Home Studio questions

D

douglas

New member
I am thinking of getting Cakewalk Home Studio (or the XL version), but I need to know if you can create decent (or better) sounding drum loops. I have been playing around with the Hammerhead software and it is pretty good, but there are some other features in Cakewalk that I like as well. I am assuming too, that you can save the drum tracks as a single Wav file.....correct?

Thanks.....Douglas
 
I don't know whether the budget Home Studio has those features you want but the new Sonar 2 is able to take any drum or bass loop (wav, mp3 or aif) and automatically find the beats contained in that loop. This means that the loop can be accurately fitted to existing music or time-stretched or even transposed very easily. Existing wav or aif loops can be "dropped " onto tracks from an explorer like interface (loop explorer). Also any part of the mix can be exported as a wav file, or indeed as an acid format wav file (wav file with pitch and tempo information contained). I have never been able to properly work with loops before but Sonar 2 makes it a doddle!
 
As far as saving the wav. file why do you ask?
Are you familiar with acidized files....very easy to work with!
 
Thanks for all of the info. I appreciate it.

I do have one question and an answer.

Can you explain the "built in drum kit" and the " session drummer" a little more?

Also, the reason I wanted to save the drums as a Wav file is so I can import it back into my BR-8 recorder. The BR-8 is great, but it has lame drum sounds and limited abilities. I figured that I could create the drum loops in Cakewalk, save them as a Wav file and then import them into the BR-8. I will probably then convert all of my BR-8 tracks as Wav files and do the final mixing in Cakewalk too.

....Douglas
 
Hs2002 contains a general midi synth(vsc dxi)and a analog emulation synth(dreamstation)
The drums in the vsc can be triggred by the session drummer,basically a built in drum machine.
If you've got any type of system at all hs2002 will outperform your br8 and you may just want to leave that out of the picture.
I say this as the owner of a vs880.
 
Again, thank you for the additional info on HS2002.

Do you find that building the drum loops/patterns is relatively easy?

Actually, I just got a new system - which is why I was thinking of getting Cakewalk or something like n-Tracks to do the final mixdown. As for the BR-8.....I don't feel like moving completely to pc based recording. I like the ability to physically move knobs when I am recording. It is that tangible, tactile feature that I cannot get with pc-based recordingl. Also, I sit in front of a pc most of the day and the thought of sitting in front of it for recording just makes me sad.

...Douglas
 
Forgot to ask earlier....but is there a big difference between the regular and the XL versions in regards to drum loop creation?
 
try fruity loops

If you are really looking for some thing that sounds like hammehead's drum machine I would suggest fruit loops...a great drum device that's also does tons of other stuff. I rarely use cakewalks drums, and then mostly for more traditional sounds.
 
Fruity loops 3.0 is a great drumming machine, but its standard kits are a bit techno. If you want natural sounding drums, it also supports soundfonts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top