Few general questions about drum software, DAWs, MIDI, etc.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jiveman
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Jiveman

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Hello all! A newbie here. :D

I would like to setup an environment to do some home recording, so I'm looking for some general advice. Bear with me as I give you some background info here...

Not looking to do anything too fancy, mostly to be able to write music and record it for keepsake/demo purposes and future band usage. Not really looking to get the best possible sound quality for production-like purposes--more looking to be able to effectively write and record, with DECENT sound results, relatively realistic drum samples, etc.

DAWs

In the past I've had most experience with Adobe Audition 1.5, though I've messed around with Sonar and a few others, too. Audition interface made a lot of sense to me and things were pretty easy to pickup. Now, I'm debating whether or not I should just brush up on latest version of Audition or possibly go into something like Cubase. Folks seem to place Audition more in the broadcasting spectrum, rather than music production, so i thought get the better tool for the job, and Cubase might be worth looking into, too. There seems to be a lot of support and community help on it, which is another reason. Sonar, for some reason, doesn't appeal to me. I know there are others, too, but it's a never-ending search for the perfect DAW, so I might as well keep things to a minimum. Auditon or Cubase. :)

Drum Software

I've messed with FL Studio at one point, with EZDrummer plugin. I was able to create some pretty realistic sounding stuff, but I always felt limited with the manual MIDI drawing interface. I never owned or used a MIDI keyboard or external interface of any kind, but now I'm beginning to think "is that what I need?" What I would like to do is be able to create drum tracks from my head, and not necessarily rely on pre-existing drum loops and whatnot. So I'd need reasonably easy way of transferring drum ideas from my brain into actual drum tracks (without being a drummer myself :guitar:). I'm not a keyboard player either, but I can manage some basics. What about some of those really small external MIDI keyboards? Which drum software is best for doing this kind of drum track creation? Oh btw, I'm mostly writing heavy-ish music, let's say prog rock/metal generally speaking. FL Studio always felt like it was too much for electronic music creation, not rock music.

Well... That's it for now.... I have several options for recording guitar, so that's not really a huge issue. Vocals... well, I'll cross that bridge when i get to it. For now, the biggest problem is drum track creation and DAW choice. Perhaps one influences the other? I saw some stuff referring to a drum interface in Cubase, for exampkle, and if that's good, than Cubase might be a better choice than Audition.

Any advice you guys have for me? Need any more info?

Thanks! :)
 
If you haven't already done so, you'll need some sort of interface to get your audio into your computer. Most interfaces come with some lite form of a popular DAW like Cubase, Ableton Live or Sonar. I think that's how you should shop around for your DAW. These versions are stripped down, but still very capable in their own right. They offer nearly everything the full versions do. Ableton Live approaches audio production differently, though I have no experience with it and am not sure how it is different. I believe it is similar to FL. All the others are pretty much the same and it comes down to comfort level with the user interface.

I have used Cubase and Sonar and I prefer Cubase. It's personal taste.

EZDrummer works well with Cubase and Sonar and Audition 3. I understand you want to create your own drum tracks, but it's very helpful to start out with their drum files and edit them as you need. Saves a ton of work and think about it; most drum patterns are nearly the same for a style of music with a few basic variations.... so why not start with a drum track that has half the work done for you.

hth,
 
Yeah, I don't have an audio interface yet, but I do know I need one. i figured I'd focus on trying to get some of these general questions answered first before looking for an interface, but if they tend to come with DAWs, then perhaps I might get one sooner rather that later.

And yeah, I know the pre-existing drum loops are useful as a starting point, but for some reason, when I think of an idea for a song in my head, it never starts with drums, but with guitar instead, and I need to fit something into the written riff(s). I can usually hum something along that starts to make sense, but finding a loop that matches that seems too hard. So I end up manually drawing the individual drum hits in FL studio or another midi or virtual keyboard editor, at least until the point when I can start copying and pasting sections of it. The fact that it's connected to EZ drummer is just to get realistic drum samples out of it. So if there's anyone that does something similar to this, and has recommendations on how to improve the process (with different drum software and/or external controllers, or maybe just general approach), I'd definitely be interested in hearing it.
 
Hmm, I wonder if something like that would be better suited for actual drummers who are forced to do MIDI recording with such pads (as opposed to a MIDI keyboard controller). But for somebody like me (non drummer) keyboard controller might be more suitable, perhaps? I mean I'd love to have both, but money isn't infinite. :-(

Regarding the audio interface.... Actually, I forgot to ask about this... I have a digital guitar modeler/processor (Digitech GSP1101) which has a built-in USB output, which registers itself as an audio device on the computer when connected. I wonder if that's suitable for acting as the external audio interface, for guitar/bass needs. I can either use it as the actual sound source (modeled amps/patches), or use it as a passthrough from my actual tube amp. I would likely not be able to mic my actual amp speaker, because of noise levels in the apartment. But I could take the guitar amp's preamp output into the GSP1101 and have it passthrough.

Of course, recording vocals wouldn't work that way, not unless I had a mixer with line level output that went into the GSP. But that's not a huge issue right now, as I'm nowhere near being able to record vocals.

Just a thought... The GSP is a pretty decent (pro-level) processor. Might be able to get a little more out of it, this way.
 
Jiveman,

For a DAW, you can't go wrong checking out Reaper. Lots of folks here use and love it (including me). For drums, I highly recommend trying out Jamstix (Rayzoon). You don't need a MIDI keyboard or even and midi chops to be able to use it. You can build a song from withing the program bu selecting song modules like Intro, Verse, Chorus, Middle 8, etc. Then it will play the song along to whatever tempo you have selected in Reaper. OF course, you can tailor the song if you like. OR you can just let Jamstix do it all for you.

Good luck.

Ken
 
I've tried Reaper once, briefly, and wasn't impressed (interface didn't come naturally to me, but I only spent a little bit of time with it). I do know that it changes constantly, and that it's fairly cheap. Might look into it again.

Didn't know about Jamstix. Thanks for pointing it out. Seems pretty cool from the videos on their website. I'll look into it further.
 
Haha, easy there fellas. :) I said I hadn't spent a lot of time with it, and going from Adobe Audition, it didn't immediately start to click with me. But I'm giving it another, deeper trial, as we speak (perusing the Getting Started guide, video tutorials, etc.).

I guess it's true that Reaper users are indeed very loyal bunch! :)
 
grimtraveller said:
I'm just a hanger on. I use an old AKAI.
Click to expand...

Guess what I fixed!

elakai.jpg
 
Jiveman said:
Haha, easy there fellas. :) I said I hadn't spent a lot of time with it, and going from Adobe Audition, it didn't immediately start to click with me. But I'm giving it another, deeper trial, as we speak (perusing the Getting Started guide, video tutorials, etc.).

I guess it's true that Reaper users are indeed very loyal bunch! :)
Click to expand...



Yeah gotta be carefully in these parts stranger. Them is fightn' words where we come from!

Even the Marshall gets a hand into the lynching mobs. Ain't no one safe round here.
 
I'm gona stick it up for sale soon. Just need to align the heads first since there's a new tape deck in it.

Duno how much interest it'll generate but I'm in no rush.
 
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