Hip Hop Artists Developing Open Source Beat Making Software

First time accepted submitter caseyb89 writes "Beat making software is incredibly expensive, and the high price limits usage to those who can afford it. Two professors at UNC have a dream of allowing all artists access to beat making software, regardless of income level. They are rallying the community on a project to create open source beat making software. The two professors double as DJs and hip hop artists, and they recently spoke at Rio+Social."

Re:Please Define

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrogen is not a pro level piece of software. We tried it, and ended up hiring a drummer instead.

The results are far superior, at least for our style of music.

Re:Please Define

[djlemma]

They are mostly talking about Reason. [line6.com] It's a software simulator for a bunch of real-life studio hardware that musicians used to have to purchase and hook up and find places to put. So, instead of having to spend $50,000 to outfit a studio with keyboards, synths, patch bays, mixers, effects, compressors, cables, etc., you can simulate it all with Reason for something like $450. But to the people in TFS, this is too much money still, and they would like to make a free equivalent. It's noble, but as others have mentioned there are other options that do not have nearly so polished and authentic sounds and interfaces, but are much cheaper or free.

Rosegarden and Buzztard (Jeskola Buzz)

[HalAtWork]

Rosegarden [rosegardenmusic.com] and Buzztard [buzztard.org] are great for such purposes, and are both open source.

List of available open-sourced Beat / Drum Machine

[Taco Cowboy]

Okay, here's the list that I can find:

Hydrogen
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/?p=main [hydrogen-music.org]

OrDrumBox
http://www.ordrumbox.com/ [ordrumbox.com]

OpenBeatBox
Mac
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Audio/Open-Beat-Box.shtml [softpedia.com]
Linux
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Open-Beat-Box-4095.shtml [softpedia.com]

Koblo
http://koblo.com/beta [koblo.com]

Free Cycle
http://freecycle.redsteamrecords.com/ [redsteamrecords.com]

Anymore?

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