Tom at Music Thing has done an excellent series of posts this week on Tiny Music Makers: the people behind those tiny 4-second sounds we can all immediately identify, like the Intel sound and the Mac Startup sound. He even spoke to some of the music makers. Here’s a roundup of all five articles:

• Part 1: The “Intel Inside” Chimes—I had heard the composers 1980’s hit and had no idea he composed this too.
• Part 2: The Windows 95 Startup Sound—by none other than Brian Eno.
• Part 3: The THX Sound—complete with Simpsons parody clip.
• Part 4: The Mac Startup Sound—used in most Macs from 1991 to the present.
• Part 5: The Channel 4 Jingle —The only one I didn’t recognize, living in America, but still interesting: “Every time that sequence was played, David Dundas was paid £3.50.”

This is an excellent series of articles, and I think some unsung heroes are finally getting a tiny bit of recognition for their tiny music. I’d love to see this continue—maybe Tom can track down the composer of the Duracell melody or the “Yahoo” yodel.

One of the most important aspects of computer music production is a sound card to get sounds into and out of the computer. If you use software synthesizers, you also need something better than a typical SoundBlaster to get the latency down to reasonable levels so you can play with the instrument live. I’ve been using an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 for this purpose for a few months, and it’s a great card for the $99 price.

Now M-Audio and Digidesign have collaborated to produce Pro Tools M-Powered, a specialized version of Pro Tools that works with M-Audio’s hardware, including the economical 2496.

I’ve never been a Pro Tools user, originally because I couldn’t afford the dedicated hardware and now because I have way too much invested in Cubase. I’m still not planning on switching platforms, but it’s nice to know that the barrier to entry for Pro Tools systems has come way down.

I’m a software junkie, and I’ve downloaded, bought, or played with hundreds of obscure bits of music software. Nonetheless, there are a few programs I consider essential: Software I’ve owned for years, can spend hours using comfortably, and can count on to fulfill my needs. Here’s my list of music software I couldn’t do without:

• Native Instruments Reaktor 4: Reaktor is a virtual synthesizer and effects construction kit and much more. I’ve made entire songs out of Reaktor sounds, and I love creating new instruments and effects. (Reaktor 5 is coming this month, can’t wait.)
• FL Studio 5: Formerly known embarrassingly as “Fruityloops”, this is the ultimate virtual drum machine and loop synthesizer. Most of my songs start out in FL Studio, and with the nice synthesizer plug-ins they’re often nearly done before I use anything else. I just wish it was available for Macintosh, since I’m using an iBook as my portable machine. I paid for an ancient version of FruityLoops and have received free upgrades ever since.
• Cubase SX 3: The best sequencer I’ve ever used. I don’t use much MIDI these days, so I use Cubase primarily to mix together loops and audio files that came from Reaktor, FL Studio, and occasionally a real piece of hardware.
• Sound Forge: Sometimes I need an audio editor to process and mixdown final tracks, on those rare occasions when I finish something. I’m not too picky about audio editors—Sound Forge is just the one I paid for a while back. It’s not the latest version, but it works.

I’ll write about each of these in much more detail in future posts, but since I’m just starting this site and so much of music production today depends on the software you use, I thought I should let you know where I’m coming from.

I use these mostly on Windows. Reaktor and Cubase are available for OSX as well, and both allow me to use the product on both my PC and my iBook, which is nice.

When I was in high school I built a few primitive electronic instruments from scratch, and I’ve always enjoyed building do-it-yourself electronic projects. In the years since then, the Web has enabled a community of DIY synth builders to grow. Now there are many sites with plans for synthesizers and other gadgets, and many are available as circuit boards or kits. As a regular feature I’ll be pointing out some of these projects, and reviewing them when I have the chance to build them myself.

First up: the Sound Lab Mini Synth by Ray Wilson. Complete plans are available on the Web site, including a circuit board layout, parts list, and front panel layout. The synth has two oscillators, a noise generator, resonant filter, LFO, ADSR envelope, and VCA, and the author estimates the parts cost at $30 to $60. He calls it an “intermediate to advanced” project. If you’ve never soldered electronics before, you’ll want to start with something easier, but if you’ve built an electronics kit or two, this one looks like it won’t be too hard.

This synth is not available in kit form, but you can buy a circuit board for $30. If you’ve ever etched your own circuit boards, you’ll probably agree that it’s well worth the price. I ordered a board in January and it was shipped promptly. The board is very professional, with plated-through holes and printed labels for every part. It does not include printed instructions, so be sure to print out the instructions from the web.

I’m going to start work on my Mini Synth soon, and I’ll post some pictures and tips along the way.

[Note: This is not a MIDI synthesizer. You'll be able to make noise with it, but if you want to play it with a keyboard you'll need some kind of MIDI-to-control-voltage device. I recommend the PAiA midi2cv8.]

While there are thousands of sample CDs available for purchase in various formats if you need sounds to work with, there’s nothing better than finding a good source of free sounds. One of the earliest I’ve run across is the samples page at Music Machines.

Here you’ll find sounds sampled from vintage drum machines, ranging from classics like the Roland TR-808 and TR-909 to lesser known (and cheesier) units like Casio’s SK-1 and the Univox Micro-Rhythmer-12. There are also some vintage synths like the MiniMoog and Roland Juno.

Most of these are freely usable in your own music, and many can be redistributed. I downloaded a bunch of them several years ago to use in FruityLoops and I end up using them far more than any of the actual drum machines I own.

The rest of the Music Machines site is worth a look too—there are pictures, details, and even schematics for hundreds of vintage machines.

By launching this weblog I’m joining an already thriving community of musician weblogs and other sites out there, so as a regular feature I’m going to spotlight some of the others.

One of the first music-related weblogs I found a year or so ago was Music Thing, written by London’s Tom Whitwell. Music Thing is mostly about gear, with a focus on the odd side of music gear: homemade synthesizers, rare equipment, eBay finds, and occasionally giant robots.

Music Thing is like Engadget for musicians, and in fact Tom writes a weekly Music Thing column that appears on Engadget. If you enjoy reading about music gear as much as I do, it’s highly recommended.