Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

Here's a subject that always brought about great debate when I was more lucrative in talking with other recording musicians.
Cubase was pretty much the standard with guitarists for a few years.
Then it was Pro Tools.
Personally, I still use Cool Edit Pro which fundamentally, every popular recording program is based on. It's now owned by Adobe and as many have learned, they added more, modified the interface and IMO ruined it.

The point I'm making here is, software isn't such a crucial element as long as it has some fundamental features and there are dozens of great programs to choose from, many of which are free or quite affordable. You'll find just about every program has the following features or something to the same effect.

1. Multi tracking (obviously a no brainer)

2. Monitor recording (so you hear previously recorded tracks while recording another)

3. Channel and source assignment (determine which input from the soundcard you will be sourcing and the track it will be recorded to as well as the sample quality)

5. Solo and Mute buttons (solo mutes all other tracks so you hear that track solo during playback, mute of course mutes only that track)

6. Basic 3 band EQ (some programs use diagram EQ's which are a hassle)

7. Effects rack (reverb, compressor, shelving EQ, pitch and time shifter)

8. Focus editor (make a track take focus and edit portions, add effects to portions or the whole track, cut, paste, delete)

I have tried every program out there and find a lot of people concerned over what software they should use. It's really not a major issue if it has most or all of those aforementioned attributes. The real challenge is dialing in your equipment and finding what mic and pieces of equipment will do what you need.
In the end, if all your levels blend you export the tracks as a mixdown, reload the wav. into your software and master it which these days, isn't even an absolute if your mix was fine tuned enough. Ultimately you want the signal path feeding into your sound card or mixer then sound card as simple as possible.
I see some ridiculous rack set ups processing the hell out of every instrument or voice being recorded which is ludicrous.

I close by saying this.
Always have notepad open and write down all your settings!
Settings in your amps, pedals, processors, mixing board etc. and save them regularly . Once you get one song perfected, you can do a thousand songs to perfection without spending all day fine tuning and tweaking settings or fixing mistakes and bad takes.

I'll expand on this a bit if I may...

If you just want to capture ideas, there's a wealth of portable recorders out there - Boss even makes a pack-of-smokes size 4-track that records to CF cards.

For many of us, our needs range from "record my songs and see how close I can get to a real-CD-release sound" to "record my songs for CD or web release". For many of us, it's "record drums & things in a real studio and add tracks & mix at home". Those needs take us into a higher-end setup. Luckily, we're in a golden age for this stuff.

Software wise, Jonny covers the main points - but I'd add the ability to record at 24 bit/48 khz. Yes, CDs & the web function at lower rates, but at 24-48, you have more headroom and more wiggle-room for sound-shaping. There are even higher rates out there, but they may be overkill for the home user, and the processing and storage needs shoot up exponentially.

The other major need in software is the ability to use third-party plugins - RTAS for ProTools, VST and the like for others. that's really, really huge, with the explosion in affordable (and boutique) plugins. The wealth of plugins out there means you can get closer to the sounds you're hearing in your head. Yeah, we all need to learn and learn and learn mic choice & placement, we need good instruments in good repair and good tune... but being able to slap the sound of an old Neve EQ or a pristine compressor on a well-recorded track will get you closer to "the sound" you want.

Remember, in the days before digital, high-end mixing boards, comps, and EQs added a LOT of color to music, as did analog tape. The entire recording chain was a series of effects, and we still try to emulate that sound to this day. Plugins are like extra tubes of paint in your art supplies - you don't have to use 'em all, but sometimes a little dash (or a huge smear) is just what's needed.

Of course, you need a computer that can handle all the tracks and plugins you intend to use (at a decent sample rate). But if you don't go nuts, anything decent from the last 5 years or so can work. (Mac users often being a little luckier here, as the world of potential computer guts is smaller than the vast array of PC processors & drivers with their potential for conflicts).

And if you're serious about getting good sound, your interface is a key player. Do you need to record just one source at a time? Is it just direct guitar, or do you need phantom power and XLRs? Are you using stereo mic setups, recording a singer and guitar at the same time, recording drums? Number of inputs is a big deal in those cases.

One very important thing to grasp is: what's the quality of the bits being recorded to your drive? If your interface doesn't have very good preamps and digital converters, your sound will lack some punch & sparkle that no plugin can retrieve. I really believe that the most important factors for recording on the cheap are as follows:

1: An interface that has digital inputs along with mic/line inputs;
2: The best preamp you can afford - one that's clean & prisitine,
without 'analog" color (or with color that can be turned off);
3: the best converters you can afford.
4: and finally, good mics and good monitoring, followed by room treatment.

Luckily, many interfaces have SPDIF inputs, and there are more & more preamp choices that include converters and digital outs (Aphex, Presonus, DBX will get you there well under a grand - even SSL has a decent pre-converter model that's affordable). Bypassing your interface's sound-capturing and shaping can make a huge difference in that 'final 10%" of sound quality - and a great preamp with a Sure 57 will usually beat a so-so pre with a Nuemann.

I suppose one could argue with my placing pres and converters before monitoring and room treatment - after all, "if you can't hear what's going in accurately, how good is it going to sound" - but in an imperfect world, on a limited budget, I'd go for good sound in first - you can work around room problems, learn your monitoring deficiencies, etc. But you can't "learn" your signal up to pristine levels. And (sacrilege!!!) you can go a long way with decent headphones if you have to.

After that comes expanding your mics - for most of us, at least a killer dynamic (the venerable 57), a large diaphragm and a small diaphragm condenser.

And one thing I've really taken to heart - if you want a fuller, fatter, more "pro" sound, you need a way to grit up that perfect digital sound, and for most of us, an old Pultec or Neve box tapped into our rig is out of the budget. A plugin like Analog Channel or (the stunning & stellar) SSL TwinTube is worth every penny, both under $300. And if your budget is tight, go over to 112db.com an download the free demo of RedLine PreAmp - it's amazingly versatile, you can put it on individual tracks and on your mix buss - $99.

All-of-the-above is expanded across about a dozen, in-order pages on my blog, called "pro tools on the cheap"... but most all of it applies to computer multitracking in general - it's at this link.

Just my opinions of course, and I'm sure some of it's controversial. Hope that helps anyone getting started though!

"software isn't such a crucial element as long as it has some fundamental features"

not sure I'd agree with that. for instance, both fruity loops and sonar have all these features you mentioned... but these are only the most basic features and yes, most programs have them in common... but I still use both fruity and sonar.

fruity has a great interface for making sampletracks and the overhead it places on your processor is quite light. If I'm working with one hit samples at all... fruity.
Cakewalk doesn't have the same ability (they used to have vsampler but they got rid of it... why? I dunno). You can add this ability with various virtual samplers but the cakewalk piano roll interface just isn't as easy to work with.

so why do I still use sonar? If I want to write something on the staff... I don't know of a way to even do that in fruity. (not possible)
If I want to setup a sysex dump to a synth... can't do that in fruity either...
if I want to setup a real time control (via the interface) to a midi capable fx param on an outboard fx processor... I have to use sonar.

Furthermore, cubase, logic (anyone still use it?), and the others I've tried all have poor midi implementation. Few of them can do ALL the things listed above... but then cakewalk doesn't sync well with video.
(I hear they have improved this in later versions but many still complain that it isn't as seamless as cubase).

Furthermore, furthermore... cakewalk has limitations in how it stores the tracks. It gives you zero control over what it names them (unless you compress to bun file) and this can be problematic if you want to grab that wave and bring it into other progs.

this is just my long winded way of saying... yeah... the basics are there in all the software I've tried... but there are definite differences to me.

logic (anyone still use it?)

You serious? Logic's really moving in on the pro side, especially since Apogee's hardware development. Look how many studios are putting in complete Logic rigs along with their ProTools setups.

logic (anyone still use it?)

You serious? Logic's really moving in on the pro side, especially since Apogee's hardware development. Look how many studios are putting in complete Logic rigs along with their ProTools setups.

I actually wasn't being sarcastic at all... a while back logic hadn't released a new version for quite a while, there was talk that they were not going to be releasing a new version (this was about 2-4 years ago).
Perhaps they got bought out by someone?

I regularly read computer music/future music/music tech and just haven't seen them advertising anymore.

Nope, Logic is still an Apple product - I don't use it so I'm not sure of their update schedule. They've added a ton of features, and their entry-level version is really trying to give PT LE a run for its money - lot of features & plugins included.