I don't fully consider myself a musician, since I lack the "philosophy" I see a lot of other musicians take. Additionally, I've received no formal music training, and I feel phony putting myself on the same level as those who do. On this page, I'll talk about the tools I use, instruments I've played, and other fun stuff related to my own musical hobbies. I'll also show you examples of my work, some of which may be exclusive to this website :)
A digital audio workstation is basically what it says on the tin: it's a piece of software to make music on. I personally use FL Studio and have since about 2019; my version of choice is FL Studio 12, since it supports soundfonts through its 32-bit version (which I use exclusively, even on Win11.) I still have yet to fully wrap my head around the entire thing, and I'm sure I could be making much better stuff if I really tried to, but I'm content with what I know about how to use it currently.
Here are some other software I've used to make music, for better or for worse:
Now, I almost strictly use the MIDI functions of FL and other programs. While loop-mixing was something I had fun with way back when, I find it easier to make my own melodies (or recreate ones from scratch.) One of these days I'd really like to learn how people are able to splice up stuff like the Amen break in FL, since you appear to be able to play with the samples through the MIDI interface if you so wish.
There are many little musical programs that I use for fun, and not necessarily to make original music. As I've been in a creative slump lately, I've been playing around more with these than making anything original in FL. Here are two toys I play with:
3MLE is a music program designed to assist Mabinogi and MapleStory players in making music for their respective games. These games (and thusly this software) use Music Macro Language, a system of "coding" music that's existed since at least the MSX. Input is essentially writing out music notation by note, length, and other special symbols (such as rest or tempo.) It's by no means an easy way to explore music, but I find the tedium entertaining to work with.
As an example, here's the main melody of Ai vist lo lop in MML. Put it in a MML player to (hopefully) hear how it sounds!
t170l4
dc8d8>a+a8a+16b16<c.c8>a+8a8g<
dc8d8>a+a8a+8<c>ag2
gaa+8a+8a+8a+8a+<c>afa+a8a+8gg8g16g+16af<c>a
gaa+8a+8a+8a+8a+<c>af
a+a8a+8gg8g16g+16a8g8fg2
In 3MLE, the greater/less than symbols would be reversed. I'm not sure why this specific web player wants it this way, but it's not that hard to change for a one-time thing.
Want to play around with 3MLE yourself? Find it here: https://musicalnexus.net/3mle-download/
Furnace tracker is, well, a music tracker that targets a variety of retro systems. I personally use it for the WonderSwan and SMS-FM chips, but there are plenty of others to choose from. I prefer this tracker to DefleMask or Famitracker because it's both free and pretty user friendly right out of the box. The software comes with a variety of presets, and you can find more in various sample songs the program includes.
Since I find it easy to lose the plot when making something original in Furnace, I usually only make covers or re-arrange stuff I've already made elsewhere. Here's a couple examples of stuff I've made in Furnace, mostly by ear:
Want to play around with Furnace yourself? Find it here: https://tildearrow.org/furnace/