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Ask HN: Songwriters, what software do you use?

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41–50 of 61 posts

Re: Ask HN: Songwriters, what software do you use?

#41

I don’t use any software. Just notebook, pen, 4-track tape recorder, an SM-58, a cheap Beringer pre-amp, and some DT-770’s.

same. to me, it's the immediacy that matters; I want as little getting in the way of getting my idea in draft form quickly. A real paper notepad and just the voice record feature of my phone are my main go-tos.

One of the biggest dangers of software solutions is that everything is so easy that it's super easy to just start playing with things that don't matter instead of actually working on the music itself. Sometimes keeping the tools simple helps keep the focus on the real work.

Re: Ask HN: Songwriters, what software do you use?

#42
post #40

I don’t use any software. Just notebook, pen, 4-track tape recorder, an SM-58, a cheap Beringer pre-amp, and some DT-770’s.

"Three cords and the truth"

Nevada was Springsteen’s best album. Sgt Pepper’s was probably the best Beatles album (although the contention for that honour is quite high).

Sometimes less is more.

Re: Ask HN: Songwriters, what software do you use?

#43
For lyrics, I currently use Google Keep and hugely resent myself for it.

What I want is to be able to write lyrics as easily as plaintext, but with manually assignment of meter, rhythm etc, while also being able to "fork" lyrics at a point and be able to work on different threads, keep track of alternative lyrics on a phrase level too. Being able to sync that up with some basic music notation (e.g. keys and percussion) would get me 90% of the way to where I want to be when it comes to writing at the computer. I think I have a coherent design for such a software in my head but am unsure if it really is what I need or is just a whimsical distraction from not writing good enough lyrics yet. Would be interested to hear if anyone's seen anything like this (can't say I've exhaustively looked).

Re: Ask HN: Songwriters, what software do you use?

#45
Google Keep, mostly. I write down words and fragments of songs - lines, rhymes, choruses - as they occur to me. When inspiration hits, I turn these into a song lyric, and then I sit down with my guitar or my keyboard and I come up with a chord progression and a melody, which I memorize through practice and repetition.

I learned this workflow from my mother, who is a singer-songwriter, and literally every songwriter in history, though most of them probably used notebooks instead of Keep, as I did until a few years ago. I've been using this workflow for does math 33 years now, since I was a teenager.

I think I've probably used rhyming dictionaries two or three times in that time. I would no more use any form of AI to write lyrics than I would build a robot to exercise for me. It would completely and totally miss the point of songwriting for me, which isn't producing "content" - it's a self-expressive art form.

If you find yourself wanting more than a pen and paper or a notes app for songwriting, I respectfully suggest - as someone who's been writing, performing and recording songs for the aforementioned 30+ years as well as growing up the child of a professional songwriter and also being myself a paid music critic and journalist for many years - you might not be understanding the assignment.

The most important tool you have as a songwriter - or any writer - is your ears. Listen to music. Listen to songwriters who are very good at it - there's this cat named Bob Dylan who's got a bit of a reputation for that, or Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell or Nick Cave or Paul Simon or Jason Isbell. Listen to what they do and figure out what they're doing.

And unless you're a born storyteller, you often need to have an interesting life to write interesting songs about. I suggest falling in love with lots of people and travelling and paying attention when you're doing these things, not just to how you feel but everything around you. Pay attention to people and write about them.

An example lyric: I rang the New Year in / In a field out in the suburbs / Somewhere outside East Berlin / I watched the fireworks burn the night / And I wondered where you were / And if you were alright

See, that lyric exists because I actually spent New Year's Eve in a field outside Berlin. Go do that. Or get good at convincing people you have.

This isn't about software, but all the software on earth won't help you if you can't write a good song with a pen and paper. It's not enterprise software, it's not labor intensive, one person can do it sitting in a diner with a college ruled notebook and, indeed, many of the best songs have been written that way.

Or you can let an AI write it for you and dink around with the settings and call yourself a songwriter, but regardless of what you or the world tell you, you won't be. You'll actually be doing less work than most celebrity record producers and what comes out will be soulless product.

If that's what you want, great, I guess, but you certainly don't need anyone's help to make shite pseudoart. People are filling the world with it right now.

Re: Ask HN: Songwriters, what software do you use?

#46
post #21

This is actually an area that I find a little frustrating. Generally to produce music you need to use a DAW. Ableton, Logic Pro etc. What sucks is you can't easily just assign a lyric to a note. Like it's just not a feature they provide. It's something you can do in MuseScore because it uses traditional notation, but it would be great to be able to do it in something like Ableton.

Studio One has a lyrics track https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_XPEXE1HHQ

Re: Ask HN: Songwriters, what software do you use?

#48

Currently working on an album. Software I use for songwriting: mostly Logic, also Dorico. Voice memos. Rhymezone sometimes. Rhymezone seems less and less helpful as I go on. I hardly use text editors for lyrics, paper seems to work a lot better. I end up with a lot of scribbles all over the paper. AI suggestions for songwriting seems a bit like turning on cheat codes in a game. Cheat codes will help me beat a game fa…

> If you had an AI assistant that could help you put together a jigsaw puzzle, would you use it?

It depends.

Is the puzzle a modern commercial jigsaw puzzle? Of course I wouldn't use it.

Is the puzzle a unique ancient Sumerian tablet that was just accidentally shattered and in pieces on the ground, but I need the information on it immediately? Absolutely.

Re: Ask HN: Songwriters, what software do you use?

#49
post #11

Allow me to plug a dictionary/thesaurus site I've been running for decades called OneLook ( https://onelook.com ). Although it's not specifically aimed at songwriters, it does attract many of them as users. Over the past thirty years, I've added all sorts of brainstorming features for creative writers—like the ability to search for words by description, to match words with a given meter, and more recently to discover…

Wow, OneLook and the rest of your Datamuse collection will help me a lot. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Songwriters, what software do you use?

#50
post #2

- Most time is spent in the iPhone's Notes & Voice Memo apps. - I try Rhymezone, but it rarely helps me find a word I hadn't already though of. - The Complete Rhyming Dictionary [1] as it also helps find great family rhymes - but is a very manual process. - ChatGPT voice chat for object writing - mostly just because I'm more of a vocal processor - I forbid it from writing anything, and instruct it clearly to just lis…

Chatgpt: "There's no such thing as a wonderwall. Listeners won't understand it or like it."
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