Easily make your own music on your PC
– no experience required

Next up, you'll start to create your own music track.

• Select "File" > "New Project" to open up an empty arranger window.

You can make your own song using just Soundpool loops, or use a few loops to arrange a basic song structure and then add your own recordings.

All the Soundpool loops available for your production can be found on the right.

• Make sure that the "Loops" tab is open above right if you want to use Soundpool loops.

In the beginning, only the Soundpool "Feel good" will be shown in the Soundpool list, as it is installed with Music Maker Free. If you install additional Soundpools later, you can access them here.

On the right, the list of instruments can be found. This is where you select the Soundpool instruments you want to use. For "Feel good", the instruments are "bass", "brass", "drums", "FX" etc.

Select the loops you want to use. For the "Bass" category, for example, this is "right bass" (with variants A-C), "right sub bass" (with variants A and B) etc.

• Click on a loop to begin listening to a preview.
• To use the loop, drag & drop it to the arranger. You can also just press the Enter key to do this.

It works like a musical puzzle: You drag matching loops onto the tracks to create your own music.

You should keep a few things in mind, though:

• It's probably best to start with a drum track.

Select a drum loop on the right and drag & drop it to the arranger on the left. In general, a drum loop can be positioned anywhere. To begin with, it's easiest to just place the drum loop on track 2 below track 1, the track marked "Piano default". To add variation to the drum track, take a second drum loop and drop it behind the first loop.

Each loop is designed in a way that it can be played it over and over again without the listener realizing that it is the same recording. If you move the mouse to the back edge of a loop, the mouse pointer will turn into a double arrow. You can now click and hold the double arrow to drag out the section. It will then continue to play as a loop.

You can also use the same method to trim part of the front section of the loop and make the beginning shorter.

• Drag the loops out to the length you want and then fit them together on the track.

Above track 1, you can see the playback range. The default length is 16 bars long and it will be played as an endless loop. This isn't long enough to make a complete song, but it's enough to work with to create the first section.

• Create a bass track. Select a bass loop in the Media Pool and drop it onto track 3.

Drums & bass provide the musical backbone for most songs.

Every loop can be set to seven different pitches. You can change the pitch by clicking one of the seven pitch buttons above the loop library. (This can't be done with drum loops, since drum sounds do not have a specific pitch.)

• Arrange a drum track and a bass track that span the entire 16 bars.
• You can add additional empty tracks from the menu under "Edit" > "Track" > "Add new track".

Now that you the basics of making your own music on the PC under your belt, you can add loops from other instrument categories to other tracks.

Of course, this doesn't result in a perfect song right away. It takes a bit of experience to create your own music using Soundpool loops. Take a look at the structure of the demo projects. This will give you an idea of how to arrange and produce your own song.

The second option for making your own music on the PC is to play virtual instruments. Similar to Soundpool loops, these instruments are based on short musical recordings ("samples"), but they are deployed in a different way. You can play them using the computer keyboard or, if you prefer, with a MIDI keyboard just like a normal keyboard instrument. Alternatively, melodies or chords can be programmed by clicking the mouse to draw notes in the MIDI editor and/or corrected there later.

At the bottom of the interface, you'll see a large keyboard with a piano keyboard. This controls the virtual instruments. The default instrument sound is a concert grand piano.

• Click the "Keyboard" tab.

Now, you'll see a large keyboard with a piano keyboard at the bottom of the interface. This controls the virtual instruments.

Letters and symbols will appear on some of the keys. These keys can be played using the corresponding keys on the computer keyboard. You can press several keys simultaneously to create a chord.

You can play the normal C major scale using the top row of your computer's keyboard (starting on the left with the letter "Q" and ending on the right with the "[" symbol). It is easiest to use this row of keys to play melodies when starting out.

Through trial and error as well as a little practice, you'll learn to play instruments dynamically and accurately on the computer keyboard.

When starting out, all you need is a short melody or a couple of chords that complement the basic structure that you've created using Soundpool loops.

To record yourself playing music, you need an "armed" recording track. On track 2, everything has been set up properly – you can tell this from the red MIDI recording button on the left within the track header.

• Click on the red "Record" button in the transport control.

The recording will start in track 2. At the same time, the accompanying arrangement on the other tracks will be played back. During recording, a new audio clip is created in the recording track, which becomes longer and longer as the recording continues.

If you click the "Record" button again, the playback marker will jump back to the position where it started. The recording will start again from the beginning and the previous take will be overwritten.

• Play a piano melody on the computer keyboard.

If you make a mistake, simply click on the red "Record" button and begin the recording again.

• When you're finished, stop the recording by clicking the "Stop" button in the transport control.

You'll now see your recording in track 1 and can play it back together with the rest of the arrangement.

Want to try out a different instrument to create your own music? There are several ways to change instruments. The easiest way is to open the dropdown menu above the keyboard and select a different instrument.

You can also choose from two other instruments besides the "Concert Grand": "Revolta" and "Vita LE". Revolta is a classic synthesizer with many settings for typical synth sounds, while Vita LE is a sampler for acoustic instruments.

• Open Revolta to try it out.

A large, independent user interface will appear, which offers a number of different possibilities to modify the sound.

• Press a few keys on the computer keyboard to preview the sound.
• Open the Revolta dropdown menu and switch to another sound preset.

This completely changes the sound – instead of a dirty bass synth, you'll now hear atmospheric electronic sounds, depending on your selection. Any number of experimental sounds are possible using Revolta.

• Select a sound preset and play the short arrangement of your MIDI recording.

Now, you will hear the current Revolta sound instead of the recorded piano sound.

You can use this process to preview the same MIDI recording played by different virtual instruments. Only the control commands are recorded, not the sound itself.