Hey guys. Just wanted to get an idea of who all are here. I mean in your relationship to HD recording. Do you consider yourself a songwriter, a musician, a producer, or an engineer, or a mixture of the above, and then some? I am sure most of us are a combination of the above, if so, how so? Are you 60% composer, 85% producer? Are you a pro, are you an amatuer, are you a hobbiest? What tools do you use to get your job done, and how do they help you?
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I am a musician/composer #1. I have been involved pretty heavily
I am a musician/composer #1. I have been involved pretty heavily in the music scene since the late 70's where as a 17 YO teenager I got my first *real* gig with a club band (guitar). I had to sit in the back break rooms or go outside during the breaks 'cause I was too young to sit in the bar and talk to the women like the rest of the bad did!!!
Eventually, I progressed into band after band, and started composing music. In the mid 80's, I was involved in a couple of hardcore all-original projects in Northern California...and we basically starved for many years! During this time, I spent a lot of time in the studio, but only from behind a guitar. I would quite often be present during mixdown, and even sometimes during mastering, but never actually touched or tweaked a dial. We had an old Tascam 4-track cassette recorder that we would use in our rehearsal studio to get some ideas down, but that was about the extent of my recording career for a while.
I finally "wised-up" and went back to college full-time, and graduated at the ripe old age of 29, got married, started a family, and put all my musical endevours on the back burner for quite a while.
At about age 36, after moving to Indiana, I went through a mid-life crisis, bought a whole bunch of new guitar and PA gear, and started playing clubs again. We recorded 2 demo CDS during a 5 year run with the band "Double Helix". It was expensive, and the results were never what I envisioned. I always knew I could do a better job than what these local studios were doing for way too much money. I had been around some really good studios for way too long to put up with the mediocrity that seemed to exist locally in the studios we tried out. (I'm sure there are some better ones here in Indy, but at the time, we tried 2 that were highly recommended, and they both sucked!)
Since I am a bit of a computer nerd, and musician, it seemed like a perfect marriage for me to start-up my own small project studio at home. This began about 3 years ago with Cakewalk 9.0, my laptop, and the built-in soundcard. It really sucked as a system, but I got bitten by the bug *real bad*.
Double Helix broke up about 1.5 years ago now, and I have focused 100% of my musical energies to recording myself, and a handful of musicians that I know from local bands around town. It is amazing what you can accomplish when you have the time to do it right. My whole life in studios was always a "race against the clock", and now I can take 3 weeks on one song if I want...life is grand!!!
My rig now consists of:
Cubase SX (and VST 5.1)
Wavelab
Sound Forge 5.0
Acid Pro 3.0
Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 (on my laptop for hotel/travel stuff)
Echo Layla/24
ProSonus DigiMax
Universal Audio UAD-1
TASCAM US-428 (control surface only)
Event 20/20 bas monitors
NI B4
NI FM7
Waves Plug-ins galore
BBE Sonic Maximizer Plug-in
Antares Auto-tune
Yamaha Keyboard + Clavinova
Lots of outboard gear from my "live days" (Mixing board, EQs, compressors, effects, etc.)
Rode Mics
Shure Mics
AT Mics
14 million dollars worth of cables!!! (Grrrrr...)
Sheesh...lots of other crap too numerous to list!
Well...now that you are sleeping...that's my story!
Originally posted by LittleBigNoize: Hi... UUhhhh. My name is C
Originally posted by LittleBigNoize:
Hi... UUhhhh. My name is Chris, and I am an addict! :D
Hi Chris, welcome to the RO twelve step program..remeber the first stage is denial....getting to the acceptance stage is a big step....lmao!!!!
And am I the only person that is constantly breaking everything down just to set it up again in a different way? :D
I am a hobbiest,a songwriter. I am into just about all kinds of
I am a hobbiest,a songwriter. I am into just about all kinds of music. I got into HD recording back in '94 with CakeWalk's HomeStudio3.0. I started using it as a way to play midi files downloaded off the net, and jam along with my guitar. Just overdubbing my guitar back then. Now I am more interested in putting to gether original work. I recently switched to LogicAudio 4.8(thinking about upgrtading before Sept30). LogicAudio helps me get my ideas down quick, and offers an easy way to build on those ideas. The virtual instruments, wspecially the EXS24 gives me an incredible number of instruments at a very low cost. The EVP88 also gives me very realistic electric piano sounds which many times spark ideas. I also use the B4 from Native Instruments, it does the same things the EVP88 and EXS24 do for me.
I haven't posted any of my work anywhere yet, as I feel I have a long way to go as a songwriter. In many ways, I am still learning how to play. Keys are my main focus of study right now, and I am still dabbling with the bass.