Okay Slackmaster 2K, here's my Freaking Question!:D

[Tim Brown]

Actually, I have a ton of questions.

Here's what I want to know about N-track.

MIDI:
1. If I program in my drum patterns, can i put any sound i want on using this software? (essentially utilizing it like a sampler)
I.e., can I put my OWN sounds in, (say OI program the kick patterns in MIDI, can i then just put in a Kick sound, and the sequencer will trigger it?


I'm just now starting to get into this.

I'm not able to get the drumsound that I want by recording the kit live....but I'm thinking that If I just program them (I haven't done it in years, but i used to be able to prgram in very realistic fees..i.e., it was just as if I were playing it, including the tom fills)

I'm just trying to simplify my recording process for myself, and give me more tools to record with.

My PC is a P2-450 Mhz, with 198 Megs of Ram or somethiong like that...(a 64-Meg and a 128 Meg). HD space is no biggie, because I've got 22 Gigs of HD space + a 1G Jaz drive.


2. How is the EQ in N-track?

3. Effects?

4. Compression & Gates?


Once the sound goes into the machine, I intend to keep it in the digital realm.

I'm sure that I'll be asking other questions.



Thanks,
Tim

[Slackmaster2K]

1) Sure, you just need a sampler of some sort...then you trigger the sampler via MIDI, which you can draw out using the Piano Roll editor. There are many VSTi and DXi samplers out there...the one that's recently caught my attention is drumagog (more of a beat replacer actually, but amazing!).

Actually, you should look into drumagog and a decent kit of samples (like drumkit from hell). Then you could still play your drums, and just have drumagog trigger better sounding samples. It really does an amazing job if you have good samples. Meshuggah knows more about this than I do if you want to contact him.

2) It works. I try not to EQ much, and when I do it's usually for something pretty drastic...so I don't get caught up too much with how they sound. I use it simply because it's so handy...each track has EQ built in.

3) I don't use any n-Track effects. I've heard that the compressor you pay extra for is ok. I don't like the included reverb at all. Wait, I do use the pitch shift plugin which is decent. I suppose the delay/echo is doable...kind of hard to mess that up.

4) See #3. n-Track does of course have full volume/pan/aux/effect envelope automation, so I typically do "gating" manually...I just enjoy the control.

Check out my out-of-date free plugin list:

http://www.slackmaster2000.com/articles/freeplugs.htm

and don't miss out on:

http://www.thepluginlist.com

Slackmaster 2000

[gordone]

Just my 2 shekels - I have a PIII 450 Mhz Dell, 256MB of RAM with Windows 2000. It works fine for ~6 tracks w/ a few Waves plug-ins thrown in. I had Windows 98 and it sucked, but I did a clean install of 2000 and it was like getting a new PC! Of course I would like a new PIV 3 GHZ machine, but my little 450 does ok for now.
Good luck!