ArtSong

Dave Strohbeen’s goal when developing ArtSong was to give casual and serious composers a handy means of composing and harmonizing melodies. I am glad to say that this goal was reached. So if you need a versatile MIDI-based algorithmic music composition system, you should give ArtSong a try.

The system requirements for running ArtSong are as follows: 2GHz processor (3Ghz or faster recommended), 1GB of RAM memory (2GB or more recommended), 1024 x 768 resolution monitor (1440 x 900 recommended), 40MB of free disk space, MIDI soundcard or external MIDI device, Windows operating system.

ArtSong can be installed on anything from Windows XP to Windows 7. You’ll have to go through a simple procedure to install the application: download an archive (little over 13MB in size), extract and run the executable inside, follow the onscreen instructions presented by a setup wizard. To quickly get started once you’re done with the installation and you launch ArtSong, load one of the samples the application comes bundled with.

As mentioned above, ArtSong is a tool one can use to compose music. With this purpose in mind, the application puts these features at your disposal: define multiple musical segments and/or individual MIDI tracks, apply different algorithms and composition properties to them; contours, envelopes, ramp function, fourier curves, and more; specify or algorithmically generate scales and chord progressions; create custom basic or pascal scripts for composition and editing; save your configuration settings so you can reuse them; save your compositions as MIDI files.

A prompt will be displayed every time you launch ArtSong, reminding you that you’re using the trial and you need to get a license.

ArtSong works as advertised – it provides a nice environment for creating music.