Hi All,
I don't play an instrument. I have no musical writing theory experience.
I've been downloading various appz that give me sheet music to begin writing (eg NoteWorthy, Musescore). Also things like Virtual bassist, virtual piano, drumsite etc. Then SF2's and seeing things such as VST's, loops, midi's.
I write lyrics, more often with a melody which I would like to put down in a note fashion and to build on this to produce a basic song (with the idea that someone much more professional can take the idea and polish it up into a more worthy demo).
I know I've a lot to do, not as much time as I would like to spend on it with little financial resources as well as the space for suddenly having keyboards etc. PC has a Realtek soundcard that seems to deal with playing various soundfonts ok.
I'm not looking to create soundfonts (that's the term I've read) - there's obviously a lot already out there. But how do I listen/play to/with them?
So in terms of SF2's, midi's, loops and VST's etc:
Can someone please help clarify in simple terms a) what they are, what they do, c) do I need them, & maybe very importantly d) how do I use them etc etc
I think it would be of immense help to me to be able to load "something" into say "Finale" or "Musescore" to see it in note form. I just don't (yet) understand if I need a soundfont or a vst or a midi file etc that will load and transpose itself into the sheet music.
Is there an app that "can" take a file and convert it into musical notation? If so, what format of initial file should I have? I know with say Musescore, I can export the sheet music into an MP3 and listen to it but it doesn't seem I can import the MP3 to get the sheet music from it.
I read the "help" files in these appz and to be honest, they seem to think I know what they're talking about as in I have previous experience.
So I've gotten a little overloaded with all this stuff and I'm a little lost now to be honest.
I was looking forward to reading 333Maxwells posts but he never got around to doing them (on soundfonts, vst's etc).
Appreciate any help. advice, useful links etc.
Thanks, J
ps - when looking and downloading a soundfont player, all I get is a dll file ?? I see a visual image on the website but the dload is something else. Do I need something else, are they a plug in?
pps - What does a DAW do? How does it fit in with all the above? Same question for a sampler like Kontakt.