Versions of Cakewalk

[Guest Neubeatz]

Have you used any versions of Cakewalk before???

Which version/s have you used and did you think it had any pro's or con's???

[Guest Ibid]

I use Pro 9 for midi and some recording and Sonar XL for loops, midi and some recording. Both have no apparent problems for what they are, although they have limitations for serious audio use. eg, no ripping, burning, poor sampling, limited effects, no 5:1 support. But both are easy to use.

[Guest Neubeatz]

Yeh Ibid,

I have both "Pro 9", and Sonar 2.2, I found that Sonar 2.2 was slightly more intuitive, good for midi like you say. But I have them uninstalled at the moment, I did find a sonar3.1 on the net, but it was corrupted and wouldnt run properly.

I also have "Guitartracks" but have never installed it, one of the lads I have seen using it, and it looked pretty similar to the others,

I also have an older(pre sonar) version kicking about the house on a "Radium" disc, a version that one of the mates used to record a band demo, it sounded ok.

[Ewan U.N.C.L.E.]

remind me what cakewalk does. What software is required/reccomended for home recording?

[Guest Neubeatz]

remind me what cakewalk does.

Its a software prog for pc multitracking/midi/production, there are various versions/packages.

Cakewalk Pyro is the one for burning,

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Cakewalk&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-tab-web-t&cop=mss&tab=

[Guest Ibid]

cakewalk is fine if your soundcard is a reasonably good one. It's also easier to use than say, cubase or logic if you're not a slightly mental sound engineer. You can produce a commercial standard red book CD with it if you also have something like soundforge or cool edit pro.

[Ewan U.N.C.L.E.]

during the summer i intend to get some sort of decent home recording setup. First of all a new PC round about the 500 quid price range with and audigy 2 etc. then im getting a soundcraft e12 or maybe an e8. what kinda software would you reccomend, im in the middle of downloading cubase sx 2.0.1

[Guest Ibid]

Cubase is good. Take the time to get into the depths of it as it's complex and versatile. Try and get cool edit pro or sound forge 5, both preferably. For burning CDs, MP3 ect, you can't go far wrong with Nero 6.

[Ewan U.N.C.L.E.]

im also downloading sound forge. Thats better for audio manipulation than cubase right? Could you give me a brief explanation of each to sort shit out in my head if you have time please . cheers

[Guest Neubeatz]

Can you please PM me the link for CubaseSX,

I had a d/load, but it was f-ed up and wouldnt run...

[Ewan U.N.C.L.E.]

im using kazaa lite, so i'm hoping it works.........14mb to go.........

[Guest Ibid]

Cubase can record multiple tracks of audio, so can cakewalk. Both can sequence midi and blend it with audio. They can both add effects and processing such as compression and EQ depending what plug in you have with it. Soundforge edits stereo mixed down audio. You can trim it, EQ it, compress it, normalise it all the things you would normally do when mastering a track before burning to CD.

Cool edit pro can record multiple audio and master and edit stereo audio.

[Ewan U.N.C.L.E.]

So in a typical recording scenario what would happen (using mic's to mixer to P.C.)

I apologise for my badgering and whatnot

[spellchecker]

Well you have a number of options, but here's one I did last night.

1. Plug electro-acoustic into mixing desk

2. Plug mic into mixing desk and switch on phantom power

3. twiddle nobs because you can, then eq and pan and adjust levels to taste.

4. connect L and R outputs from mixing desk into soundcard. For me this is Inputs 1 & 2, for you it may be the auxilliary RCA connectors on the audigy 2 drive panel thingy. You may need some connector converter type things if your desk has 6.3mm mono jack outs. Alternatively just make your own cables.

5. Record two inputs simultaneously to two tracks in multitrack software. i use Ardour on Linux, but it's not really any different from cakewalk/cooledit (now adobe audition?)/cubase

With your audigy, I have a feeling you may only be able to record one source at a time, but don't quote me on that.

Another thing you can do with multiple ins/outs is funny routing stuff. just to see if i could work out how to do it, i recorded three parts of a drum machine pattern onto my computer (kick, snare, cymbals on ins 1, 2 and 3). Once they were on the computer i routed the three tracks back to 3 channels on the mixing desk so that I could EQ them, change the levels and pan them. The L and R output of the desk then went straight back into ins 1 and 2, and I then had a nicer sounding drum track. However it was all a bit pointless as the software had EQ plugins builtin that i could have used on each track separately. d'oh.

is there not stuff about all this malarky on the aubl website anyway?

[Guest Ibid]

Pretty much what spellchecker said, then when you have all your tracks laid down, create the mix to your satisfaction and make sure the mix is nicely balanced (no part too loud or clashing with another part) then mixdown to stereo and save.

Open the stereo track into soundforge or cool edit. Trim the start and ends, add fades if desired. Add some compression if you need it. Remove everything below 20Hz ( you can't hear and it takes up space), check the balance again. Normalize if you need to, to match any other tracks on the CD. Check there's not too much low level noise in the silences, gate if there is, but gently.

A very quick skim but essentially that's it.

[spellchecker]

Originally posted by Ewan U.N.C.L.E.:

So in a typical recording scenario what would happen (using mic's to mixer to P.C.)

I apologise for my badgering and whatnot

in particular, some of this is useful:

http://www.aubl.net/b-info.htm

[Ewan U.N.C.L.E.]

only one source at a tme with an audigy? grrr hope not. Does this mean one instrument? any reccomendations on an affordable soundcard?

[spellchecker]

Originally posted by Ewan U.N.C.L.E.:

only one source at a tme with an audigy? grrr hope not. Does this mean one instrument? any reccomendations on an affordable soundcard?

As far as I can work out from the web, the Audigy (even the zs model with the breakout drive thing) does not do multi tracking.

It's up to you whether you really need a multiple input soundcard. Having a mixing desk may eliminate the need for you to have such a card. For example, if you wanted to record an electro acoustic guitar from 3 sources (e.g. line + 2 mics), you could put all that through your desk, and then take the L and R from the desk into the stereo line in / aux in on the audigy. The pitfall with that is once the recording is on your computer, you cannot change the levels of the individual inputs (so if your line is too loud, tough luck).

if you do want to look at multiple input cards, m-audio are a good start. the delta range cards are good, as is the audiophile card. the breakout box is really handy with the delta range cards though. i think terratec dmx fire cards are actually based on the same chipset, but include different connecting hardware and of course drivers and bundled software. infact they don't seem to support multi input recording. going higher end you get RME cards like the hammerfall, but that's way beyond my needs (or expertise).

here's a site of interest:

http://www17.tomshardware.com/video/20020115/

Note how they mention that the audigy plays back at 24bit/96Khz but can only record at 16bit/44.1khz.

some websites i found useful for buying/browsing kit:

http://www.studiospares.com

http://www.sub.co.uk

http://www.turnkey.co.uk

http://www.soundcontrol.co.uk

http://www.soundslive.co.uk

A couple of other points, the more you spend on your sound card, the better the quality of the AD and DA converters. The sound cards typically have lower latency also (partially through good driver support e.g. ASIO/WDM/Alsa etc.), which lessens the chances of tracks being recorded out of sync, dropouts, etc.

i had a lot of use out of my sb live card, and they certainly are good value for the price on the most part. it just depends what you want to be able to do.

[Guest Ibid]

It's true. Audigy will either record one mono or one stereo track at a time. You need a good quality card with it's own on boards processors and drivers to multitrack and they are expensive.

[spellchecker]

Your fairly cheap option for a multitrack card is the delta 44 from m-audio.

http://www.studiospares.com/productdetails.asp?pid=48120&gid=1&cid=1

not that much more expensive than the audigy, but bear in mind that it's more of an audio interface than a sound card, i.e. it's geared more for recording, mixing and routing rather than as a gaming/media center/dvd playback sound card, which the audigy is definitely aimed at.