Music Software

BrianD

Any recommendations on a good (preferrably free) software that will play MP3s and allow customisable playlists? Any that will allow you mix from one track to the next without having a gap like on a cd compilation?

b20uvkft6m5xwg

www.winamp.com


accept NO substitutes

kranog

Microsoft Windows Media Player8.0....only the best...even a really cool CD creator program on it, to burn all yer mp3's to disk !!!
Peace,
kranog

http://popstar.2ya.com

Beany

I just got a new PC for home, and it's already got sound and a set of speakers...I want to do some recording on the PC...does anyone know if I need to buy a sound card? If I do, what are the advantages of a sound card?

Dr. Loon

Originally posted by Beany
I just got a new PC for home, and it's already got sound and a set of speakers...I want to do some recording on the PC...does anyone know if I need to buy a sound card? If I do, what are the advantages of a sound card?

If it's already got sound, then it's already got som form of soundcard.... possibly integrated into the motherboard. Check it out with the manufacturer... you could upgrade to a better card if needs be....

b20uvkft6m5xwg

What kind of recording??

Analogue to digital- ie vinyl/tape onto your HD

or just ripping CD's.


For the former check out www.musicmatchjukebox.com


BTW
m$ Media Player is resource hog and and not nearly as adaptable as Winamp when you get the right plugins etc.;)

Beany

I was gonna use it for recording guitar, vocals etc...gotta get some software too.

Anyone got any tips or suggections?

Trev M

My reccomendations ......


best person to talk to is Tom Brunkard but after that here's what I think...


Cubase (5) absolutely amazing

recommend using Cool Edit Pro as training ground to learn how to utilise all the capabilities of your sound card to the max.....good for bit rate conversion, EQ (the presets are good), noise and filters are nice, very user friendly, built in effects are a bit ****ty, prone to crashing during file conversions though it has to be said.


Techno type stuff Fruity Loops is good but Reason is light years ahead.


Soundcard , well if your lucky and you bought a Dell , you may have a turtle beach sound card which really are the business , especially when talking about midi , the TB card has a much broader scope than any of the Soundblasters.....(this is an opinion). If you have a crap standard soundcard buying a TB card is expensive , a soundblaster platinum 5 is ok to get you up and running, its what I use ......guitar sounds are alright , have to be careful with distortion and usually requires a bit of fine tuning to get a reallt good sound as the card doesn't handle the amount of signal from most peddles very well.......I recommend you download some Amps sims for good guitar sound....anyway go here for a feast of freeware


www.hitsquad.com


for more stuff of the not so legit kind we can talk again



Not that I condone such things...


Later - Trev

Tom E Brown

Hmm, home recording eh?

First things first, you need a good set of proffessional speakers. unless you have a decent set of speakers you cant properly eq, mix down, or adjust compression. In short, if you can hear what you recording, having the best sound card in the world won't make any difference! The most basic speakers to get would Yamaha NS-10's ) for a couple of hundred pounds (although they can be a little to bright for me, i use PMC TB1's).

next, a good amp to drive the speakers.

Now we can look at sound cards! The soundblaster platinum is a semi profesional sound card which is not bad at all. Me and Sinister pete both use then on our machines to make adds with, and they have digital ins and out which make a big difference. However, for serius home recording you should get a card with XLR sockets for a higher quality input signal.

Microphones next. Spend no less than £100 on a good Seinhiser mic, and possibly more if you can afford it. the better the mic, the better the sound on your final recording. A cardiod patern mic is a good start (so called because its sound footprint is the shape of a heart( kind of)). Never get a mic with an on-off switch.

Software. cool edit pro is good, but if your using synths qubase is better. However, the compression on cool edit pro is exceptional, and if you know what your doing with effects, you can create excellent sounds. its is a bit tricky though until you get used to it. If you really get into home recording get Protools and have done with it, as its the industry standard.


Tips and tricks.

Learn as much as you can about compression. Its the key to a great recording, and when you hear a peice of music that sounds completely different to your home produced demo, its becuase good multiband compression was used on the whole recording.

Never ever record anything with EQ! always record a signal with no equalisation / compression / effects (unless really neccesery). compress / add effects / add eq after everything after is recorded as you can easily undo any mistakes in the mixdown. Dont record your mistakes for posterity!

Easy on the reverb! most home recorded demos sound like lee Scratch Perry did the mixing! with reverb and effects, less is more. only use reverb on specific track, and never put it over the whole track.

For a good guitar sound, keep the volume down on the amp and fine tune your distotion pedals. The louder something is, the harder it is to get a good sound from it. a lot of proffesional bands when recording in the studio only use practise amps, or use amp simulators and record straight to tape. keep the main level reasonable and compress it well.

The best advice I could give you is that if you want a good recording, go to a proffesional studio and do it there. Even though it may seem expensive, its best to get an idea of what recording a song feels like, and then start to experiment with it once you have a good idea of what you need to do.

Hope this is of some help to you

Thomas from Presence

Recording Drums onto a computer!!!!!! Yikes!

There is a USB device mad by Tascam that is a 16 channel mixer with two XLR inputs. The mixer faders control a number of popular programs like cubase and cool edit.

You should order a catalogue off www.thomann.de
cos they're really cheap and very efficient in their dealings. They're a German based company and the stuff is piced in Euros.

As regards recording guitars, I'd recommend an ampsim any day of the week. Line 6 (makers of the POD and amplifiers that sound like whatever ya want!)
have a plug in for cool edit that behaves like their hardware amp sims. REALLY WORTH TRYING TO FIND! Its called ampfarm.

As regards putting a microphone into your machine you could get the Layla card with the 8 ins and outs and hook up a decent 8 bus mixer! Joe Meek make an audio capture device that goes into the cd bay of your computer, the mq1 I believe.

Failing all this ask Sean Doyle from Skyjack what to do! Thats how they make their stuff RAWK!



Or ask Sean Doyle from skyjack how they do things.

120_Minutes

Sean Doyle here,



I'm selling my layla sound card, its a 20 bit 8 input 10 output (balanced analogue) s/pdif digital in and out and midi in out and thru plus word clock (but i've no idea how THAT works!) for £600 (they retail new for a grand) the card is 1 rack unit in size and is controlled by a host pci card (included) plus driver software.
its a pro piece of kit that turns a pc with a decent spec into a full multitrack studio (with decent multitrack software of your choice of course)

anyone interested email skyjackmusic@hotmail.com

other than that i've heard sb platinum has probs with cubase 5.

my opinon?? get a roland vs digital multitrack (the vs 840 etc)
thats what skyjack use, its only an 8 track!!

then MASTER your stuff on pc......

120_Minutes

i also think amp sims suck-diddley-uck (with the exception of the emulated outputs of the marshall jmp1 preamp)

always stick a mic in front of a speaker if you can! it ALWAYS sounds better

Beany

I heard somewhere that Sum 41 don't use amps when they play their guitars live...that they just plug in to a digital output...is this the future of rawk n rowl...no more carting around heavy Marshall amps!

"Convenient Rawk" - a genre in itself.


Incidentally, thanks to y'all for the advice on this subject...I finally got myself a soundcard...Soundblaster Audigy Platinum...it will do until I get that 5,000,000 EUR advance from Warner brothers for the debut album!

-ADREN-

explain more about these digital out put htinks live was that about?

Beany

I know very little about all this technology so all of the following could be completely misleading but I was referring to some "professional" rawk bands like Sum 41 opting to use digital amplifiers, rather than the classic analogue amps.

I presume the digital amps are smaller in size due to the fact that the heavy tubes associated with the 'classic' amp are replaced with fine circuitry. I found a link to one of the recommended manufacturer's of this type of amp:

http://www.line6.com/main/Products/ProductGroups/ProductDetails.cfm?ProductID=7

Once again, I'm not the best person to tell you about this technology...maybe Trev M or Thomas from Presence can give us the full lowdown.

Beany

Oh yeah...I forgot to mention than these kind of digital amps would probably output direct to the PA (for live gigs) along with vocals and bass (generally) so you would still need a main output amp anyway.

Allegedly.

Thomas from Presence

Pretty much got it one Beany. Not bad for a drummer!


I've done a bit of session work recently and I use a Boss GT-3 Fx processor which has a built in amp/speaker sim DIRECTLY into the desk always. When your getting paid to do session work the studio is costing the label money and its severely unprofessional for a session musician to spend an age having an amp miked up and sorted out when the same effect can be got through a rack unit the size of a small video recorder! Because of the speed and convenience of me showing up plugging into a line input playing and going home really quickly I got lots more work and much needed cash. So digital works for me.

Anyone who wants to hear the cost of selling one's musical soul for cash should ring up Kiss FM and request DJ TC and Steve Carrolls new 12" entitled 'Elements' (Balaeric, radio edit or Guitar version). Also available in abbey discs on Pied Piper Records next week.

Trev M

eeeeekkk the big B plays guitar and not Drums tut tut Thomas were is you mind ......where indeed!!

Beany

Me a Drummer!

I feel so dirty now.

Thomas from Presence

Whoops! Confused ya with mixer! My apologies! My defence for digital amp simulation was so fervent I was blinded.

Bard

Originally posted by BrianD
Any that will allow you mix from one track to the next without having a gap like on a cd compilation?

www.atomixmp3.com

handy for DJ'ing too.