Members seraphim7s Posted September 17, 2007 Members Share Posted September 17, 2007 I need to do my own song demos to hand out to musicians (I recently quit my band, partially because I wanted more control over the songwriting). So which software would be best for recording and editing bass / guitar / drums / vocals? Would I need a separate DI? Would I need a separate compressor / limiter? I would probably be assembling drum loops myself (I cannot play the drums), and then dubbing bass, guitar and vox over the top. I am not intending to create finished tracks - just *quality* demos that will give a good idea of where I am heading. These demos can then form the basis of original tracks performed live by musicians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DevilRaysFan Posted September 17, 2007 Members Share Posted September 17, 2007 For quick demos, just use ACID...quick, easy, and painless with decent quality Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members seraphim7s Posted September 17, 2007 Author Members Share Posted September 17, 2007 Sony ACID Pro 6 is nearly $400. Ouch. Is it worth it? Will I need anything else? Will it do post-production FX, sample editing, drum programming? Is it good for recording, mixing, and mastering? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Super Bass Posted September 17, 2007 Members Share Posted September 17, 2007 I like Sonar, although I don't have it anymore. I'm currently using Cubase which I find a bit of a pain sometimes. I like to use Audacity too, mainly because its fast and free Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fretless Posted September 17, 2007 Members Share Posted September 17, 2007 maybe there is a cheap and easy way , but I don't know it , I'm getting ready to drop 700 on a Lynx sound card :poke: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Westsailor Posted September 17, 2007 Members Share Posted September 17, 2007 Couple damn decent recording S/W tools for free: Maybe not as the expensive as the 'upscale' recording packages such as CuBase, Acid, etc. but I've been more than happy with Kristal. At least it does everything I want/need for what I do (midi/instrument/voice/etc. for backing tracks). http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/ I've heard good things about Reaper. I've downloaded it and it looks good but I'm just too 'adept' at using Kristal to switch horses. http://www.cockos.com/reaper/ As far as hardware, I use an Alesis mixer for the various inputs (bass, mic, midi, etc.) and the 2 chan line out on an Alexis mixer. the line out feeds a PCMCIA Creative Audigy soundcard in my laptop. This gives me a capability for up to 24 bit/192 Khz recording w/ ASIO support although (although I only record at 16 bits to conserve disk space). It's just what I have available... any mixer/soundcard combo would work I suppose. The Creative Audigy has a good 'bang for the buck' sound quality though, compared to some of the other soundcards I looked at (starting at multiple, multiple hundreds of dollars). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members seraphim7s Posted September 17, 2007 Author Members Share Posted September 17, 2007 Thanks, mate - that's all great advice. What kind of mixer would you be looking at? Something like 8 inputs would be great and more than enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members i_wanna_les_paul Posted September 17, 2007 Members Share Posted September 17, 2007 The programs Westsailor both have had quite a bit of acclaim and are well worth looking into. I have used N-track studio before and it's a nice piece of software. Shareware, with registration at $54 if you don't need 24-bit sound card support. Comes with some nice plugins and has some good features. Not free, but IME, it's a solid program. And if I were tracking a band, I'd look at an Alesis Firewire board for basic recording, as long as I had a computer with a Firewire input and some decent muscle. That means you can record all tracks from the mixer at the same time into the program. Granted, the sound quality may not be what you'd get with a Presonus or something like that, but it's functional and I'd wager the weakest link with the Alesis would still be mic placement, the room, etc. $.02 Dustin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members L-1329 Posted September 17, 2007 Members Share Posted September 17, 2007 I just bought an Alesis MultiMix 8 Firewire board for that exact purpose. The benefits are it has an 8 individual channel outs, plus the stereo mains and a stereo monitor input all through the firewire, no other interface needed. It works as a basic mixer, or an interface, is super simple to use, and comes with CuBase LE. The LE version of CuBase will only let you record 4 simultaneous tracks though, but for basic home demo work that's not a big deal. From what I've heard so far it sounds very good, but I have not recorded any real samples yet. I'm still learning how everything works with the software. Anyway, this board is as plug and play as you could get for PC recording. I think it was a very good deal for the price, and solved every pc based daw setup issue I had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JacieFB Posted September 17, 2007 Members Share Posted September 17, 2007 +1 for Reaper. It even works with Vista. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.