How do I get everything setup properly?

[Galaxy Rust]

I am totally new to this, I know absolutely nothing.  Most tutorials assume you already know a little bit. But I'm starting fresh from the very beginning. 

I downloaded Cakewalk &  installed it. I was watching a tutorial on how to get started & the first thing the guy did was tell me to change the driver mode to ASIO. There was no ASIO in the dropdown menu so I downloaded asio4 all & installed it.  Asio still doesn't show up in Cakewalk. Then I saw a bunch of talk about soundcards, audio interface & external audio stuff etc.

So I started to wonder if I can even use my laptop. It's kind of old & I don't even know if it has the right stuff installed to run these programs.  So before I even try to use this program I need to learn from the very beginning. Setting up my computer properly & all that.  Where can I go to learn about setting up the best stuff inside my computer? Or buying a new computer specifically for this.  I need to get the right computer setup before I even bother with anything else.

I'm a music nut & I've been dreaming about making my own electronic music for years. I didn't think it was possible until I recently saw the Deadmau5 master class & I was like "I can actually do this at home on my laptop?" So now I'm all fired up ready to get started but don't have a clue WTF I'm doing.  lol

[scook]

Start by providing details about your hardware and operating system

 

[Galaxy Rust]

1 hour ago, scook said:

Start by providing details about your hardware and operating system

 

Oh God!  I have no idea. How do I find out what I have?  I have 2 laptops & have no idea what's in them.  I know both are Windows 10, but that's about it. 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Galaxy Rust

[Promidi]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Rust said:

Oh God!  I have no idea. How do I find out what I have?  I have 2 laptops & have no idea what's in them.  I know both are Windows 10, but that's about it. 

Sounds like you are going to need a physical visit from someone who knows what they are doing to help you get set up....

[Galaxy Rust]

What exactly do you need?  I can try to find it. 

[User 905133]

Did you try the Help > Get Started . . . wizard? That will step you through a number of pages where you can see what Cakewalk finds.  Another option is to look at Device Manager in Windows, but if you are not exaggerating about knowing absolutely nothing, I think the wizard might be a better option to see what choices you have for setting up Cakewalk. 

If you feel comfortable with this, you might want to look at (don't change anything just yet) Window's Sound Settings [and device properties]:

 

NOTE: This is just a suggestion to look around so you can better understand what's under the hood of your Windows PC/laptop. At this point, unless you know what you want to do specifically and how to do it, its probably not a good idea to make changes.  You should also understand how you can change the settings back first.

For example, notice above (my PC) Windows sees some playback devices and some recording devices. Also notice that Windows can tell us things like "Default device," "Ready," "Not plugged in," and "Disabled."

JMO: You don't need to know what's under the hood; so far as I can tell, the Get Started . . . wizard will look for you, but at some point you might want to have more control over what's there.

Edited August 16, 2020 by User 905133

[Galaxy Rust]

Ok, thanks!  I don't know much about that stuff.  I installed it, it seems to be working fine. But there is no ASIO option & that's where I have no idea what I'm doing. 

The only thing I know as of now is that it's Windows 10 & the hard drive is pretty much full on one & almost half full on the other. 

[Galaxy Rust]

Ok, so I'm reading Youtube comments saying you don't need anything except something that can run a DAW.  Somebody said they used a crappy laptop from 2002 & it worked fine. 

So tell me about this ASIO thing.  I'm all set to go except for that.  Do I need it?  Why doesn't it show up in the dropdown menu?

Edited August 18, 2020 by Galaxy Rust

[Rev Ev]

ASIO is an audio driver that provides low latency recording.  I prefer it but it's not required.  I do find latency with other drivers.

 

You can certainly try them though. WASAPI being the next one I'd try.  However, did your audio interface come with any software? They usually bundle in their own ASIO drivers.

[Starship Krupa]

To better answer the questions about your computers that helpful people will be asking, you can download and run HWINFO64. It will give you every specification about your computer, from how much RAM, what kind of hard drive, what kind of processor, everything.

To answer your question, if what you want to do is Deadmau5 style EDM, no, you don't need to worry about ASIO at this point. Just use the onboard Realtek/High Definition CODEC that comes with your notebook computer(s) in WASAPI Exclusive or Shared modes.

ASIO is the best driver mode to use if you have an external audio interface, which a beginner does not need for EDM. If you are not recording audio, and especially if your note entry is all via piano roll and loop manipulation and not keyboard performance, the onboard hardware CODEC is fine. There are people who will try to tell you otherwise, that for "serious" work you must obtain an external interface. If you ask them to explain exactly why that is they will turn silent and leave you alone.

If your systems are running sluggishly, it's good to see what's running in the background with Process Explorer.

Once you get sound coming out, you need to go check out this thread and start downloading and installing some instruments you can use:

Also, PluginBoutique have iZotope Iris 2 on sale for $9 for the next week. There's also an instrument there called XPand!2 that you can pick up for $14.99 that is a pretty essential buy, it's a virtual ROMpler with about 2000 patches.