Need Help - Songwriter wanting to create at home demos

[darling1]

Hi everyone!

So I may need to buy a new computer by the end of the year and one big consideration in choosing PC vs MAC is the options for demo creation. I prefer PC for my business/film work (finally PC works for the film world!) so I'm looking to figure out my options for the music side.

I'm a singer/songwriter who is musically trained but not a tech guru- the technical side of recording is a bit of a necessary evil to me. Nevertheless, I'm looking to create nice sounding demos from home for my song catalog in the simplest way possible. If ever I want a radio ready piece, I would take this to a real producer as an idea to work from.

I've been using Band In A Box which seems nice in theory but tends to sound less than impressive in real life. The obvious choice seems to be garageband, which only comes on mac. I can get a PC though if I can find a good alternative.

Here are the capabilities I'm looking for:
Create songs from chords and melodies I already have worked out.
Ideally, can select a style, drop in the chords and, whalah! have a base to work from...
Sound professional quality (or close to it)
User-friendly (I don't want to have to get a degree in music production to create my tracks)
Record vocals/add effects as needed
Do a simple mix
Easily export to WAV/MP3
Would love to be able to create the lead sheet from the system as well, but that's optional.

Thoughts, oh music producers of greater knowledge? Please help!

 

[Armistice]

Do you play any instruments?

 

[mjbphotos]

'Sound professional' is the key in your descriptions - exactly what do you mean by that? Depending on the type of music, real instruments are going to give better sound than MIDI VSTi's. If it was easy to 'drag and drop' and add vocals and be 'radio ready', don't you think it would be done by every Tom Dick adn Harry already?

 

[ecc83]

If you buy a decent Audio Interface such as the Steinberg UR22, a Focusrite 2i4 or my personal reccy' the Native instruments KA6 and a modest, small diaphragm capacitor mic* (aka condenser by the arcane) you can use any of those..FOR DEAD BANG CERTAIN on the PC you now have.

The UR22 and the KA6 come with Cubase software which will certainly do all you suggest but maybe a quicker starter would be Reaper?

If you should decide to go mac those interface will still work fine.

*In fact, 'twere me I would get a matched pair of Behringer C2s.

Dave.