Zooey

Ableton Live is the only sequencer I know that lets you easily program midi with the computer keyboard. Sounds like a good idea, but it doesn't work that well in practice.

I think Kiwi has it right. The mix buss of the modern DAW has almost unlimited headroom, but that's not an excuse to track as hot as you can.

Some DAW developers specifically state that using the master fader is the mathmatical equivilent to adjusting individual track faders. There should be no reason not to use it. Also keep in mind that the point where you go into the red on your master meter is NOT the point at which the mix buss is clipping. It's the point at which your analog outputs are clipping.

Sounds like you need to do a trademark analysis. Do you know if this other studio has a federal registration? If they do, I would proceed straight to another name. Even if they don't, they certainly have common law trademark rights that are superior to yours. If you expect your business to grow, you'd be well served to pick a clean name now and avoid giving up good will you're building in the business by having to change the name midstream.

Recording hot to "capture all the bits" is a myth. Kind of like Bigfoot or the Presonus Faderport. Sorry. That's all I have, and I've been waiting days to post that.

It took me a while to learn Live, too. It's a super deep program, so I'm still learning. At first, I tried to use it just like Acid--it doesn't work that way! Anyway, you can easily record continous, unlooped MIDI and audio tracks, but that's not its forte. You may want to look at something more conventional if you're interested in traditional, tape-style recording.

Originally posted by Weathered This is why 44.1K and 48K are obsolete - because even when you dither back down to 44.1, you are preserving as much high end as is possible, and getting as true of a signal as you can. As long as there are CDs 44.1K isn't obsolete! I was only semi-joking when I said that 48K was, because plenty of people still work in it. It just might not obvious on a music-centric board like this one why the most common high sample rate is a multiple of 48K.

Originally posted by mrbobo Yes; not sure if it's 2x or 3x or what , but it's substantial. It's 2X the hit compared to the nearly obsolete 48K standard.

The computer is just the platform for running your preferred hardware and software. If you haven't identified that, you're putting the cart before the horse. Many manufacturers specify the computer they've tested their equipment against. Let their beta testing inform your decision.

I was going to say The Killers, too. I've heard worse, but you can tell that it was a decent performance and recording until someone {censored}ed it up at either the mixing or mastering stage, and that's a shame. It didn't have to suck that bad. Recordings that are honestly crappy don't bother me. Recordings that were intentionally and knowingly ruined for the sake loudness or some other non-musical goal piss me off.

Originally posted by EBulb Has anyone made a really simple and easy to use drum machine as a plugin like a Boss DR 660 ? I just want something that loads up as a generic DX or VST plugin, and has its own little pattern interface like an old school drum machine, that way i could run it in vegas and get some quick song ideas down but not need to go near midi.. Glaresoft iDrum is exactly that, but it's mac only. For PC, check out Fruity Loops (which costs a bit more).

Originally posted by Claveler I've made MIDI files with Guitar Pro. Is that enough? And what is BFD? http://www.fxpansion.com/product-bfd-main.php

BFD is good. You need to be MIDI literate, but it's the only drum module I'm aware of that captures the overheads and leakage between drums that is critical to authentic sounding rock drums.

Originally posted by UstadKhanAli Also, with older analog compressors, the compression ratio is "fixed" in the sense that you have a setting that is, say, 1:4. Another common design is the fixed threshold where you vary the input gain to determine the amount of compression. It's kind of counter-intuitive because you're raising the gain in order to apply gain reduction (at least it was counterintuitive for people like me whose earliest hands-on experience was with plug-ins like the Ren Comp and C1!)

Originally posted by Kiwiburger In my opinion (probably will get shot down in flames) there is no real need to track with a compressor at all - and it only complicates the gain staging and adds noise. I've been saying this for years! If you're going to track with compression, do it because you like the sound, not in the name of catching peaks.

I can't imagine noticing an incremental difference from 1.5GB to 2GB unless you are already bumping up the capabilities of your system now. Chances are, there's some other bottleneck that is gating performance that has nothing to do with RAM.

Monkey's Gone to Heaven - Pixies