Composing and Composing Music With A Computer Software for Windows

3D Photo Builder
$0 - Anything3D Corp.

Powerful software for high quality panorama stitching and 3D images composing. It?s equipped with wide range of tools for storage, processing, preview, exporting and WEB publication of 3D graphics. Main features: intellectual stitching algorithm, Autodetect of shooting conditions, wide range of import/export formats, built-in special 3D graphics editor, graphical filters, Progressive storage format, Built-In troubleshooting system, Web browser preview, Multiplatform optimized format

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3D Photo Builder Professional
$109.95 - Anything3D Corp.

Powerful software for high quality panorama stitching and 3D images composing. It?s equipped with wide range of tools for storage, processing, preview, exporting and WEB publication of 3D graphics. Main features: intellectual stitching algorithm, Autodetect of shooting conditions, wide range of import/export formats, built-in special 3D graphics editor, graphical filters, Progressive storage format, Built-In troubleshooting system, Web browser preview, Multiplatform optimized format. Wide set of additional image formats (Flash, QTVR, AGIF, AVI and much more!). Direct FTP and Email publishing with publishing history, Built-in professional WEB Page editor are available in the professional version

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BankStep
$0 - Algorithmic Arts

BankStep is a software emulation of hardware bank sequencers found in the big analog synthesizers, that produce control for the sound but not the sound itself. Instead of analog control voltages BankStep produces MIDI (and can make standard MIDI music files). Otherwise, BankStep functionally emulates a big $50,000 bank of hardware sequencers and supporting modules just as it might sit on top of a big Moog analog synthesizer - or your soft synth, MIDI module or sound card.

The main module in BankStep is the Bank module, which is a 3 or 4 bank knob sequencer of any number of columns up to 48. The Bank module is a "smart" module, with the ability to set sequence start and end points, and to automatically switch direction when the end points are reversed. There are no dangling patchchords in BankStep. Instead, module inputs (the red and blue buttons) connect to outputs by selecting them from a popup menu of all available outputs. When an input is connected to an output, the input button label indicates the connection.

Like the hardware sequencers it emulates, BankStep is modular in concept but it is not modular in the sense that you create modules as part of the composing process, as you would with our other MIDI composing software, SoftStep and ArtWonk. While you are free to create your own module Layouts, this should not be part of your composing process, just as specifying the modules of a hardware modular synthesizer is separate from the use of the modules in creating the music. This is less flexible than SoftStep or ArtWonk, but it is often easier to get started with; and because you likely will use the same layout over and over, you become familiar with it.

With BankStep, you are not creating an algorithmic music composition so much as you are creating music with a stack of sequencers, just as you would if you had a stack of hardware sequencers. But with BankStep, you can have a lot more of them to work with!

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Harmony Assistant
$70 - Myriad Software

Harmony Assistant is a all-in-one software product with digital audio capabilities.
The list of features in this program is so large that it cannot be enumerated here. Let's quote some of them anyway :
- Complete score editor, with unlimited number of staves
- Page mode editing
- Automatic harmonizer
- Accompaniments & drum patterns in a few clicks
- Tablature calculation for miscellaneous string instrument
- Tablature calculation for Harmonica, diatonic accordion, wind instruments...
- Completely scriptable application. Many open-source scripts are available, and you can write your own.
- Embedded softsynth : does not need any hardware other than a sound card.
- Digital Fx processors
- Midi, Kar, MOD, S3M... import
- Digital tracks (possible to import WAV, AIFF, MP3, OGG...)
- Digital track processing features : Wav-to-note pitch tracker, noise reduction, formant-compliant pitch change, multi-band equalizer...
- Export in miscellaneous digital file formats (WAV, AIFF, MP3, OGG...)

But also :
- Gregorian notation
- Chord diagram library for various instruments
- Enables to build custom instruments from digital recordings
- Lute tablatures
- Street organ card printing
- Used concurrently with Virtual Singer (available separately), Karaoke and multi-voices lyrics are actually sung.
- A freeware plug-in (Myriad plug-in) will enable visitors of your Web site to view, transpose, play or print your scores
- Several hours of free video tutorials will make your first steps easier.
... and much more.
Just give it a try...

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Music MasterWorks
$34.95 - Aspire Software

Music MasterWorks is a MIDI music composing program. Allows you to compose music just by singing into your PC microphone. It will also analyze your singing. You can record, edit, playback and print sheet music as well. Compose in either staff or piano roll notation.

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SoftStep
$99 - Algorithmic Arts

SoftStep is a modular MIDI step sequencer patterned after the modular analog step sequencers. The big ones, with lots of knobs and blinky lights. But SoftStep goes far beyond its step sequencer roots, to give you algorithmic composing tools of all kinds, including fractal, chaos, probability, and numerical based algorithms of virtually unlimited flexibility.

To create a MIDI composition with SoftStep you create the modules and connect them together to produce a MIDI data stream that drives any MIDI synthesizer, or sound card. It will make a standard MIDI file for your web page, to insert into your music notation sequencer, or just play with any MIDI file player.

You can begin with a simple sequence, and then repeat, modify or combine and recombine it with other sequences. Not only do you hear the changes instantly, you also see them. SoftStep modules are visually dynamic, with values changing, lights blinking, indicators flashing. This visual dynamic is what sets SoftStep apart from other modular algorithmic programs, that let you make the connections but otherwise give minimal visual feedback. With SoftStep, even large, complex patches are easy to follow because nearly every module gives an animated visual indication of its processes.

A review in Electronic Musician Magazine says: "A fascinating program from Algorithmic Arts, SoftStep responds to your playing in creative and spontaneous new ways. Play a major scale on your MIDI controller, and the software responds with an exotic microtonal cluster. Play a few more notes, and it responds with a soft, delayed version of the melody at a tempo determined by your playing Velocity. When you pause for more than a specified period, a long arpeggiated chord sounds. The harmony unfolds in response to biological information from genetic code, and a background rhythm responds to the patterns of a fractal image on the screen. Those are only some of the musical scenarios you can produce with SoftStep."

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