What was your DAW setup 10 years ago?

dav nagle

How does your current setup compare to your setup 10 years ago??

i57dwun4yb1pt8

i didnt have anything - now i do ;-)

BuddhaJoe

Great idea for a thread.

1998 -> Dell PII 233 mmx. 3.2gb HDD. 64mb ram, onboard sound, dell speakers, Cakewalk (cant remember version number).

2008 -> Home built Intel Quad core @ 3ghz, 4gb ram, 3.5tb hdd, ESI ESP1010, Yamaha HS80m, Cubase 4.

studiorat

I dunno? Digidesign 001? and Mac 533Mhz

Now it's a HD 2 with the same computer!!

dav nagle

studiorat wrote: »

I dunno? Digidesign 001? and Mac 533Mhz

Now it's a HD 2 with the same computer!!

Were you limited then compared to now in terms of workflow ?

PaulBrewer

Mac G4 with Logic 4.7 (i think) a Motu 2408 mk2 and a Mackie D8B

Neurojazz

Atari STe - 4mb memory WOW, you don't know how long it took me to find those simms.... Still have cubase dongle! - Able to same things without all the cabling!, miles and miles of it.

I think i looked at PC, but didn't have tech knowledge at the time... fastest thing was 300mhtz i beleive around 1998 time

af_thefragile

Just got into this whole production thing 2 years ago and got my 1st proper set up this year...
So yeah, 10 years ago i didn't have a clue about anything music related. I don't think i even had a computer.......

jtsuited

ah the memories come flooding back.

pentium II , 350mhz (people would come from miles around to see this beast, was the fastest on the market for a good 3 days!)

ntrack studio (which is still available apparently)
cubase VST (4 or 5 can't remember).
Rebirth (made by propellorheads of Reason fame)
inbuilt souncard with quarter inch to mini jack adapter for pluggin one 58 into to.

And here was the best thing. We were 14 and we went into town to a certain commercial studio to do an EP. The engineer was rubbish.

We then did a track on our laughable computer setup with one mic. Drums were great fun to do on the upstairs landing!!

And everyone who we played the two recordings to said the one we did at home sounded a hell of a lot better!!!
Even one or two professional producers (one of whom is related to me) said in the blind test that i conducted (man i was a strange kid), that the one we did at home sounded far more professional. well the actual words were 'it's rubbish but it's more professional sounding than that other rubbish'.

ah good times.
although i can't help but feel guilty that we may have contributed to a certain generation of musicians thinking 'studios are a waste of money, you can do it on your pc a lot better'.

PaulBrewer

Yea! I had an Atari 1040 (with built in Midi Port!) and a Smpte to Midi converter , but that was 1989ish I think, nearly 20 feckin years ago!!

dav nagle

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Yea! I had an Atari 1040 (with built in Midi Port!) and a Smpte to Midi converter , but that was 1989ish I think, nearly 20 feckin years ago!!

I remember a guy I knew had one of those Atari things and he was like 'yeah I am a DJ and I make my own music'..

Jump 15 years on and 'smell ya later'!

Alter-Ego

IBM PC, 233MHz i think. Windows 98.

Mini Jack input on the onboard soundcard.

Windows sound recorder.

Quality setup! :pac:

seannash

anyone got any pics of there old setups.

studiorat

dav nagle wrote: »

Were you limited then compared to now in terms of workflow ?

Compared to now, yes, but it didn't stop from making some good sounding records. I used to bounce stuff down quiet a bit and use the audio-suite a lot too. Like get all the drums and bass etc sounding good and just save and move on. If I needed to change something later I could import the tracks again...

Rockshamrover

A Rolf Harris Stylophone and a tape recorder:D

dav nagle

Started on a pentium 350 beez knezz bag of sh**

the thing overheated and blue screen of love death

nosier than massy Ferguson 88

tweeky

Ten years ago i bought two 8 gig scsi hard drives for a protools system at a cost of 2000 sterling, ten years later i now have that amount of memory in my ipod/mobile!

condra

About 4 years ago now I installed a cracked version of Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 on my crappy old Packard Bell Pentium 4.
Got hooked.
Now I'm Mac+Live etc.

dav nagle

tweeky wrote: »

Ten years ago i bought two 8 gig scsi hard drives for a protools system at a cost of 2000 sterling, ten years later i now have that amount of memory in my ipod/mobile!

Yes I think this says it all!

thebookofbob

Pentium II 233Mhz.. ( with M M X technology if I remember rightly!!! ) a Yamaha MU10 and Cubasis I got free with a Roland Midi Controller Keyboard.

ICN

Great idea for a thread Dav!!


About 10ish years ago, I was still playing in bands. I had a really basic Tascam Portastudio (was there any other sort..) - Drums - Shure Mics - Guitars - FX Pedals - Casio Keyboards.

Also had a Soltan "Accompanying" Keyboard.. which was a sort of "one man band" backing yoke. It had pedals that would change the pattern.

You could program your own patterns & I tried to make electronic music.. :pac: Sounded cool only if you didnt use the presets.

My friend gave me a tape of his beatless keyboard music at the time & I put stuff around it. All without samplers etc..just over the top on the tape. Some of it sounded crap..other bits sounded really amazing. Yup - Some was out of time alright, but the mix of the live recording & the programmed beats went very well together.

I remember one track I did with jack leads banging off a reverbed Calor gas bottle.. Gave it a very atmospheric feel. It had a really sparce beat & bassline behind it. I seemed to be a lot more productive back then. Funny what you could do with less.

It would be another couple of years until I got a computer - It was a rubbish Compaq pentium 3 something. 20gb HD. 256 ram. Had Fruity loops & a soundblaster s/c.. and the computer speakers!

Couldnt understand why my tracks sounded so low when my mates tried to DJ with them!!

Happy days!!:pac::pac::pac:

dav nagle

ICN wrote: »

Great idea for a thread Dav!!


About 10ish years ago, I was still playing in bands. I had a really basic Tascam Portastudio (was there any other sort..) - Drums - Shure Mics - Guitars - FX Pedals - Casio Keyboards.

Also had a Soltan "Accompanying" Keyboard.. which was a sort of "one man band" backing yoke. It had pedals that would change the pattern.

You could program your own patterns & I tried to make electronic music.. :pac: Sounded cool only if you didnt use the presets.

My friend gave me a tape of his beatless keyboard music at the time & I put stuff around it. All without samplers etc..just over the top on the tape. Some of it sounded crap..other bits sounded really amazing. Yup - Some was out of time alright, but the mix of the live recording & the programmed beats went very well together.

I remember one track I did with jack leads banging off a reverbed Calor gas bottle.. Gave it a very atmospheric feel. It had a really sparce beat & bassline behind it. I seemed to be a lot more productive back then. Funny what you could do with less.

It would be another couple of years until I got a computer - It was a rubbish Compaq pentium 3 something. 20gb HD. 256 ram. Had Fruity loops & a soundblaster s/c.. and the computer speakers!

Couldnt understand why my tracks sounded so low when my mates tried to DJ with them!!

Happy days!!:pac::pac::pac:

Happy days is right! With the likes of the new Synergy PC's and Mac Pro's a compaq just seems so out dated and unimaginable in todays working DAW environment. Lol Compaq!!:)

ICN

dav nagle wrote: »

Happy days is right! With the likes of the new Synergy PC's and Mac Pro's a compaq just seems so out dated and unimaginable in todays working DAW environment. Lol Compaq!!:)

Yus sur!

Mad computer alright.. Had JBL speakers,so I thought they would be good. LOL!

Seems a million light years away from my Mac Pro now.

Wonder what we'll be debating about in 10 years time..

Will we still be on Boards?! HaHaHa! :pac:

What will Boards be like? Video posting from Space etc.. Yawn.

CmX

Had a collection of (now defunct) drum machines, synths, modules and had just upgraded to a pentium from a 1040 st

dav nagle

CmX wrote: »

Had a collection of (now defunct) drum machines, synths, modules and had just upgraded to a pentium from a 1040 st

What was the difference in your work rate and sound quality between then and now?

Helix

10 years ago i was editing stuff using tape decks to record from cds before figuring out that you could do something similar with a magical piece of software called wavedit.exe which was with w95 iirc (i had w98 on my new computer, but it didnt have wavedit, so i robbed it from one of the school machines)

oh the fun i had