Frustration has led me to do this...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Elyst
  • Start date Start date
E

Elyst

New member
Hey guys... not shure I'm a first timer, I believe I posted already something somewhere around here... but thats not what brings me here.

I'm here because I want to record decent vocals and other instruments and I'm just plain frustrated...

For starters, I play keyboard, I have a Yamaha psr 232, I also have a guitar, an Ibanez Ar 250 black. For recording I have an Alesis IO2 express and I use a mic from kool sound (a ksm-07 I think).

I usually play around with my guitar or keys till I have some idea for a song, when I get one I plug the guitar (or keys) to the Alesis and that goes in the computer where I do the recordings. Problem starts here... I'm using cubase le5 for recordings.

I'll be honest... I loved cubase, but that was when all I had was an acustic guitar and I wrote the musics in MIDI (drawing each note), it takes some time and there was no fun in playing the instrument, but at least in the end you usually had something interesting...

Now that I have instruments and I'm recording audio cubase simply drives me crazy...SERIOUSLY little things have driven me this mad!!! :mad::mad::mad:
Before I can start recording there's always something going wrong that there's no sound, after I change the settings and go nuts the thing finally works...and after that even when I get to record, cutting and editing a loop never gets right... maybe its cubase's fault maybe it's me who's a LAME NOOB at recording with cubase.

So heres the deal:
You guys seem experienced recorders, can't you suggest any easier recording program where I can more easily coordinate my loops?
As software I'm trying to use kontak4 (if possible coordinated with my keyboard so that I can play on the keys and hear the cooresponding sound of kontak set instrument) and guitar rig (downloaded a few updates recently and I'm still relaring how to use it but I think I can handle it).

So any suggestion you guys might give for some smooth trouble-less recording program that wouldn't drive me nuts, I'd appreciate (and preferably a free one and with compatibility to run with kontak and guitar rig), but at this point I'm so desperate all I want is a simple to configure recording software where cuting and looping something I recorded is simple...

Thanks a lot and sorry for anything, cubase is realy getting on my nerves these days...
Cheers!
 
Are you writing loops in midi? Or audio? Midi should line up pretty easy. If it's audio then use a click track to keep the beat consistent.
 
This is why I've moved on to old school Tascam gear!
 
hold on hold on some good ideas came up here.
This reaper... I have it, once there was this nice guy that got tons of programs for recording, but then I barely knew how to use cubase and much less was I willing to lear how to use those. But I'll have a look at some reaper's tutorials see how easy is it to use.

@ ido1957 "a click track"? What is that? The looping is for audio, the midi is easaly looped... Because there's that thing: When you click the record button it imediatly starts recording, and at that moment your hand is in the mouse and not in the guitar/bass/keyboard or whatever instrument your playing so there's some seconds in the start and end of the loop that have thrash (in the end the thing doesn't stop when you stop playing). Having something that would wait like 5 seconds before it starts recording or would only start when it captures a sound high enough to do it would be great.

And Tascam Gear... I'll check it out...

I'm gonna see how well I do today, I'll try to record a... podcast of sorts... I think you can call it that at least.

Thanks a lot, keep those sugestions coming, what do you think of Mixcraft (acoustica.com/mixcraft)?
 
I know logic gives you a bar for nothing each time you click record, I'm sure you'd be able to do the same thing in cubase.
 
diggy_dude said:
This is why I've moved on to old school Tascam gear!
Click to expand...

Actually I have no problem with hardware, simply with the complicated software. I've been looking into it and Reaper seems interesting, what are the output conditions that happen when trial period is over?
 
Yeah, you need a click or a MIDI backing track to get your audio inline with the tempo that's set up in cubase. Once you do that it should be easy to cut and paste.

If you're having problems at the start just wait a few bars, or program some count in with MIDI at bar 2 or 3. When you're done recording and it's time to export don't export the first 2 or 3 bars.

With any DAW you are going to face a steep learning curve. I don't find cubase hard to use and I've never used reaper so I can't tell you if one is easier than the other but I doubt changing software is going to be a magic bullet. If you don't understand what a click track is you have a long way to go.
 
a click track...never thought of that but makes perfect sense... I should do that... I'll give it a shot at some diferent software and here's why.

I'm kinda trying to start a youtube video blog and I started by getting the best audio quality using cubase to record a voice audio track and then add a background music to give some feel to it. Then I tried to record the image itself (ever since I configured the audio interface the incorporated microphone on the laptop stopped working, dunno why...).
So I end up with a cubase file with the sound and a video with the image. I intended to add them using windows movie maker (I have no experience in video editing) but I couldn't export the file from cubase has .mp3 and the .wav wasn't working well with the video...

And I can't convert the .wav to .mp3 because all the bloody converters I find have those stinky trials!

Converting never had been an issue...but I guess it started being... (actually it always was but since I didn't want to publish any of my songs I never had much the output problem, the little things I exported I never got to notice how big they were)

before I consider this thread closed there's just this little little thing I want to seetle:
How do I record things from kontak 4? Has standalone Kontak has no way to record but how can I open it on cubase and then use the keys on the laptop keyboard to play (to use when I'm not at home and I can use my laptop for some composing : P)

Once again, Thank you very much, you've all been a great help : )
 
Elyst said:
Actually I have no problem with hardware, simply with the complicated software. I've been looking into it and Reaper seems interesting, what are the output conditions that happen when trial period is over?
Click to expand...

Nothing changes when the trial period is over. The Reaper developers are counting on the honesty of their customers to pay a small fee if they intend to keep using it.
 
that is awesome, I feel like buying it just for that... I mean I'll try it out and if it's realy has good has I heard it was or even better I'll buy it.

so how bout the kontak 4 question?

I'll try to look into it, if I find anything faster than any reply may come up I'll write a sentimental thank you post and call this a day : )
 
Another option you might think about, is WAV to MID conversion. Not all of the software is great at that task, but they can DRAW the midi part for you for the most part. So you can keep to the midi backing tracks from an actual sound input. Not easy, not ideal, a bit of a time suck, but probably less of one than drawing the midi by hand. Unless you actually like the sounds of your instruments and recording chain.

A click track will help keep things in sync. You might even record 2 tracks at a time, one of them being the click track, the other the intended source, just so you can compensate for any latency with pinpoint accuracy. Lots of software out there, you don't have to stick to just one if there's another that does a particular task better. I use at least 3 audio applications when editing my recorded tracks. One to do most of the grunt work, another to speed up the track to match the clock on a video device. And a third to do the final edits. Trim, normalize, export. A fourth if I started with DSD audio, a 5th if I compress it to MP3 or other formats before blending it with the video. Technically a 6th to properly decode the camcorder audio to sync to. Or 7th since that task uses two applications. One to extract unedited, the other to decode to wav. Not that I use those in the result (most times). Many means to an end.

Which for linux and me is these players of sorts.

audiogate (windows only / only reason from still having windows on "A" computer)

libsndfile
sox
audacity
ffmpeg
faad
lame

possibly others depending on the task / project. I really haven't gotten to the WAV to MID options yet. But I have downloaded the possible applications for it. And MID to WAV is already a familiar process for me.
 
The internal mic stopped working because the audio interface replaces the internal sound card. They cant both work in Cubase (or any other DAW) at the same time. You'd be wayyyyyy better off buying a real mic anyway.

For converting .wav files you can use iTunes. I know there are other free ones but maybe you allready have iTunes installed.
 
go old school and just record tracks and overdub one track after the other - easy
 
Elyst said:
that is awesome, I feel like buying it just for that... I mean I'll try it out and if it's realy has good has I heard it was or even better I'll buy it.

so how bout the kontak 4 question?

I'll try to look into it, if I find anything faster than any reply may come up I'll write a sentimental thank you post and call this a day : )
Click to expand...

For $40, it's mighty damned good compared to the more expensive DAWs.
 
bweston said:
go old school and just record tracks and overdub one track after the other - easy
Click to expand...

This is what I'm down to. Got nothing against DAWs, but there's too much hassle between my fingers and the faders.
 
TetraFish said:
The internal mic stopped working because the audio interface replaces the internal sound card. They cant both work in Cubase (or any other DAW) at the same time. You'd be wayyyyyy better off buying a real mic anyway.

For converting .wav files you can use iTunes. I know there are other free ones but maybe you allready have iTunes installed.
Click to expand...

for starters, you say I'd be better with a real mic: Isn't my Kool Sound KSM-07 a decent one? (I don't know much about mics). As to the sound board and mic not working: The mic was suposed to be off when I plug the interface and it does, but its also off when the interface is unplugged and the sound board the pc is using is his own.

As a matter of fact even when you turn the mic on you can see that it captures no sound whatsoever. Only if I plug a mic directly into the pc. So I realy think that the laptops mic is broken (not that I use it much anyway, but sometimes I'm to lazy to get a good one.)


I'm going to have a look to the programs you've recomend, I also use linux sometimes...never thought of using it for recordings but it's a possibility...
So...what about kontak4? anyone uses it?
 
I'm confused. If you have a mic why are you trying to use the laptop mic? Anyway you might be right, the mic could be done for if it doesn't work when the interface is disconnected. You should check the sound options in control panel and make sure it's set up right.
 
TetraFish said:
I'm confused. If you have a mic why are you trying to use the laptop mic? Anyway you might be right, the mic could be done for if it doesn't work when the interface is disconnected. You should check the sound options in control panel and make sure it's set up right.
Click to expand...

like I said, out of lazyness, it still is a lot of work to plug the interface and the mic xD
But yeah I think it's set up correctly...
 
Well stop being lazy!!!!! :spank:

The sound quality you get from a real mic and your onboard laptop mic are going to be like night and day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top