ntula
faster than a broom
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2006
- Location
- san francisco
- Moto(s)
- M900S (medea), ZX10.4 (nemesis), MZ660E (baghira)
- Name
- tara
-
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Musicians - computer based recording equipment
- Thread starter Var
- Start date
Squidly McSmearstain
Well-known member
I wouldn't call it ease. If you want to integrate MIDI foot controllers for starting and stopping of live loops for performance, it's a PITA.
I also found the Live interface confusing. It's not set up like a traditional recording console. It takes some time to "unlearn" some things to open up some of Live's benefits.
Live has multiple personalities: It's a Live performance looper and it's a recording interface. These two activities can be quite different, and Live's interface treats them differently. I thought ProTools was easy, Live left me scratching my head for a day or two.
ntula
faster than a broom
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2006
- Location
- san francisco
- Moto(s)
- M900S (medea), ZX10.4 (nemesis), MZ660E (baghira)
- Name
- tara
not a live user myself, i know persons who are and swear by it, but use if for live on the fly use. i did not
really care for it myself and too thought i could work faster with a full DAW than a limited one like live with "house-ish" user interface. kompact instruments can add much of live's features to a DAW. cubase 4 lets you do a lot of live mixing and dropping loops as well and goes so far beyond live in it's entire capacity.
i use cubase 4 myself.
really care for it myself and too thought i could work faster with a full DAW than a limited one like live with "house-ish" user interface. kompact instruments can add much of live's features to a DAW. cubase 4 lets you do a lot of live mixing and dropping loops as well and goes so far beyond live in it's entire capacity.
i use cubase 4 myself.
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kneeSparX
Pixel Mover
I like Native instruments http://www.native-instruments.com/ for virtual instruments.
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i just went to Gelb's annual blowout sale in redwood city. Got a UX1 for 100 bucks. Gonna get a usb midi keyboard for another 100 bucks and have all i need for bare basics. I don't even need drumbeats right now so it'll do.
squidly..just listened to the pieces you did. good job on both. Hopefully i can post something up when i finally get done with it (gimme a long while) Maybe i can just do an in flames cover for now cause i don't need drums for that.
I went back and read what you had to say about looping..i think that's the style i like better rather than trying to play the whole thing in a single take. Hopefully it Live Lite will fit my needs. I'll post back when i figure stuff out. I will definitely bookmark this thread for all your guys' great advice when it finally comes times to drop the big bucks on pro level equipment.
o BTW..this salesman from Roland tried to move me onto the boss br600 . Cool gizmo, but i feel like i'd rather have a visual of what's going on rather than look at a little LCD screen with an orange backlight. The unit itself is great and they were selling it for 300 bucks.Also i would probably have bought the kd37 like you suggested but they didn't stock it.
squidly..just listened to the pieces you did. good job on both. Hopefully i can post something up when i finally get done with it (gimme a long while) Maybe i can just do an in flames cover for now cause i don't need drums for that.
I went back and read what you had to say about looping..i think that's the style i like better rather than trying to play the whole thing in a single take. Hopefully it Live Lite will fit my needs. I'll post back when i figure stuff out. I will definitely bookmark this thread for all your guys' great advice when it finally comes times to drop the big bucks on pro level equipment.
o BTW..this salesman from Roland tried to move me onto the boss br600 . Cool gizmo, but i feel like i'd rather have a visual of what's going on rather than look at a little LCD screen with an orange backlight. The unit itself is great and they were selling it for 300 bucks.Also i would probably have bought the kd37 like you suggested but they didn't stock it.
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Squidly McSmearstain
Well-known member
Just thought I would finish my thoughts from the earlier posts because I have a lot of things to do at work, and I'm avoiding them 
sofHow much MIDI "audio" are you going to record?
MIDI isn't audio. It's a set of instructions on how to create audio. Let's say you want to add some strings to your song. You can't afford to hire a quartet to come record in your living room, what do you do? The best bet is to get a synthesizer that accurately reproduces the sound of a string quartet. How do you tell the synthesizer what notes to play, when to play them, how long to hold the note, how aggressive should the note attack be, and what dynamics should be used during the performance? All these parameters are contained within the MIDI data. Now, you could program each of these parameters individually, but that would suck. The easiest thing to do is get a keyboard that looks like piano. If you get one that is velocity sensitive it sends a TON of information to the synthesizer. When you hit a key on the MIDI keyboard, it sends information to the synthesizer that describes the note name, attack, length of note (as long as you hold down the key), etc. The synthesizer gets this info and then reproduces that information, but sounds like a string quartet. If you decide you'd rather have a brass band, you change the setting on the synthesizer. The MIDI data stays the same, but the synthesizer uses a different voice.
If you're going to use a lot of MIDI you need a recording interface that handles MIDI information easily. Some recording packages are more audio recording based than MIDI recording based (for example, Pro Tools). Pro Tools is getting better at handling MIDI, but it's still primarily for recording audio. Also, you'll need to get a good, velocity sensitive MIDI controller. A lot of controllers have dials and switches on them in addition to the piano keys. You can map these dials and switches to various functions in your software. It can be a LOT easier to hit a switch on your MIDI keyboard rather than move your mouse and fish through several menus to get the feature you want.
Software programs like Reason and Live are very MIDI friendly and focused. They can handle external audio, but really excel at handling MIDI and synthesizer sounds. If you're an old fart like me, you may find Pro Tools, Cubase, Logic, etc. more intuitive. If you're younger and haven't spent time with an old cassette based 4 track, you may find the interface of Reason and Live (for example) less imposing.
If you plan on usng percussion / drums will this be recorded live or will it be software based?
Drums are a pain in the ass to record. You can record them as a simple stereo pair with two mics, but you probably won't get the sound you want. You could mic up a drum kit with a LOT of mics, but then you need a LOT fo mics, a big mixing console and the ability let the druymmer hear the rest of the band so he/she can play along.
You could get a drum machine. You program the drum sounds and have control over every 64th of a beat (if not more). Drum machines are very cool, but you need to have a good drummer's ear and sensibility to make these things sound good. If you don't think like a drummer, your drum machine programming will probably sound like a jumbled mess (don't ask me how I know). Plus, you need to hook up the external drum machine to your computer. The drum machine will need MIDI data to tell it song position (bar and beat) so it knows what to play. This means you'll need a MIDI cable and a music interface with a MIDI port. However, there are some cool cables that will convert a USB port to a MIDI port, so this last requirement isn't troo much of an issue if your computer has a free USB port.
Personally, I think the best solution is to get a easy to use piece of drum software. These work by allowing you to select drum patterns. Most software packages have thousands of stored drum patters (BTW, so do most drum machines). Using the patterns is as simple as dragging the pattern you like from your drum software, and dropping it into your song. No muss, no fuss. Yes, the take a little practice to get good at, but what software doesn't require practice. I use EZ Drummer because it REALLY is easy and it isn't that expensive.
So now you have an audio interface to get sound into your computer. You have recording software to organize these various sound files into a logical flow to create a song. Your recording software handles MIDI data, and you've hooked up an external MIDI keyboard. Your recording software also has built in software synthesizers so you can sound like an orchestra or a brass band or a bunch of monkeys playing with pots and pans.
What more do you need? Unfortunately, lots.
Unless you've spent a ton of money on external PCI cards or rack mountable gear, your computer is handling a LOT of stuff. It's recording external audio and MIDI, producing synthesizer sounds and sending and receiving MIDI data to an external drum software package for percussion. That's the easy stuff.....
Let's say you've recorded two guitar parts, a bass part, three MIDI parts (strings, horns and a vibraphone), software based drums, lead vocals and backing vocals. Now what. You need to mix all this stuff together and add some reverb. Your recording software probably has these functions built in, but they probably sounds like crap.
You're most likely going to have to buy some reverb and some mixing devices (EQ, compression, multi-band limiters, etc.). Again, unless you pay top dollar for rack gear or PCI cards that have their own processing engines on them, you're probably going to buy software. Software based EQ, compression, multi-band limiters use processing power, but software based reverb EATS processing power. Your computer is now quite busy playing back all that audio and MIDI, handling external drum software and synthesizers while also handling the EQ, compression, limiters and reverb. This means you need a pretty good machine to handle all this stuff.
Because your computer is reading and writing so much stuff all the time, you're MUCH better off storing your audio on a different hard drive.
This final part is not meant to scare you. It's meant to let you know what you're in for if you want to produce good sounding music with your computer.
All of this is biased by my preferences, but it's a decent place to start:
Hardware
Audio interface: $100 (for the purposes of this post, it's a Toneport UX1)
MIDI controller: $100
Microphone: $150 (decent mic)
Preamp: $100 (let's not go crazy)
External hard drive: $100
Software
Recording software: $0 It comes bundled with the UX1
Reverb software: $100(?)
Mixing / Mastering software: $300
Stuff
Mic stands
Pop filter for vocals
Cables
Cables
Cables
Magazine subscriptions
This is assuming you have a computer capable of handling everything. If you buy smart, you'll be able to sell some of this stuff as you progress.
If you really like recording, you're going to end up wanting a nicer audio interface and a more complete software interface. Then come new mics, mic cables, better MIDI controllers, better reverb software, more soft synthesizers, a more powerful computer to handle it all, different mics for different recording applications, mic preamps, better mic preamps, mixing and mastering software, room treatment, etc.
I consider myself an advanced hack. There are others on this board with more complete set ups and more recording knowledge. Just for point of reference, this is my current setup:
Neumann KM184 mics
Behringer B2 mics
M-audio Keystation 49e MIDI controller - I can't play piano, so I keep it REALLY simple
Digidesign 002R audio interface - I use the built-in preamps about 50% of the time
Joe Meek TwinQcs stereo preamp
Macbook Pro 17" 2.33 GHz with 2 gig RAM
Pro Tools LE 7.3.1cs
Xpand synthesizer (free with ProTools)
Live 6 (comes with a decent amount of synth sounds and some interesting effects)
EZDrummer - Easy to use and relatively cheap. Limited in scope.
T-Racks 1.x Mastering suite VST/AU/RTAS plug-in for mixing
Bias Peak LE
Bias Sound Soap
Hope this helps.
sofHow much MIDI "audio" are you going to record?
MIDI isn't audio. It's a set of instructions on how to create audio. Let's say you want to add some strings to your song. You can't afford to hire a quartet to come record in your living room, what do you do? The best bet is to get a synthesizer that accurately reproduces the sound of a string quartet. How do you tell the synthesizer what notes to play, when to play them, how long to hold the note, how aggressive should the note attack be, and what dynamics should be used during the performance? All these parameters are contained within the MIDI data. Now, you could program each of these parameters individually, but that would suck. The easiest thing to do is get a keyboard that looks like piano. If you get one that is velocity sensitive it sends a TON of information to the synthesizer. When you hit a key on the MIDI keyboard, it sends information to the synthesizer that describes the note name, attack, length of note (as long as you hold down the key), etc. The synthesizer gets this info and then reproduces that information, but sounds like a string quartet. If you decide you'd rather have a brass band, you change the setting on the synthesizer. The MIDI data stays the same, but the synthesizer uses a different voice.
If you're going to use a lot of MIDI you need a recording interface that handles MIDI information easily. Some recording packages are more audio recording based than MIDI recording based (for example, Pro Tools). Pro Tools is getting better at handling MIDI, but it's still primarily for recording audio. Also, you'll need to get a good, velocity sensitive MIDI controller. A lot of controllers have dials and switches on them in addition to the piano keys. You can map these dials and switches to various functions in your software. It can be a LOT easier to hit a switch on your MIDI keyboard rather than move your mouse and fish through several menus to get the feature you want.
Software programs like Reason and Live are very MIDI friendly and focused. They can handle external audio, but really excel at handling MIDI and synthesizer sounds. If you're an old fart like me, you may find Pro Tools, Cubase, Logic, etc. more intuitive. If you're younger and haven't spent time with an old cassette based 4 track, you may find the interface of Reason and Live (for example) less imposing.
If you plan on usng percussion / drums will this be recorded live or will it be software based?
Drums are a pain in the ass to record. You can record them as a simple stereo pair with two mics, but you probably won't get the sound you want. You could mic up a drum kit with a LOT of mics, but then you need a LOT fo mics, a big mixing console and the ability let the druymmer hear the rest of the band so he/she can play along.
You could get a drum machine. You program the drum sounds and have control over every 64th of a beat (if not more). Drum machines are very cool, but you need to have a good drummer's ear and sensibility to make these things sound good. If you don't think like a drummer, your drum machine programming will probably sound like a jumbled mess (don't ask me how I know). Plus, you need to hook up the external drum machine to your computer. The drum machine will need MIDI data to tell it song position (bar and beat) so it knows what to play. This means you'll need a MIDI cable and a music interface with a MIDI port. However, there are some cool cables that will convert a USB port to a MIDI port, so this last requirement isn't troo much of an issue if your computer has a free USB port.
Personally, I think the best solution is to get a easy to use piece of drum software. These work by allowing you to select drum patterns. Most software packages have thousands of stored drum patters (BTW, so do most drum machines). Using the patterns is as simple as dragging the pattern you like from your drum software, and dropping it into your song. No muss, no fuss. Yes, the take a little practice to get good at, but what software doesn't require practice. I use EZ Drummer because it REALLY is easy and it isn't that expensive.
So now you have an audio interface to get sound into your computer. You have recording software to organize these various sound files into a logical flow to create a song. Your recording software handles MIDI data, and you've hooked up an external MIDI keyboard. Your recording software also has built in software synthesizers so you can sound like an orchestra or a brass band or a bunch of monkeys playing with pots and pans.
What more do you need? Unfortunately, lots.
Unless you've spent a ton of money on external PCI cards or rack mountable gear, your computer is handling a LOT of stuff. It's recording external audio and MIDI, producing synthesizer sounds and sending and receiving MIDI data to an external drum software package for percussion. That's the easy stuff.....
Let's say you've recorded two guitar parts, a bass part, three MIDI parts (strings, horns and a vibraphone), software based drums, lead vocals and backing vocals. Now what. You need to mix all this stuff together and add some reverb. Your recording software probably has these functions built in, but they probably sounds like crap.
You're most likely going to have to buy some reverb and some mixing devices (EQ, compression, multi-band limiters, etc.). Again, unless you pay top dollar for rack gear or PCI cards that have their own processing engines on them, you're probably going to buy software. Software based EQ, compression, multi-band limiters use processing power, but software based reverb EATS processing power. Your computer is now quite busy playing back all that audio and MIDI, handling external drum software and synthesizers while also handling the EQ, compression, limiters and reverb. This means you need a pretty good machine to handle all this stuff.
Because your computer is reading and writing so much stuff all the time, you're MUCH better off storing your audio on a different hard drive.
This final part is not meant to scare you. It's meant to let you know what you're in for if you want to produce good sounding music with your computer.
All of this is biased by my preferences, but it's a decent place to start:
Hardware
Audio interface: $100 (for the purposes of this post, it's a Toneport UX1)
MIDI controller: $100
Microphone: $150 (decent mic)
Preamp: $100 (let's not go crazy)
External hard drive: $100
Software
Recording software: $0 It comes bundled with the UX1
Reverb software: $100(?)
Mixing / Mastering software: $300
Stuff
Mic stands
Pop filter for vocals
Cables
Cables
Cables
Magazine subscriptions
This is assuming you have a computer capable of handling everything. If you buy smart, you'll be able to sell some of this stuff as you progress.
If you really like recording, you're going to end up wanting a nicer audio interface and a more complete software interface. Then come new mics, mic cables, better MIDI controllers, better reverb software, more soft synthesizers, a more powerful computer to handle it all, different mics for different recording applications, mic preamps, better mic preamps, mixing and mastering software, room treatment, etc.
I consider myself an advanced hack. There are others on this board with more complete set ups and more recording knowledge. Just for point of reference, this is my current setup:
Neumann KM184 mics
Behringer B2 mics
M-audio Keystation 49e MIDI controller - I can't play piano, so I keep it REALLY simple
Digidesign 002R audio interface - I use the built-in preamps about 50% of the time
Joe Meek TwinQcs stereo preamp
Macbook Pro 17" 2.33 GHz with 2 gig RAM
Pro Tools LE 7.3.1cs
Xpand synthesizer (free with ProTools)
Live 6 (comes with a decent amount of synth sounds and some interesting effects)
EZDrummer - Easy to use and relatively cheap. Limited in scope.
T-Racks 1.x Mastering suite VST/AU/RTAS plug-in for mixing
Bias Peak LE
Bias Sound Soap
Hope this helps.
squidly- first off, fuck yo couch
second..the next piece I'm gonna buy will be a midi keyboard once I learn the basics and make some satifactory music.. there's a roland 42 key for 100 bucks that comes with cakewalk..even though I think ill stick to live.
my first project is writing a dual guitar solo for a new song we're writing. so I get to play the chords and set it to loop x amount of times, then start experimenting with stuff..and record a solo over the chords. then do a parallel harmony with another track. all these plans and I haven't even tried using the software yet, but this should be the most basic level of usage right? wish me luck.
second..the next piece I'm gonna buy will be a midi keyboard once I learn the basics and make some satifactory music.. there's a roland 42 key for 100 bucks that comes with cakewalk..even though I think ill stick to live.
my first project is writing a dual guitar solo for a new song we're writing. so I get to play the chords and set it to loop x amount of times, then start experimenting with stuff..and record a solo over the chords. then do a parallel harmony with another track. all these plans and I haven't even tried using the software yet, but this should be the most basic level of usage right? wish me luck.
dissolvedego
New member
i prefer hardware over software... computers tend to have lag time and it's nice to work with devices that are just solid and designed specifically for the purpose you are using them for.
i use a tascam 2488 digital multi-track (24 tracks, 8 inputs, and a CD burner built in), which ran me $800 on craigslist when i got it a few years ago (and it was a really good deal at the time).
for guitar i use a line-6 PODxt for processing and effects... that thing is AMAZING! i think it was $350.
i also play drums but i don't need to worry about a complicated recording setup because i have an electronic drum kit, the roland TD6S i think it's called... $1500 which isn't too bad by drum kit standards.
then when i finish recording w/ the tascam i export all the tracks to my PC for the final mix and touch-ups in cool edit pro.
i'm sure it's not the most professional setup, and since everything i record is from electronic instruments i don't have to worry about microphones and sound-proofing, etc. and i usually record stuff like noisy electronic music and death metal... with that much distortion audio quality is less of an issue. but i dare say i think my little less-than-$3000 setup is capable of producing some pretty high quality audio. it's definitely sufficient to produce a competent metal album.
i use a tascam 2488 digital multi-track (24 tracks, 8 inputs, and a CD burner built in), which ran me $800 on craigslist when i got it a few years ago (and it was a really good deal at the time).
for guitar i use a line-6 PODxt for processing and effects... that thing is AMAZING! i think it was $350.
i also play drums but i don't need to worry about a complicated recording setup because i have an electronic drum kit, the roland TD6S i think it's called... $1500 which isn't too bad by drum kit standards.
then when i finish recording w/ the tascam i export all the tracks to my PC for the final mix and touch-ups in cool edit pro.
i'm sure it's not the most professional setup, and since everything i record is from electronic instruments i don't have to worry about microphones and sound-proofing, etc. and i usually record stuff like noisy electronic music and death metal... with that much distortion audio quality is less of an issue. but i dare say i think my little less-than-$3000 setup is capable of producing some pretty high quality audio. it's definitely sufficient to produce a competent metal album.
ntula
faster than a broom
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2006
- Location
- san francisco
- Moto(s)
- M900S (medea), ZX10.4 (nemesis), MZ660E (baghira)
- Name
- tara
i sold my external mixers, except the dj one, and got mackie surface controllers instead. the digidesign controllers are the best, but i am not a pro-tools user and do a lot of midi.
it never ceases to amaze me how external hardware years old, like my emu sampler with about a 486, running a dos like OS, in it can outperform software in a new whiz bang zillion ghz computer. same with effects, especially reverbs.
ex911
Current favorite ride
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2006
- Location
- Saratoga, CA
- Moto(s)
- cruiser - 07 FLSTN, sprotbile - 03 999S, commuter - 07 EX250
- Name
- Bob
Poxy why you like the Beta 58 over the SM 58?
ntula
faster than a broom
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2006
- Location
- san francisco
- Moto(s)
- M900S (medea), ZX10.4 (nemesis), MZ660E (baghira)
- Name
- tara
i have one of those too. the beta 58 is a much better mic than the sm58, an excellent mic for a live vocalist to use that is being recorded... it is one of the few mics that are of good quality that can be thrown against a wall and still work fine. when the fancy mics give out or get moody, can always rely on the beta 58.
ex911
Current favorite ride
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2006
- Location
- Saratoga, CA
- Moto(s)
- cruiser - 07 FLSTN, sprotbile - 03 999S, commuter - 07 EX250
- Name
- Bob
interesting...that's the same traits that i've been told about the sm-58: that it can take serious on-the-road abuse and still perform well.
i was comparing my sm 58 against my buddy's beta 58 at one of my live shows about a year ago, and the only difference we could tell was that the beta seemed to be a "hotter" mike, otherwise there wasn't that much difference to justify the price, as far as we could hear. Granted, this was a live vocal application so I'm sure in the controlled environment of a recording studio one can pick up more subtle differences...
i was comparing my sm 58 against my buddy's beta 58 at one of my live shows about a year ago, and the only difference we could tell was that the beta seemed to be a "hotter" mike, otherwise there wasn't that much difference to justify the price, as far as we could hear. Granted, this was a live vocal application so I'm sure in the controlled environment of a recording studio one can pick up more subtle differences...
dissolvedego
New member
not really... err... well sort of. the metal project is a new endeavor... i'm not even really sure if death metal is the correct genre (i can never follow all the genres). i've got a few tracks in progress, all of which need work, but i can upload a couple rough mixes so you get the general idea.
http://rapidshare.com/files/62363172/dissolvedego_metal_sample.zip.html
the levels are all messed up on newproject.mp3, especially the drums, so it needs to be overhauled, newproject2.mp3 is like 90% finished, and the third track is recorded but hasn't been mixed at all yet, so it's not upload-worthy.
in the end i hope to have 18 or so tracks all finished and mastered, at which point i will need to find a vocalist (i.e. screamer) to add the finishing touches.
ex911
Current favorite ride
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2006
- Location
- Saratoga, CA
- Moto(s)
- cruiser - 07 FLSTN, sprotbile - 03 999S, commuter - 07 EX250
- Name
- Bob
lol so I'm not the only one who feels that way about death metal
dissolvedego
New member
lol so I'm not the only one who feels that way about death metal
yes, but the common misconception is "he's just screaming, anyone can do that!". i certainly can't.
most people sound ridiculous when they scream, and can't keep it up for more than a minute before their throat hurts and they have to stop. it's no easy feat, believe it or not.
cool ill check out the music when I get home. also just thought of something
I have a Technics KN1200 at home that I forgot about. it's a synthesizer with a drum machine and velocity keys and has MIDI output. only problem is the ux1 doesn't have MIDI input. I can just use the keyboard as an instrument line in and record some drums for now..
in response to the singer/ screamer comment.
I'm a guitarist in 2 bands. one is death metal and is in need of a drummer ..something like Flo from Cryptopsy..high standards I know..luckily our other guitarist has a killer voice for this type of music.
the other band is prog metal..our singer is not really a singer. we need someone that can do both clean and scream which is waaaaaay harder to find. we've been looking for over 2 years.
good luck finding your missing link.
ex911
Current favorite ride
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2006
- Location
- Saratoga, CA
- Moto(s)
- cruiser - 07 FLSTN, sprotbile - 03 999S, commuter - 07 EX250
- Name
- Bob
yep, completely agree, it's very difficult to do well, or even at all in the context of the music.yes, but the common misconception is "he's just screaming, anyone can do that!". i certainly can't.
most people sound ridiculous when they scream, and can't keep it up for more than a minute before their throat hurts and they have to stop. it's no easy feat, believe it or not.
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dissolvedego
New member
yeah... flo defines cryptopsy.
my situation is kind of funny because i am shit at guitar and drums, yet i am recording both of them myself. i spend a great deal of time figuring out recording tricks and workarounds so that it appears i somewhat know what i'm doing with the instruments... but i really don't. the only instrument i'm really any good at is piano, which doesn't tend to go so well with death metal.