Your resource to free quality computer music software you can download for drums. Free and inexpensive drum and music software. Drum loops, writing.

Due to this topic coming up alot on the forums, I thought it would be a good idea to make a thread with all the programs that had been mentioned over the years here on OLD and provide a little bit of guidance on what they do. Please PM me or reply to this thread if you have any information about the programmes listed here that I have missed off (I dont know that much about them all!) or any comments on the programmes. If there are any programmes you use for sheet music or tabs for drums, please PM me or comment on here and they will be added. Click on the title of the programme to follow a link to the product website: - MuseScore is a free cross-platform WYSIWYG music notation program that offers a cost-effective alternative to commercial programs such as Sibelius and Finale. You can print beautifully engraved sheet music or save it as PDF or MIDI file. - Although there are alot of versions of this, versions 4 and up seem to have the most functionality and would work best for addin gin drum scores. Sheet music: YES Tabs: NO - Is one of the most reccomended programs to use for drum notation.

Is shareware (meaning it is free!) and it says you only pay the $20 fee if you are fully satisfied.whatever that means! Sheet music: YES Tabs: YES Heres a quick review from 'deepsnowwalker'.thanks! Demo only allows 3 seconds of save, but after the $20 fee you can get the whole lot. The stock drums sound aweful but you can edit that in the fx section where I added some reverb and some other things and they sound pretty darn good. Still the best bang for the buck but it has a fairly long learning curve. Lots of subtle nuances buried in the program. Still hard to get more than 3 toms though but I think it is possible if one spends some time.

One can trade drum sounds and note assignments so if you want some good sounding drums with a notation that reflects drum magazine's way of doing it (mostly like PAS notation but expanded) I can send them to anyone who gets that far. Still impossible to replace a human though. - Works in a similar way to both Sibelius and Melody Assistant, but runs for about $600! However it is one of the easiet programs to add drum music into, making price tag worth it if you can afford it. Sheet music: YES Tabs: NO - A smaller lesser version of Finale, but it is available for a free download from Finale.com.

Sheet music: YES Tabs: NO - This is a little bit different, it will convert any drum tab to sheet music for you. You can also write out the sheet music by hand and the tab form will appear underneath it. - This is another commonly used programme for drum notation, but I have never used it so have no experience of it!

- A very good reccomended notation program, one that runs on Linux and Ubuntu however. As they say about it: 'Rosegarden is an easy-to-learn, attractive application that runs on Linux, ideal for composers, musicians, music students, and small studio or home recording environments.' PLEASE NOTE Despite hefty price tags on some of these programmes, they nearly all offer a free trial version, downloadable from the websites listed here. I thought I had seen tabs in Melody assistant but a search of the manual turned up nothing so I enquired to the myriad Melody assistant forum.

The problem is they call them grids for drums but they definitely do drum tabs. You can pick.

Staff---change staff---change from standard drums to grid drums. And you get both the staff and tabs.

Here is the link to the reply: I prefer notation myself. That program will really do it all once you learn it. I still have a lot to learn but I wrote a pretty cool 6 instrument score. The stock drums sound aweful but you can edit that in the fx section where I added some reverb and some other things and they sound pretty darn good. Still the best bang for the buck but it has a fairly long learning curve. I'm loving it now since my weakend arm from tendonitits helped me partially tear my rotator cuff Saturday.

Tendonitis was healed but over a whole year I lost a lot of strength there. Absolutely no drumming allowed for a long while now which is a minor detail since I am off to school in 2 weeks anyway. This way I can still work on learning drumming and drum notation. Moral of the story is stretch good before you play and keep in top shape.

Lesson learned. No surgery required thankfully. Just some more rest time and some build up time after. Minor details. Melody Assistant definitely does notation AND tabs.

Lots of subtle nuances buried in the program. Still hard to get more than 3 toms though but I think it is possible if one spends some time. I'll have some time over the summer while I am training for a new job. One can trade drum sounds and note assignments so if you want some good sounding drums with a notation that reflects drum magazine's way of doing it (mostly like PAS notation but expanded) I can send them to anyone who gets that far.

Still impossible to replace a human though. Great learning tool. I actually re-enter Nate's notation beats (and others posted on here) into it using my own legend and it makes learning and understanding the beats easier not to mention magazine beats that tickle my fancy too. Hope that helps. Civilization 4 Crack Download Free.

I recently purchased Sibelious 5. This is an extremely powerful (and expensive program). Pros and cons: Pros 1. You can simply scan in music and it will import it into a score. (you have to buy another addin to scan drums and yet another addin to get good drum sounds for more than 4 toms). It has a great facility for playback with the option of playing back at any speed with a click or not.

Great for learning new grooves and beats since changing the tempo value (just editing one number) is very fast and easy. Good printed manual with much more info in the files included on the drive 5. Excellent support with fast response form the community online. I can start the playback form my drum throne either with a wireless keyboard or with a simple word through the voice mike and mixer 7. Drum notation is in the accepted format and perfect to my tastes as far as where the notes go and notehead styles are right on once you figure out haow to change them 8.

You can easily write your own backing tracks such as bass or whatever you want 9. Drum playback and numbers of pieces are great once you buy more addons 10. Midi input if you happen to have an electronic kit (never tried it as I don't so no guarentees there 11. Nice to play to the scrolling score to speed up learning notation at different tempos 12. Anything faster than 16ths sound aweful and would require major tweaking 13. Will never replace a real drummer (this is a good thing) 14.

Both bass notes sound the same (bottom line AND bottom space which is perfect for myself since that is what I have and want for left and right pedal but it would be lacking for those wanting two different sized bass sounds to play back. You get a Fender Strat and a richenbacher bass and tons of other stuff with the add ins.

(you pay for the add ins.) Cons 1. Ships with only a 4 piece kit and it sounds the same no matter what kit you choose.

Only 2 or 3 tom sounds no matter where you place the notes although you can pitch bend in the third or 4th tom I believe but that is definitely not the way to go since you have to do it for every note every time and can't even cut and paste pitch bent notes. Requires more mega bucks spent to get the Sibelious sounds rock and pop collection or another collection which gives you the ability to have up to 6 toms out of the box with notes placed in the proper places if you want proper playback 3. Costs an aweful lot of money In all fairness I have only tried one kit with the new sounds and there are about 30 different ones available so maybe even two different bass drums are possible.

All in all I DO love it and it plays every piece in my 7 piece with double ride/triple crash/fake china (splash upside down on a crash for now till I find a china I like) single splash kit now with the ADD IN. Open and closed hats, foot hats, choked this and that, ride bell. Rim clicks.it goes on and on. I was certainly peeved when I found I had to buy the 'add in' though. Since I use it to learn and compose music for all instruments, it is the best out there that I have tried. It'll be neat to scan in some beats from Drum or Modern drummer rather than recompose all the notes to learn them. (need another addin for that) If For drums only Finale gives you all the toms out of the box which is what the add would lead you to believe in Sibelious. Now I need new eyes or a bigger monitor than my 25.5 incher so I can see it from the kit.

Melody assistant is still the best bang for the tiny little buck but Sibeilious rocks!! Far easier and much more powerful.

The written manual if you follow it through the first time teaches most of what you need to know to compose for every instrument on the planet almost except drums. There is very very little information on how to compose for drums. It would be a great teaching tool since it lets you create professional looking lessons and prints them up in a wide variety of ways. It would only take you 5 or 600 lessons given to pay for it. So if I start using it to teach in a few years I should be able to pay for it by the time I am 242 years of age. But then again tomorrows lotto is 43 million so *fingers crossed hoping*.I guess you get what you pay for. I'm looking forward to getting a cheap scanner to scan in some new beats which cuts the learning curve way down.

If you only want drums and something to write the notation. You may want to step back and take another look around before you buy.

It could never replace a real drummer in my opinion (which is good). Folks post some works on the cummunity online.

Some make you pay for their works (better pieces) The drum literature is very very sketchy and no one seems to have a clue about drums in the forums which is probably a good thing. Keeps us in business. I've only scratched the surface of what it will do but personally I want to compose for every instrument. I've learned that piano appears to be only Bass clef with the left hand and treble clef with the right hand. And I thought piano was hard pffft. Drums are harder. I haven't looked to see if there are tabs yet but it does guitar chords both ways (notation and tabbed chords) All in all I'm very very pleased and very very broke.

I've been checking out most of the recommended software, but I can't find exactly the right program. I downloaded: Finale NotePad, Melody Assistant, and Music Score. I'm not looking to compose, I'm just looking to document a beat or a fill.

I have a bunch hand-written but I prefer a printed verison (just anal retentive that's all). NotePad was definitely the most user friendly of the three, but it isn't really drum friendly.

It's really easy to lay down the beat, but I can't figure out how to change a note head to X or O for high hat or to ( ) for a ghost note. Melody Assistant appears to have drum notation, but the interface is a little more difficult to grasp. Has anyone else tried a number of programs and found a solution to the same problems that I'm facing?