Tezza

Is this for Electronic music, recording guitars and vocals/harmonies , using VST's, using sample libraries or loops etc. In short what are you going to do with it? Music Production can mean many things, maybe some sort of hierarchy of needs or priorities might help. This might help to determine what the best components are for your audio interface and computer, for example someone who's primary needs might be: Synths, outboard and VST instruments Drum and bass samples and loops Vocals (mainly for scratch) will record final vocals in professional studio Their computer and audio interface (and DAW) needs might differ to someone who might need: Vocals and harmonies recording Acoustic and Electric guitar recording (live and ampsims) Outboard keyboard And then it might be different again for someone who wants to set up a studio to record other bands and wants to mic a live drum kit. It's easier to recommend a system and components if we know how you want to make music, or if you are new to music making and just want a generic music production system. And is there a budget to work with?

I'll put in a vote for the AKG C214, I like the small size of the mic and the style of shock mount, it also has a pad switch and a bass roll off. It is a cardoid mic. I think it is a great general studio mic and is also good for female vocals as it has a smoother high end, I have a higher voice. It's clean and clear with a nice sonic character. I am not sure it would suit typical male vocals though.

Cakewalk is the only DAW that opens a GM .mid file, places all the midi files in tracks and assigns instruments to them to play through the TTS. Seamless and easy. Cubase might do something similar but I have yet to find that DAW very easy to use. Others do it in varying degrees of clumsiness, some open the midi files but assign no instruments, some strip the patch data from the file upon opening, some assign a general sound instrument but do not assign a specific instrument to each track individually, some do, whatever, Cakewalk is by far the easiest, another feather in Cakewalk's cap. In terms of wanting to open GM midi files available on the net and assign your own instruments, Cakewalk is the easiest DAW to do that in. Although you wouldn't know that from reading this thread. Far too many unnecessary complicated comments. This is how I will do it: 1. Download the .mid file from wherever on to your computer 2. Launch Cakewalk, open the .mid file in Cakewalk 3. Cakewalk loads the necessary tracks with the midi data and feeds then to the TTS 4. Save the song as .cwp Cakewalk file 5. Pick a midi track instrument you want to replace 6. Load your new instrument with a simple instrument track 7. Drag the midi data from the midi track to the new instrument track 8. Delete the midi track, repeat 5-8 for the other instruments 9. Finally, delete the TTS instrument...done! You don't need to do any routing at all because the new instrument tracks you create will automatically route to the relevant instrument that is placed in the synth rack when you create them. There is no need that I can see for keeping midi tracks and routing them to instrument tracks doubling the number of tracks in your project.

Thanks, I am aware of some of this, I am referring to the example given: "With the midi files, what happens when it comes to bouncing down the tracks to audio, for example, with the example you have given of jay bass and the gentleman piano, will the midi tracks bounce down to audio? or does it end up somewhere else". The answer appears to be no.

Thanks, I am aware of this, The question I am asking is about midi channels: "So in cakewalk, I can load a synth in the synth rack and assign it midi channel 3 and then just create a midi track put some notes on it make sure it's transmitting on midi channel 3 and it will trigger the synth, without any instrument track, is this how it works?" This is what was being inferred by the example given. Also, you have double posted this information.

Thanks mate, all good stuff, I usually just use 1 instrument per track, even with Kontakt, just open up multiple instances of Kontakt each with 1 instrument, then bounce when finished. I know it's not the most efficient use of Kontakt and I have tried loading multiple instruments up in Kontakt in other DAW's and assigning midi channels and audio outputs etc but I didn't enjoy the workflow. Could give it a whirl with Cakewalk, see what it's like, thanks for your helpful advice. So in cakewalk, I can load a synth in the synth rack and assign it midi channel 3 and then just create a midi track put some notes on it make sure it's transmitting on midi channel 3 and it will trigger the synth, without any instrument track, is this how it works? With the midi files, what happens when it comes to bouncing down the tracks to audio, for example, with the example you have given of jay bass and the gentleman piano, will the midi tracks bounce down to audio? or does it end up somewhere else.

I might have a go at this tomorrow morning, tried opening a .mid file in Cakewalk before and got a bit confused. I think it was the different way Cakewalk has both midi tracks and instrument tracks. I don't understand the point of midi tracks. Midi tracks cannot be routed to the synth rack, correct? They have to be routed to an instrument track (to main out) in order to get sound. Why would you want 2 tracks to play one instrument? I suppose you could route 2 or more midi tracks to an instrument track, but other than for opening a midi file what would be the point? You can't bounce midi files separately can you? However, I can see the use for something like this, opening a .mid file. I'll take it from the basics to be sure the OP and myself understand what is happening. My plan for opening this .mid file and transferring instruments would be: 1. Open the file in Cakewalk As the file is GM, Cakewalk will open the tracks to midi tracks as per GM specification with, in this case, 6 tracks for 6 instruments and the drums. Cakewalk will also assign the TTS General midi player as an instrument on an instrument track. Cakewalk assigns all the midi tracks to the instrument track which the TTS instrument is on so that the midi data can play through the TTS instrument. 2. Say for the pick bass on track 3: Open an instrument track with my selection of bass, say kontakt jay bass. Drag midi from track 3 onto the new instrument track, delete original midi track. This gives me 1 instrument track with the bass midi file on it. I can add synths to the rack and change the instrument if I wish. Why would I want to direct the midi track to the instrument track of the new bass and end up with 2 tracks for bass?

We are slowly getting there, 4gb memory, 3rd gen i3, Scarlett interface, but still need to know the hard drive. Will assume you are using the ASIO driver which will be selectable in Cakewalk if you have installed the Scarlett drivers. All that is needed now is the model of Scarlett interface (printed on the front of the unit (2i4, 2i2? etc) and the hard drive type/laptop model. You don't need a lot of technical know how to set up a computer for music production, your already more than halfway there if you have an external audio device with a selectable ASIO driver. Your i3 is ok for recording audio through the Scarlett 4g ram will work for recording/playing back audio Windows 10 and Cakewalk will work with this configuration for recording/playing back audio Your hard drive is the last thing left to think about. A 5400rpm typical older laptop drive will struggle with recording and playing back multiple streams of audio on a system with this configuration, a 7200 rpm drive will do a bit better and an SSD will be fine for recording/playing back multiple streams of audio on this system. If you then want to start adding heavy samples, loops, VST instruments and CPU intensive plugins then that is a different matter. This is why the 8gig ram minimum specification is suggested and having a separate recording drive and another drive for samples. But then you will also benefit to move up to a more recent i5 or i7. It all depends what you want to do with the DAW and whether you want smooth trouble free operation or continual stutters, clicks, pops and poor latency etc. I only use a fourth generation i5 with 8 gig ram but I have 3 fast hardrives and it works well for my purposes, recording vocals and guitars and using a midi keyboard to control VST Instruments (sample based), minimal plugins and synths.

Yes, that's why I can't use XLN. Having a download manager is fine. Not being able to transfer the program to an offline DAW is not, for me anyway. I would have to download the program to my laptop and then transfer it, which I cannot do with XLN, I think Toontrack is the same which is why I had to ditch those companies. I don't have a reliable internet where my DAW is. Basically, XLN is not a company that support's offline DAW's, that's all I need to know. I wish the companies would state this clearly, they either support offline DAW's or they don't.

With the XLN stuff, is it still the case that you can only download the product to the computer with the DAW on it, ie, it downloads a stub and then installs it on the computer.

Also, need to know what you want to do with it Richard, is it EDM or big sample libraries or loops etc or recording mainly you and your guitar. You might get away with an SSD and RAM upgrade as suggested by cactus. Also, as mentioned, are you using an audio interface, if not, there may be the issue of ASIO driver.

I would second the need to sort the drives out. Laptops are usually not the best selection for music production if they can only support 1 drive and especially if that drive is a 5200rpm HDD. I have heard that 1 SSD can be OK but I don't know about that as I've never tried it. My laptop supports 4 internal drives and RAID but I only use 3. I don't use it for music production though, it was used as a field video editing laptop. If you have space for more hard drives, get them so you can have a separate recording drive. But before you do this, would need to know whether it is worth doing to that laptop, what generation processor? Laptop processors tend to be below their desktop counterparts in power as well. You are going to need at least 8 gig ram as well for smooth operation. There is a point where it is better to just get a different computer rather than update the current one.

I run my version of CW offline, I only had it briefly online to initially authorize, all updates etc are done on another computer then transferred to the offline one, I haven't run into it reverting to demo mode yet.

I wanted to use the windows 10 home version in a new computer build but it would not be connected to the internet, I would say that would pretty much disable updates, unless I get some annoying nag screen everytime I turn the computer on. I think the whole "tweaking of the operating system" is a leftover from the days of under powered computers, where you were trying to squeeze the last drop of power. These days, computers are so blazingly fast, it's no longer necessary. CPU, RAM, Harddrive type, number and distribution paths are all still important but the OS? not so much. Only time it is relevant is if a particular software will only run under a particular OS. Computers may even be too powerful for the needs of music production now. My build is only having a i5 8400 and 16gig or ram, that specification is so blazingly faster than what I have now it's ridiculous, yet I am managing with what I have now ok, (4th gen i5, 8gig ram). The hard discs are important though, I use the bog standard 3 drive machine, 1 large ssd for samples, 1 small ssd for operating system and 1 7200rpm hdd for recording, haven't felt the need to upgrade that one. If I really want to ruin the performance of my machine, just take out the 3 hardrives and replace them with 1 7200rpm hdd, then the fun begins! All of my DAW's shit themselves.

The reason I bought the 1060 6gb 3 months ago was because when I asked people in the know and then did my research, that one came up as the best bang for the buck, especially on the secondhand market because many were upgrading to the 1070 which bought the price of the 1060 down new and secondhand. I cannot really add anything to what I have already said. I am sure any 10 series card with 3gb up will get the job done. The 1050 has 768 cuda cores while the 1060 has 1200 or so.

Yes, that's one advantage of using Vegas as your video editor if you have Cakewalk, DX/DXi plugin support, I also found Cakewalk lit up with all my Vegas plugins...nice!

+1 for the 1060, I recently got one of those to boost the video editing capabilities of my machine and for 3d compositing. I got a 6gb one. I only install the windows drivers and nothing else. Didn't notice any adverse effects on any software on my machine or higher latency etc. I used to run a video editing and multimedia studio some years ago, from memory, I think the Autocad guys like the Nvidia Quadro cards although they are a specialty card, quite expensive and have other features you might not need. Autocad is more demanding of the computer CPU, ram etc than it is of the GPU ram. 2gig will probably be fine. If your thinking gaming though, stretch to 4gig GPU if you can. The GTX 10 series cards are plentiful on Ebay or Gumtree etc because gamers routinely upgrade (mainly for more ram and more recent cards), if you don't mind buying secondhand you can get a good deal, especially on a 2gig one. I think the 2gig new have come down in price as well. I think the 1060 2-4gig would suit you nicely. Be aware it is a big card so make sure you have room! should fit into any full tower, also takes up 2 slots. I also remember being conscious of the fan size for noise as my computer is extremely quiet and has a solid metal case. I haven't noticed any extra noise, don't think it even turns on for music uses, nothing worse than a roaring computer in the background of your recordings! if it is turning on for video editing, I am not noticing it.

I have not had any issue with the updates but I haven't yet worked out a satisfactory way to do them. I update the laptop connected to the net and then steal the update to apply to my offline computer. This has worked well but now I am getting confused about what was the last update I applied to the offline computer, I hope I don't miss one and then try to update it with the wrong update.

I find the Steinberg UR44 DSP mixer to be easy to use, it only has 2 mix outs and 2 headphone outs though, might not be what you want. They have also released a new UR RT4 that looks interesting.

I'm in a cabin at the moment, until I return to civilization later. The cabin has a small kitchen/lounge where I have to record vocals. It has terrible reflections. To do a guide track on a song, I use a dynamic mic (old EV757) with the full foam screen that fits over the mic. I sit right on top of the mic when singing almost touching it with my lips. This gets rid of all the bad reflections and results in a very dry recording, good enough for a scratch track but not the best sounding because of the proximity effect and spiky dynamics because of being so close to the mic, a few pops here and there. Ok for a scratch track. Using a condenser sounds awful, I use the AKGC214. So what I do is put up the Mic Thing reflector (which does almost nothing on it's own) pull the wings in a bit and wrap a towel around top and bottom (to prevent reflections from ceiling and floor) and bury the mic in it . Then I use my photography backdrop stand behind me and throw a duna or 2 over it. The combination of all that does a great job of killing the reflections. The photography backdrop stand consists of 2 photography light stands with a bar between them, mine is about 3.6 meters wide and up to 3 meters high. It's what's behind you when you are singing into the mic that causes the most problems. If you've got a wardrobe full of clothes, you could try opening the doors and singing into a mic with the open wardrobe behind you, see what that does. I am looking at getting a single light stand of the stage type (that holds the par 54 lights) and then hack sawing the bar that comes with it, so I can create a V shape behind me , and put the duna over that, less to set up. This is a portable solution until I buy the house, then will be able to set up a room with some treatment like I had with the other house. If you've got a poorly treated room, you've got to do something about it if you can. These ideas might help.

Would need to know your vocal chain starting from your mouth, loud or soft singer? range Alto/Soprano? How far are you from the microphone, do you use a pop screen, are you going into a preamp or compressor etc using any hardware/software plugins etc, all the way through to the audio arriving on the disc. Any soprano or higher using some types of cheaper condensers, generates a horrid fizz distortion, most noticable when doing high harmonies. Wave form will look normal. If you have a typical lower male voice, it is unlikely to be this though. Most likely something in the chain is being overloaded, take all the elements out of the chain to find out what it is.

Actually, seeing this does get me excited, I have about 50 cassette tapes of me playing live (vocals/acoustic guitar) when I worked up and down the east coast of Australia about 20 years ago and nothing to play them with, didn't even remember I had them until I saw this. Seeing this reminds me of this great time. I've also got recordings of me playing with my first dog that we got when I was 6, the recordings are when I was 13.

Thanks Jim, I went to your website, you build all those computers yourself? If I post regarding a computer build I am considering, feel free to join in! Sorry, I thought you were a Presonus fan boi flogging their gear on a forum which happens from time to time. Having gone through various pains with Presonus gear, for me, it was a case of here we go again. Threads like this that start with asking about the "lowest latency USB interface" usually start off with budget/ midrange devices being considered, then ultimately end with the most expensive and a full computer upgrade being required etc. I don't think that's Clint's position, moving from his Presonus 44vsl to the next level in a budget conscious way I still recommend what I have said already in this thread, namely, move to a DSP hardware monitoring unit, easy to try, get one on Ebay, try it, if you don't like it, on sell it. Can pick them up for $200-$400 (Aud) , if you like it, then you can on sell the VSL44. If you like it a lot and got the cash, then buy the new version and sell the secondhand one, get the warranty and extras. As you say, if you have the spare cash for a fast computer and the very latest interface well then get that, but it might be overkill for those who can even afford it, the Quantum has up to 26 inputs and 32 outputs. It's interesting what Presonus are trying to do with the Quantum, sell it to professional studios with no DSP processing. Personally, I don't think that will work, professional studios like hardware monitoring. Semi pro studios might try it but they are also marketing it to solo musicians and I think it's too expensive and overkill for that. From what I can see on other forums, the jury is still out on the Quantum, it appears because there are not a lot of real world experience reviews because not many are buying it, that might be because it is new (and expensive). Time will tell. I've no doubt that if you had this Quantum and a fast computer all setup correctly, that you would get excellent software monitoring. My doubts would be how well it works when you start loading up the CPU with tracks, plugins, VST's etc and from what I gather on other forums, this is a concern to others as well with no answers so far. If it's working well for you, then you might consider doing a review on it, showing track counts, VST's, plugins etc because it seems the audio community is starved of real world experience reviews for this. There's a few marketing style reviews as usual. For me, I am currently satisfied with my set up and have no reason to change it at present.

Apologies if Jim thought I was being patronizing, that was not my intent, and he hasn't complained about that anyway. Gswitz, you claim I am being patronizing and then go on to be...patronizing. you say yourself that Jim doesn't need your defense and I agree. My imagination is just fine thank you. I was pointing out that his needs seemed to center around amp sims and I and people in my position have different needs, both are valid positions, just different. I don't agree with some of the things Jim said and that wont change but each to their own I guess. He is pushing his new Quantum interface with software only monitoring and me, well you will have to prize my hardware monitoring out of my cold dead hands. Saying things like software monitoring renders hardware monitoring moot is not correct. This sounds like manufacturer marketing hype to me. I've heard it many times before and it just isn't that simple, so many other things to consider. I don't like to see people going down the long road I went on before I realized what was best for me, this may have some relevance to others who's needs are the same as mine and they can shortcut some of the pain I went through with this advice. I have repeatedly said this advice is for people who's needs are like mine. The advice I have given I believe is valid to those in my position, especially those starting out who might read this forum, this is a new forum with plenty of new people joining to use Cakewalk, for many, this may be their first encounter with a DAW. There are lots of marketing gimmicks out there in audio land that promise the world and then you find yourself with an empty wallet and like a dog chasing its tail to get to audio nirvana. That's why forums like this are so valuable, people can take the advice that suits them. So I'll leave it at that.

Didn't you know, all the best things in life are free. I don't actually use Cakewalk because it's free, I have other DAW's I have paid good money for. I use it because I like it the best. I could write the reasons but that would be too long a post.