home recording
 

what's the best programme to get for recording guitar and bleepy stuff onto your laptop?
totally ignorant as to what's out there and what's good so any advice much appreciated

what kind of "bleepy stuff" you mean? from external source or you're about to use some internal VST synths?
because I use external sources (sampler, oscillators) only and cubase works for me just fine. but then again, i don't care about production much and I like to keep things pretty lo-fi

cakewalk, adobe audition

are you british? confess!

ableton

Sound Forge

there are two that i believe are up to scratch and one i dont like using because it has average midi at best. digital performer is a fine fine multitracker and also had very very powerful midi capabilites. protools very very good recording, average mid. ableton live average recording good midi, reason no recording brilliant midi. but if you don't want to spend money "wink" you should be able to find any of those online.

otherwise there is a good free/really cheap multi tracker called reaper which is gaining more an more popularity with home studios and is near to catching up on the quality of digital performer and protools. but it sounds like you dont want to do very much with it, so i'm not really sure what to recommend as some of this software titles have quite a steep learning curve.

you could go with cakewalk, adobe audition or soundforge, but in my opinion these are very much audio toys.

try out a whole heap of different stuff and go with what you like it the best thing i can recommend.

hardware, highly recommended. choose one. and get to know it, master it and you will be more satisfied with it than any software (speaking just from my personal experience)

I got a USB turntable for xmas and I'm afraid to take it out of the box. :(

my insanity has got the best of me and I don't know where to start. :(

what hardware shabbray?

plug play

never trust santa claus. take the whole box outside and burn it.


get a good fire propellant and good matches.

gasoline is lovely, it explodes as it lights up.

depends on what you are able to spend.
lets say with a used sampler ( I recommend something with pads, like a mpc or something out of the boss SP series, cause it really enhances the "play" feeling) you are able to cover almost anything you wanna do. the sampling capacity isnt an issue anymore, only polyphony ( if you wanna record different things at the same time). but if you want to do some record producing and want some hardware which functions a some kind of composition tool I ighly recommend these units. its a lot of fun to throw samples you recorded for yourself around an the feeling of this magic click when some parts interlocking is so much more "real" then in any software ive used.

so I would say spend 200 bucks for a really good used unit and they will be worth every cent of it.
(again just my humble opinion)



sp 303 (boss, can shott them at a bargain, and their grany-ness managed to inspired a lot of musicians)



(baby)mpc 1000 some more functions then the SPs, but a different feel, definately out of a lgenedary series, but I would recommend none over the other, its a matter of taste. definately more expansive then the boss models

these are all well and good but have limited use in a studio setup, i think bebs is more after some sort of multitracker, i could be wrong though.

ok for multitracker I would choose some which are HD based, again. pretty cheap on ebay, used. i fried the HD on my one which wasnt an issue, just replaced it and it functions like before.
again Boss, creates some üretty sturdy and good sounding units, Zooms are pretty cheap to get (got myself the old mrs802CD) which is pretty neutral sounding.
and the good old tascams...really dig their tape based series (if you are searching for less neutral more sound "forming" multitrackers

bebs justs want something for recording onto laptop so or these hardware units are irrelevant. yeah i loved some of the old tape four tracks, i had an old tascam and an old yamaha that were both great, my yamaha is still floating around somewhere, i think my brother has it, cos i need something more than 4 tracks and bouncing...

If you have an Apple or it's in the budget..... GarageBand (free with Mac's OS) will take you a long way, surprisingly. Something to keep in mind, is you'll need a sound-card / interface. M-audio has some budget gear... Lexicon too. You'll have to spend at least $500 for something nice though.

Most of the interfaces come with recording software. Assuming you're gonna need an interface, you might want to start with the software they'll come with. After that, you might want to look at the Cakewalks', Cubase, Ableton Live, Fruityloops and all. Protools isn't the best option for Midi but does accommodate it.

If you're goal is to get it to PC, and digital.... don't waste your money on outboard programmers, synths, drum machines or other hardware..... you're gonna need a decent interface to begin with. With a decent software, you can do all of that after the fact.

Consider a decent "USB" midi keyboard controller (very affordable usually). There are countless options for midi controlled synth and sequencers that plug in and work together with the recording software. Not necessary, but a keyboard will make things easy, and keep a musical element to getting into the digital.

Let us know how it goes.....Good luck and keep at it!

A newer program that I've been using is Reaper for all yr computer multitracking and mixing. I have found it to be better than Nuendo and ProTools or at least the versions I've used in various studios. You can buy an individual license for around $60. They send updates once or twice a month or so. The only downside is the EQ is a plug-in, which depending on your computer may take up a good bit of CPU if you are using tons of plugins on a bunch of tracks.

I've done about 14 projects on it in a year or so and have been very happy with it. Two other producers/engineers (Pittsburgh and Sante Fe) are also using it and have done some very nice work.

Yeah I mentioned reaper in a previous post, a few mates having using since the very first beta and the love it, they say the midi is overly complicated generally though. Do you find this?

You can buy a Yamaha RS7000 just like I have, now for really good money.
A complete workstation, combines sampler, internal synth and a sequencer (and midi, of course).
The only problem is that it only works with SmartMedia cards which are complete bollocks.