Need some advice

[Pariah]

Hello everyone! Let me try and explain my situation without sounding like a complete dumbass. A couple of years ago I was given a copy of Nuendo 2. I then aquired Reason 3.0, an M-Audio usb interface, and an M-audio midi controler/keyboard. I'm running everything though a pc by the way. It took some trial and error, but I have been able to make some decent sounding tunes. I run my guitar through the emulated line out on a Marshall head into the interface and it seems to record with good sound. Anyways, my pc,which has windows xp is slowly dying on me (it's pretty old). So I tried putting all my software on another computer which has windows vista. Reason works just fine. Nuendo 2 does not seem to be operating properly. Reason is not picking up Nuendo through Rewire, so they are not communicating. When I look under the devices tab in Nuendo, Reason is'nt even listed. I've gone to Steinberg's web-sight and I cant find any software upgrades or drivers for Nuendo 2, I think because it is just to old.: I thinking I'm going to have to purchase another recording software, but money is a factor. First of all, does anyone have any possible solution for my problem? Second, if there aren't any good solutions, can someone please advise me on a good, inexpensive recording program that is somewhat comparible to Nuendo. Nuendo 4 is just too expensive (around $1800.00).

Thanks to everyone for their time!

 

[Jim Lad]

Audacity and Kristal Audio Engine are free though I doubt that Audacity does midi.
Also note that whichever DAW you buy, Vista and Midi are both power drags.
Some of the decent interfaces come with Cubase 4 LE or Soundforge so you can kill two birds with one stone. Just avoid "Trial" version give-aways.
How much are you willing to spend on software?

 

[suprstar]

1st thing I'd do is roll the pc back to xp But that's not for everyone..

So, what M-Audio interface do you have? IDK about vista, but ASIO4ALL drivers have worked better than anything, and that's a free download, might work with your gear. If not, cant you get vista drivers for your device from M-Audio?

Most of the main interfaces come with something, I got 3 different copies of cubase le from the different interfaces I have.

 

[dastrick]

Cubase??

I don't know for sure, but I would think that Cubase would be pretty close to Nuendo since they're both made by Steinberg. But, I could be wrong.

 

[gecko zzed]

Yep Cubase is similar to Nuendo.

I'd go with the rollback to XP if nothing works.

I agree that Vista is a resource hog, but midi isn't.

 

[Pariah]

Thanks everyone for the quick replies! I had know idea that Vista was a power hog. The ineterface I use is an M-Audio mobile pre usb. It only has 2 channels, but thats fine for me since I pretty much work alone. I actually have considered rolling back to Windows Xp, but I'm just not sure how to get it for a new computer because it's not sold anymore and all the new computers are coming with Vista or Windows 7. I was able to get a driver from M-Audio for Vista, so my interface appears to be operating properly. I'll definetly look into Cubase. I can spend about $600 without getting dumped by my fiance. Does anybody know anything about Apleton Live or Sonar?

 

[gecko zzed]

I can spend about $600 without getting dumped by my fiance.

If a fiance dump is a risk, then you could do worse than consider Reaper. You can get a non-commercial licence for $US60. It is a very powerful program, very stable, and is a comparatively small download.

 

[Pariah]

Ok thanks! Before today I had never heard of reaper. The only other DAW I've worked with was protools, and that was to record some guitar tracks for a band. The finished product sounded pretty good. How do different DAW's compare as far as the quality of sound in the final product?

 

[gecko zzed]

Ok thanks! Before today I had never heard of reaper. The only other DAW I've worked with was protools, and that was to record some guitar tracks for a band. The finished product sounded pretty good. How do different DAW's compare as far as the quality of sound in the final product?

Quality is determined more by the user and the hardware rather than the DAW.

 

[Pariah]

I had a feeling that was the case. Thanks again for your advice. I downloaded Reaper to try it out. It just blows me away that its only $60 for a non commercial license. It seems like there should be a catch. Anyway, so far I have been able to link Reason into Reaper via rewire and thats about it. But I've only had a small amount of time to play with it, so I expect to learn a lot more this weekend.

 

[Jim Lad]

It just blows me away that its only $60 for a non commercial license.

Nice!
Someone went to a lot of bother, making that software for us.
$60 isn't a lot to ask for their trouble.
I'm a huge Vista fan but for my studio PC I went back to XP and went off line.
Every couple of months I hook it up to download software.
While I'm doing that, I do all of the Windows updates and run it through an AVG scan before going off-line again.
Just a Compaq C but it runs like a top and out performs both of my dual cores.

 

[Pariah]

Thats a great idea! I never thought about taking my studio computer off line. I'm having all kinds of problems with it now. Not only does it make a strange grinding sound, but it wont close applications, such as reason anymore. I'll exit reason and it will appear that I have closed out, but when I log out a meesage comes on screen stating that reason is not responding and any unsaved work will be lost. This is not just happening with reason, i'm just using it as an example. Life gets kinda sad when you cant make music.

 

[Jim Lad]

When's the last time you did a "Disk Cleanup"?

 

[Pariah]

When's the last time you did a "Disk Cleanup"?

As soon as these problems started I did a "Disk Cleanup". SO far I haven't noticed a difference. Just out of curiosity, is it bad to have mor than one DAW on your computer? Since I'm trying find a new DAW to work with, I now have three DAWs on one computer (Nuendo, Reaper, and a sample of Ableton Live). Can this cause any conflicts? By the way, thank you for your responses!

 

[suprstar]

You might run into problems if you ran them all at the same, but simply being installed should be no issue.

 

[Jim Lad]

Defragmenting may help but in all honesty, I ran into problems like these so often that I finally bought a stand alone recorder. I still do the editing on the PC and have had no software problems since.

 

[Pariah]

Defragmenting may help but in all honesty, I ran into problems like these so often that I finally bought a stand alone recorder. I still do the editing on the PC and have had no software problems since.

Thanks guys for all your help. Everything is working fine now and I'm back at making music. I was also able to get everything to work properly on Vista. I went to propellarhead software and found that my version of reason needed an additional update for rewire to go into slave mode on Windows Vista. I'm interested in Propeller head's "Record". Its pretty much a daw, but they don't want it to be reffered to as a daw. I'm going to try it out because I'm a Reason user and very familar with there setup. I spoke to a friend today that recently started using it and fell in love. Apparently its really easy to use. This is good for me as I'm definitely more of a muscian than an engineer. Has anybody tried this program? From what I understand it doesnt support 3rd party vst plugins. I think that alone turns a lot of people away.