Flash Lite MIDI device sound creation: Easy Music Composer
September 3rd, 2007 by Scott Janousek
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A while back, I found a free MIDI music and sound composer tool called Easy Music Composer Free.
Although it’s not the most robust or reliable tool out there (the UI is way kludgey/homegrown and it does have a few bugs here and there … not to mention the free version is limited to 8 bars max!) … it does, however, have the very primitive basics for MIDI sound creation … did I mention it’s free? 
One other notable, is that it also has a fairly unique feature where you can “auto compose” music, if say … you or your team are temporary “musically challenged” while creating a title … and/or have constraints with how much time/budget to spend initially on custom game audio.
Also, for many indie-type Flash Lite game developers, this tool can potentially come in handy if you don’t want to concentrate all your attention on sound when (initially) creating a mobile game.
It is not a replacement for a full-blown commercial audio tool, but might serve a good purpose for prototyping content, or at least generating ideas during initial phases …
I thought the auto composer feature found in this tool might be a useful tip for those looking for tool to auto generate some simple theme music for their Flash Lite content … even if some of it may come out rather “cheezy” (aka not production quality) …
So … I’m not saying this is the best tool out there for composing MIDI, it depends on your needs. But I’ve used Easy Music Composer Free a couple times, and for what it is (cheap and simple with a few bugs), it might also work for your needs in some situations.
Anyways, I just thought I’d post about this particular MIDI creation tool … since it looks very obscure and homegrown … and there is not a lot of tool sharing tips going around these days.
As an aside … it would be useful to compile a list of what everyone in the Flash Lite community is using as far as commercial tools for their Flash Lite content, both for Windows, OSX, etc.
Please post below with any and all tools you are using for MIDI (and device sound) creation.
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September 3rd, 2007 at 6:13 pm
I believe that Adobe sound booth has a feature for helping people compose music, but I dont think Soundbooth outputs to MIDI.
Another tool that folks might try for composing MIDI music is Fruity Loops which I believe allows the user to build music from pre-composed blocks of music. I think fruityloops can export to MIDI. It is not free but using pre-composed blocks, also called pattern sequencing, may be a good approach for people to create music on their own, with little musical experience.
http://fruityloops.com/documents/what.html
Anvil Studio is a free MIDI sequencer. It supports piano roll grid style sequencing which people may find more intuitive compared to music staff notation. According to the web site Anvil Studio also has a SP-MIDI plug-in for setting scaling polyphony rules, which might be useful for situations where you have a pre-composed MIDI file with a lot of polyphony (musical parts).
http://www.anvilstudio.com/
I’ve been using Cakewalk Music Creator which is a cost effective MIDI sequencer with standard features. Probably more musician oriented than the other tools I’ve mentioned.
http://cakewalk.com/Products/MusicCreator/default.asp
Developers might also take a look at Polyphonix sequencer, which has handy features specifically for editing MIDI files for use on a phone.
http://www.logomanager.co.uk/php/products.php?id=52
If you intend to create MIDI sound effects make sure that whatever you use has a good interface for manipulating MIDI controllers like volume, and pitch bend.
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:29 pm
[...] Scott Janousek » Blog Archive » Flash Lite MIDI device sound creation: Easy Music Composer September 4th, 2007 [...]
November 18th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
http://www.Jamstudio.com is a good and fun free site for music composers.