspiring. And it can be used as a ReWire client, which means you can run it along side ProTools, if you like. Give it a peek.
First, buy a good hardware synth/controller, I personally like the
Novation Xio Synth, it is a GREAT usb/midi controller, plus it has some
awesome sounds and is cool to use as a stand alone unit (inspiration
strikes everywhere, not in front of the computer).
I would then try out Ardour (http://www.ardour.org/) SAE endorses it,
which is good, and I just used it at ReMix Hotel and it was GREAT.
Get It While It’s Free!!!
It’s tough being a Mac person if you want to get into binaurals. There’s so much better software available to the PC. I use Brainwave Generator, Gnaural & Adobe audition on the PC. But for mixing quality I move everything over to the Mac and use Tracktion to put my work together. You can use Gnaural for the Mac for some basic beats too but nothing beats the PC software so far. If you’re serious, pick up a cheap PC (under $400) so you can use Gnaural on the PC. It’s a lot more evolved that the Mac version. Also, be careful with Sound Studio on the Mac. There’s too much bleed between L&R channels and you lose the “beat” quality.