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anonymous 15 January 2004

Hi, I'm new here and this is my first post!

I have been using a Roland VS1680 but now I want to buy a delicated Computer for recording and get serious about it.

All the information about Computer recording can be mind blowing and I figure the first step even before I start to put together a computer system is to get a handle on which Software would work for me...

There are many different recording software programs out there and for a newbie, it is very hard to determine which package is the right way to go.

So I was wondering if the Pro’s here could chime in and give an overview of what recording Software you use and more importantly:
Why You Use It?

Thanks

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Comments

jonyoung Sun, 01/18/2004 - 03:21

Mbira, Yup, you can import from your USB drive! The files are stored in two seperate folders, "audio" and "project". When I fly tracks into Sonar, I only import the audio folder. I use a Mackie SDR hard disk unit to track on, and I built a couple external drives with caddies for under $100 each, and use a firewire case to house the external drive in, hot swapable, no rebooting! I burn projects to DVD for backup, or if someone wants to take them somewhere else for overdubs, mixing, whatever.

anonymous Sun, 01/25/2004 - 01:33

I use Sony's (used to be Sonic Foundry) Vegas 4.0. It's really awesome with handling audio and the learning curve is quite low. I've tried Sonar, Samplitude, and Pro Tools but the editing in Vegas just blew them away. It's so easy and intuitive to use and sounds just as good as the rest of them. What Vegas lacks is midi/vsti stuff. I don't do much of that but for what I do I use Sony's Acid. These two with Sound Forge don't leave me wanting for much.

Dave

anonymous Sun, 01/25/2004 - 15:23

I use Sonar 3.0 Pro... I was debating between this and Cubase SX 2... both have strengths and weaknesses... I got an upgrade which made Sonar cheap, but had I not I probably would have went with Cubase...

Apple people swear by Logic, but in my few recent times using it I didn't like it.. then again, I've always been a PC person...

it's a hard question to answer - it really depends what is right for you... Sonar has a neat little console view thing, but Cubase handles effects and even audio editing a bit better... Sonar's groove loops are useful, but so is Cubase's stack recording... there's many small differences that really just make most of them similar but different.. imho...

anonymous Tue, 01/27/2004 - 06:10

Originally posted by nwsoundman:
I use Nuendo. I have tried all the rest and found that I take to Nuendo most naturely. It does more than I could ever want to do.

NWSM

NWSM,

It seems as though Nuendo users LOVE Love love it. Could you tell me how it compares to Samplitude and Digital Performer in terms of intuitiveness/ease of use primarily for audio? I certainly don't need the video and surround features right now and probably never will, but what's attractive is the stabiliy and usability everyone talks about Nuendo having. I'd rather spend the extra $500 bucks and to get something stable and easy to use rather than saving the $ and going with something that's going to have more limits and be bugy etc. Could you elaborate? Thanks!

ILS

anonymous Wed, 01/28/2004 - 17:58

I love pro tools, I can shredd.

Kontakt is my sampler, I sold off my MPC...

Reason is fun too.

Logic... I own it, but damn, that is a hard program to teach yourself... One day I am going to meet someone to work on tunes with who can use it, till then I am totally OK w/o knowing how to use it... :D

sdelsolray Fri, 01/30/2004 - 16:37

Well I'm one of the few (if not the first) so far in this thread using ProTols LE. It's great. No problems. Of course, I'm only recording three or four tracks, no MIDI. I've spent some time learning PTLE, not too difficult. Intuitive (which I need as a 20 year Mac user).

I've spent more time fooling around with upgrading the rest of the signal and monitoring chain, recording techniques and playing my guitars.

I've also am spending quite a bit of time now mixing and mastering in the box, using some third party plug ins.

All in all, for what I'm doing, ProTools is great. It doesn't get in the way, and actually encourages creativity.

anonymous Fri, 01/30/2004 - 21:50

At the risk of bein thrown under the bus, here's my 2 cents

I have sonar 2, but dumped it for my old homestudioxl, (sorta like cakewalk proaudio)..
I like to use Real mixers, real compressors, and real eq (real meaning rack stuff).

DAW doesnt have a true analog out, hence i really don't know if what goes in is what what will come out, as well as a monitor of what is going in, and an easy patch out to whatever.

I think, if you are gettin your feet wet, try the homestudio route, its inexpensive, very forgiving, and wdm asio friendly, -windows directx capability, which will be the norm in the future, which will or is at best giving the pro tools folks a second look at their exclusive nomanclature.. I digress
pro tools is what it is -pro tools, not an easy system for starting out and quite proprietary in it's software and hardware.
Not tryin to be negative, just sayin look around..
Good Luck

Kent L T Sat, 01/31/2004 - 12:26

Well I use Logic but that is because the sound card I bought came bundled with a stripped down version of so it was a natural thing to just upgrade. Unfortunately my computer is a PC :( because I realy liked the interface unfortunatly the switch to a Mac would be much more expensive than getting a new interface and new program. Until I get a new interface I'm going to stick with what I got.

Guest Mon, 02/02/2004 - 15:45

NWSM,

It seems as though Nuendo users LOVE Love love it. Could you tell me how it compares to Samplitude and Digital Performer in terms of intuitiveness/ease of use primarily for audio? I certainly don't need the video and surround features right now and probably never will, but what's attractive is the stabiliy and usability everyone talks about Nuendo having. I'd rather spend the extra $500 bucks and to get something stable and easy to use rather than saving the $ and going with something that's going to have more limits and be bugy etc. Could you elaborate? Thanks!

ILS

I will have to get back later. Been very busy. I want to have time to answer properly.

Thanks,
NWSM

anonymous Thu, 02/05/2004 - 13:21

Hello! Just signed up today, but liking this site already!

I grappled with this same decision making process! At the time, being new to the digital recording world...continued to talk myself out of every system, after I learned more about the next one. But finally settled on the PTLE with the Digi 002. I still use PC for some things but Mac for all my audio and video work. After about 1 1/2 years now, have found that where yes it is a brand, proprietary and is more expensive....Digidesigns/ProTools, like the Mac is incredibly stable and has given me no problems (other than the occasional operator error). I did find 8 simultaneous tracks limiting after awhile and was forced to pick up a Presonus Digimax, to get me to at least 16. For my needs, mobility was also a major selling point. Therefore...a PowerBook, rack of hard drives, Digimax and a 002 has presented very few problems or limitations.

anonymous Fri, 02/06/2004 - 07:46

Greetings Dave,

Originally posted by doctorfish:
I use Sony's (used to be Sonic Foundry) Vegas 4.0. It's really awesome with handling audio and the learning curve is quite low. I've tried Sonar, Samplitude, and Pro Tools but the editing in Vegas just blew them away. It's so easy and intuitive to use and sounds just as good as the rest of them. What Vegas lacks is midi/vsti stuff. I don't do much of that but for what I do I use Sony's Acid. These two with Sound Forge don't leave me wanting for much.

Dave

You say that you've tried Sonar, Samplitude and PT - how far did you go with them before settling for Vegas?

You also say that Vegas sounds as good as the rest of them. I've heard (from various sources) that for PCs Samplitude is the audio daddy (though not much cop for MIDI), I'm just wondering what, if any, differences you've noticed between these programmes in terms of 'quality' (subjective I know) and quantity (i.e. track count, number of plugins, etc.)?

The reason I'm asking is that I'm currently deciding whether to purchase Vegas (or similar) or a stand-alone HDR?

Thanks in advance for info you can provide.

anonymous Fri, 02/06/2004 - 17:04

Spy,

I compared Samplitude, PT and Vegas two years ago so back then it was Samp 6, Vegas 3, and PT Free, and I wasn't overly familiar with the interface in any of them. I know PT Free is scaled down, but I figured the audio engine was the same as PT LE as that's really the clientele they were trying to attract.

I edited a few basic voiceover projects in each (a few voice tracks, some fx.) Pretty basic stuff yes, but it's most of what I do. I record music as well, but once it's in the computer a lot of the editing commands and functions become the same.

I HATED the editing in PT. I always had to click on a different button to change the mouse function. Creating fades and crossfades was time consuming and created a lot of extra fade files. When I dragged a clip somewhere it turned into a white blob and I had no idea where I was setting it so I'd approximate it, drop it, check it, drag the blob more, drop it, check it again . . . It was awful. A lot of what should be easy in a program just plain wasn't.

Samplitude was much better in all of this and I too have heard good things about the sound of Samplitude 7. I've been thinking to give the demo another try. But still Vegas is such a breeze for all of this stuff. Automatic crossfades, multiple function mousing, cd ripping and audio cd burning, auto preview and drag and drop import from explorer, splitting events, event adjustable volume, dragging audio within the event, and more. Everything that should be painless is. Editing is a snap and that's why I chose it.

The rendered mixes I did when comparing these three didn't have any great audible differences so I chose Vegas because I felt like I could finish 2 projects in the time to do one in Samp, and maybe even three compared to PT. I tried Sonar later when I was more used to Vegas so perhaps I'm biased in that regard, but I couldn't get into the program's interface.

Vegas 4 added a lot of stuff but one cool thing is scripting ability. People have written some scripts that allow for rendering (bouncing, whatever you call it) of multiple projects at the same time, or the ability to only render certain regions within a project each with its specific name. Cool stuff.

No, Vegas isn't perfect, certainly if you need midi, but for editing I think it smokes the competition. Still, as I expand my studio and think about adding control surface support (Vegas lacks this :( ), I think about Samplitude and even PT LE. I'm hoping that Vegas 5 addresses this. And still thinking about sound quality, I may give Samp another try with the Version 7 demo, but my mixes in Vegas have sounded good to me.

Hope this helps.

Dave

anonymous Fri, 02/06/2004 - 18:42

I use Sonar here and have been for probably a year or more now. Before that I was using a downsized Logic and Pro tools LE both. Both of those were good to me and at that time I could move arround rather freely in either. I'm not going to complain about the functionality of either for me here. It came a time for me to upgrade and Pro tools full was way over my budget. I'm also real PC familar and not at all familar with Macs. At that time was when Logic was rummored to be going all Mac, which they latter did, and I knew I did not want to switch platforms just to run Logic.

Before fixing on Sonar I downloaded demos of several packages and got a feel for each. I found myself in my comfort zone with Sonar so thats where I went.

My strong suggestion is for you to do the same before you buy. Make your own mind up first if you have not already, do you want to go PC or MAC. I know both sides will argue this but go with the one you are comfortable with for a platform. At one time MAC totally ruled over PC for audio, video, and graphics but today you have a choice of apps and hardware. Next get your hands on any demo versions you can and go look at systems running the ones you can not demo. Get a feel for how you want to work and whats a reasonable interface for you only then spend your money on a system.

Good luck and choose wisely after all you are going to be the one using it not us here.

anonymous Thu, 02/12/2004 - 07:08

Greetings Guys,

Sorry for the delay in replying. I just wanted to say thanks for your comprehensive responses.

I've (more or less) decided to buy Vegas and add a HDR (probably the Tascam MX-2424) at a later date.

I currently use Acid and Sound Forge so I might as well stick with what I know.

Thanks again.

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