best way to get started?

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professir

New member
I have a great desire to record my guitar, put a mandolin track, some bass and maybe some drums in the backround. I purchased a new Compaq lap top, Cakewalk home studio 4, a Midi.

I played with it for 6 weeks to get to the point of locating the Midi in/out section, and finaly made it actualy make noise. But, to date, (6 months) I still cant get it set up right.

My question, (before I give up and buy a Mac), is, what book would help the most? I really cant get the selection of voices down, the addition of tracks, hell, even the sound being played back to match real time. Am I doomed????

the very confused and frustrated professir.
 
You say you bought 'a midi'.

What is the exact brand and model of your 'midi'?

If you want to record your guitar and mandolin, you will need at least one microphone. Have you got one of those?

Drums are added to original songs in various ways, the two most popular being playing them in from a keyboard in real or step time, or buying some low-cost midi drum files on the web.

And your threat to chuck the Compaq in favor of a Mac is like trading one set of problems with Cakewalk on the Compaq for a very similar set of problems with, lets say, Garageband on the Mac.

.
 
The keyboard is the M audio 61 keyboard. I have a mic, and mixer. The problem is in the set up to reconize all this stuff.....i think. LOL.

I want to hear what I recorded, mix in some of the Midi drums, organ and piano a bit, and do live guitar and mandolin over that.

I played with garage band a bit this weekend and set down pretty much of what I wanted in 15 mins there. If ONLY I could get sonar home studio 4 set up that easy!!!

the frustrated professir
 
professir said:
The keyboard is the M audio 61 keyboard. I have a mic, and mixer. The problem is in the set up to reconize all this stuff.....i think. LOL.

I want to hear what I recorded, mix in some of the Midi drums, organ and piano a bit, and do live guitar and mandolin over that.

I played with garage band a bit this weekend and set down pretty much of what I wanted in 15 mins there. If ONLY I could get sonar home studio 4 set up that easy!!!

the frustrated professir
Click to expand...
midi in most recording software is a pain in the ass at first.

Maybe this will help, in cubase, here is what i do, much of it will probably relatem, but you can also probably find a sonor specific forum as well.
1. Create a midi track
2. OPen a VST instrument This is what the midi track will "play" once it is recorded. The midi track itself is jsut a bunhc of digital signals. "play this note, at this volume, for this long, etc" These signal played through the virtual instrument (say a digital piano vst intrument) will translate into the the actual piano sounds that come out of the software (not the keyboard, that is jsut passing midi signals).
3. Assign the midi input to the keyboard (usually midi channel 1)
4. Assign the midi output to the VST instrument.
5. if needed, tweakt he instrument settings to get the sound i want.
6. record and play. I can see the input meter on the midi track go up and down as keys are pressed, and hear the output from the VST intrument thorugh monitoring. late if needed, i can change the VST instrument (say from digital piano to an electric organ sound) and the same performance on the keyboard will now play with the new voice of the new instrument.

THis is the same general set of steps for all midi stuff, whether you want a keyboard sound, or to trigger a drum machine type of synth.

For your audio tracks it is simliiar but simpler, aduio track needs an input from one of your inputs on your interface and goes out to your outputs that handle monitoring.

Daav
 
professir said:
I played with garage band a bit this weekend and set down pretty much of what I wanted in 15 mins there. If ONLY I could get sonar home studio 4 set up that easy!!!
Click to expand...
Sonar Home Studio is no different from Garageband in ease of setup or ease of use. They both have copious amounts of sound sources, effects and decent manuals.

The fact that you were able to make music on Garageband is because it was set up by someone elso.

Get him or her to help you set up Sonar Home Studio before you sell it at a big loss and buy an expensive Macintosh.


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