N-track vs. Home Studio 2002

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dudleys100

New member
Howdy, I am on a low budget. I need something that is not very hard to use, but has many options for me to "grow into". I have pretty much limited my choices down to N-track or Cakewalk HS2002. I am a registered Cakewalk user so it would only be $50. N-tracks is I believe $30. I know Cakewalk has tech support and HS2002 comes with a handful of pluggins and synths. N-track has a few pluggins also (which I hear are good quality) and I assume they also have tech support (please enlighten me). I will be using it for mostly audio recording (I don't know much about midi at this point). I will be recording acoustic guitar, vocals, and a little electric (probably direct, I am a bedroom recorder, and my Mesa Boogie would wake the neighbors). Everything else will have to come from soft synths and samples. Please let me know what your preferences are and why. Thanks
 
I've not used Cakewalk so can't comment on that, but I've been using n-Tracks for over a year and have no hesitation recommending it. It's very easy to use, intuitive, and the technical support is excellent. You can e-mail the writer of the program with problems (having searched the faq first of course) and will probably get a quick response. I've e-mailed him twice and got replies solving both my problems within 24 hours. He also regularly upgrades the program and these upgrades are usually free. He also makes improvements after suggestions made by users, sometimes within weeks of them being made. Have a look at the forum on the n-Track website at www.fasoft.com and you should read posts from a lot of people who like n-Tracks a lot. A lot of people on this board also use it and like it a lot. If you've got any more questions about n-Track the n-Track forum on this board would be a good place to post them. Or do a search on n-Track and read what people here have said about it.
 
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I have been using Home Studio 2002 for around 3 months now. It is basically Sonar without some obscure MIDI editing stuff and comes with less DXi plugins. It has full audio recording and editing like Sonar and lets you work and create loop based audio compositions in the ACID loop format. It makes use of WDM drivers in Win98SE,2000 and XP which helps reduce latency when dealing with digital audio as well. You can even use VST plug-ins with it by getting a 3rd party VST to DXi adapter software

It also has the Sonar user interface which I am really fond of.

I have not used N-Track, but I would look at it this way - Cakewalk (Twelve Tone Systems) has been around since the 80's and you can count on them to be around for a while longer. They know their stuff and won't be going away anytime soon when the next stock plunge comes by and puts those smaller dot.com's out of business.

Just something to consider if your livelyhood/salary depends on the tools you use...

Regarding the "growing into" thing. All users of HS2002 get special pricing when upgrading to something like Sonar.
 
Thank you so much for the replies. It sounds like both have their qualities. I am now curious if N-tracks offers the same loop support as cakewalk?
 
I dont think n-Track Studio will be going away with the next market fluctuation.I have been a Cakewalker since the DOS days of about v.4 up through 8.That is when I discovered n-Track (about two years ago) and let me tell you I have no reservations saying n-Track is head and shoulders over Cakewalk as an audio prog.
Go to the Cakewalk forum and people talk mostly about their problems with it.Go to the N-Track forum at fasoft.com and in addition to a few technical configuration problems you read a lot of actual recording info and gear talk.
I'd sure like to have back all that money I've spent on Cakewalk over the years!Of course,go for Cakewalk if you think it will do a better job for you.
As far as looping,n-Track can loop a drum pattern to create a drum track. It can also loop an entire song if you are just practicing.Also, it will loop on punch-in recording so you can try multiple takes consecutively.

Tom
 
Go with n-Track dude. Yes, it's definately shareware and sometimes when new features are introduced they don't work right for everybody. However, Flavio is very efficient and really makes an effort to help his users. For instance, I once found a bug in which live input processing would break if I used the soundcard clock instead of the system clock, and tried to use live input processing (it was a special case based on my hardware and Win2k). About one week later I got a response saying that he looked into my problem, replicated it, fixed it, and posted a new build to the site. I have never been ignored.

What you get with n-Track is a piece of software that has the same features and often MORE features than larger more expensive systems. I'm not saying that it's the "end all" product, but for cryin out loud, it's $50 and you get free updates (not just fixes either, feature updates as well).

Some of n-Track's features: DX plugins, DXi instruments, VST plugins, VSTi instruments, destructive/non-destructive editing, basic wave editing (more editing capabilities than Vegas Pro), volume/pan/aux automation, VST and DX automation, ASIO driver support, WDM driver support (including support for the revised Win2k WDM model), MIDI piano roll editor, SMTPE and MTC sync, video synch, unlimited 16/24/32 bit audio tracks (hardware depending), unlimited MIDI tracks, unlimited aux busses (pre or post fader), mixing from track view, mixing from mixer view, transparent windows, and more.

Oh, and you can just pop over to fasoft.com and download a slightly crippled trial version.

I'm not knocking HS2002, because I've never tried it. I do know that it does not have VST or VSTi support which is a major bummer. I was never too keen on cakewalk in the past really...I'm not sure how similar this is. n-Track does not have loop support the way you're imagining it, but I do a lot of loop based material.

The way I see it is this: in 2 years I've had to spend about $75 on n-Track Studio ($50 for the 24 bit version initially, and then *one* upgrade that wasn't free for $25) . Even if I reach a point where I need something else, I wouldn't feel that this tiny bit of money was misspent.

In the end you've got to choose what works best for you, regardless of public opinion!

Slackmaster 2000
 
Hey tom, you mentioned looping a drum pattern to create a drum track witn n-Track. Can you elaborate on that a bit? Maybe I've been missing something obvious all this time.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Slackmaster2K said:
Hey tom, you mentioned looping a drum pattern to create a drum track witn n-Track. Can you elaborate on that a bit? Maybe I've been missing something obvious all this time.

Slackmaster 2000
Click to expand...


He means you set it up so the program loops infinitley on a certain number of measures so you can record sound on sound drum tracks much like how a drum machine works. HS2002 lets you do the same thing.

Regarding the ACID loop features of HS2002. ACIDized audio loops can have the tempo changed to whatever you want, to match another tempo without affecting the pitch of the audio. It does also allow pitch changes without affecting tempo. It is basically the same functionality as something like the Roland VP-9000 variphrase sampler, i.e it scans a WAV file to find the beat transients and extrapolates tempo and pitch data based on that. It is pretty cool stuff actually.

You can take a single WAV file of a bassline in C and transpose it at different measures and end up with a complete bass-line to follow a C-G-Am-F chord progression. If you decide to slow it down a bit, your pitch will not change. You can drag a ACID loop to make it fit accross several measures and HS2002 knows to automatically set the loop point for each measure.
 
No, that's not what I was wanting to know about.

Tom said "As far as looping,n-Track can loop a drum pattern to create a drum track" and I want to know exactly what he meant by that.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Cakwalk just sent out its e-mailer and HS2002 is on sale now for $39 to registered Cakewalk users until Nov. 29
 
i have sonar, i don't know about home studio 2002
but i have tried alot of programs including n-tracks- i finally abandoned ship though cause for me, and only for me, it was much to unstable, plus i believe cakewalks audio engine is superior-
but if you're just starting out n-tracks is a good program
but i'll let you know something- samplitude which is also a GREAT program for AUDIO, is offering a full version demo good for 3 months, and it does everything, you can run it and save your bread, plus it's the coolest looking program around!
windows 2000, wdm drivers and sonar, yippeee!
by the way if you have a 16 bit soundcard n-tracks is 30.00
24 bit is 75.00 or something
 
Downloaded n-track the other day to see what all the fuss is about.

My initial thoughts:

-UI is not as nearly well laid out as Sonar/HS2002. Icons at top of screen take up too much space. Sonar/HS2002 track settings pane on left side provide all usefull info at a quick glance - n-Track not as simple.

-Functionality is not the same. I had a hard time just trying to hear the sample file in n-track. Could not get MIDI working to hear the file which was a MIDI drum track. Sonar/HS2002 pretty much makes the task of playing audio or MIDI the same, i.e. similar settings and procedures to set the tracks up properly.

I think I will stick with HS2002 a while longer.
 
n-Tracks is widely said to be not much good for Midi - or basic, possibly depending on your PC. It works best with audio. As a near total novice when I first got the program I found it amazingly easy to use, referring very infrequently to the manual or Help file. My only previous experience had been with a Tascam 424. n-Tracks made the switch to digital recording cheap and largely headache free. It's ease of use is what I meant by describing it as 'intuitive' though I'm not the first to call it that.
 
Thank you you so much for all the input everyone. I am still somewhat undesided. If I go for Cakewalk, which would be $39, I don't get VST support, but I do get two synths already built in. If I go with N-track, which would be #60 for the 24 bit version, I get DX and VST support, but get no synths, and no acidized loop support. I feel like if I get N-track I will be able to stick with that format for years to come, whereas if I stick with Cakewalk, I will eventually want to upgrade to Sonar which is a lot more $. I realize I can get a VST-DX adapter but that runs around $60 for the standard edition and $30 for the lite. Therefore making the cost up there with N-track again. You now have a pretty good idea what is going through my head now. I do however wonder how well the VST-DX adapters work, and if I would realy need the acidized loop support anyway. Help me out if you can, I still have about a week before the cakewalk deal expires. Thanks again for all the help so far.
 
i checked out cakewalk 2002 it pretty much is sonar
yikes!!!
suckered again.
sonar rocks, much better than n-track in my opinion
there are plenty of directX effects out there
now i'm not sure but if cakewalk 2002 has the same file management system as sonar, but if it does.....
to my knowledge n-track does not - this means if you do a lot of takes you will have to sort them out yourself to get rid of the ones you don't want on your hard drive audio files are HUGE and take up lots of space- which will affect performance and how much you can hold on you're hard drive
when i first started recording and using this program i often would think to myself boy there should be something to manage athese files-
get rid of the ones you are not using will there is all the big boys have 'em
not n-track to my knowledge
believe me that is a big deal,
these programs can do great things-
i have n-tracks but prefer sonar much more,
i know both programs-
about looping-
sonar will do loops which can be automatically retimed to be placed in your project
you can "LOOP" in n-track to the degree that you can take a clip and insert it and then paste it - you can not effect the time or pitch-
if a drum loop is 100 bpm that's what you get, 100 bpm
not so in sonar and acid if you wawant it at 242 bpm you got it or 40 bpm for that matter-
i have delved into many programs- get a good one and learn it!!
people who say, "i checked this or that out and it does'nt do this or that and it sucks'' , don't know what the f**k they're talking about, it takes awhile to get into a program to even know what it can do. all these programs have incredible features if you learn them
even cubase, i suppose (developed in hell by satan himself, i have heard)
you better be asking which program is stable, which will ALWAYS open you're projects, will not give you error messages
i would still be using n-track if i did not have the aforementioned problems
but in a way i'm glad i had to look around-
cakewalk sounds the best.
if that 2002 is as close to sonar as it looks that is a great deal
if you run windows 2000 and have a card that supports wdm (sblive) drivers you are a fool to not go with that product as it allows you to moniter your effects in real time while you are recording-
a benifit that blows ANY audio program out of the water, IMHO.
though i have heard that n-track supports wdm
but then again it supported asio and those did not work so hot
any flavio's made his million- by american!!!!!
 
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