Help understanding what all this software does...

[darrvid]

Ok, so I'm a Cubse LE user, and recently decided to at least start looking at the "big boy" software. It turns out this stuff is way harder to understand than I would have thought, but after much reading I think I have it somewhat clear. So, hopefully some of you can help me out with this.

Here are the programs I've been reading about:
Native Instruments Komplete (a collection of the main NI offerings)
Propellerheads Reason
Cakewalks Sonar 7
Ableton Live
Cuabase 4


So here's some questions:

So, as it turns out it looks like only Sonar, Live and Cubase actually record audio out of that group correct?

Live is less a complete DAW and more for live performances?

Reason is MIDI/sequencer only (it doesn't offer audio recording)?

Komplete is just a group of softsynths and tools to use them, but not actual recording software of any kind?

Sonar and Cubase are full out DAWs, edit MIDI and audio etc?


And now, here's where I try to apply my understandings, please correct me where I'm off. Now, this is clearly hypothetical, because I don't have the knowledge or access to use all of these programs but I want to understand how they all fit togather.

Native Instruments can use Rewire to connect in with Reason, which looks to be a very nice MIDI sequencer. If someone was using MIDI, this could be a nice setup. Then, to use audio, they could record that in Sonar and use all the audio editing etc for that within Sonar. To combine into a full fleged track, they can use Rewire from Reason to connect to Sonar. So, at this point you have a chain that looks like... NI-->Reason-->Sonar. If you were ever to do a live performance, it sounds like NI-->Live would be good.

So, is that how all of this software fits in togather? In the real world are people more likely to just use the MIDI sequencer within the Audio DAW? (skipping Reason and going straight to Sonar in my example above).


So, thanks for reading though all this. Does it sound like I'm understand all this software?

 

[altitude909]

Ok, so I'm a Cubse LE user, and recently decided to at least start looking at the "big boy" software. It turns out this stuff is way harder to understand than I would have thought, but after much reading I think I have it somewhat clear. So, hopefully some of you can help me out with this.

Here are the programs I've been reading about:
Native Instruments Komplete (a collection of the main NI offerings)
Propellerheads Reason
Cakewalks Sonar 7
Ableton Live
Cuabase 4


So here's some questions:

So, as it turns out it looks like only Sonar, Live and Cubase actually record audio out of that group correct?

Yes

Live is less a complete DAW and more for live performances?

It is definitely different and yes it was designed as a live performance tool BUT it really has grown into a full featured daw and is no less capable than to others listed. I know plenty of people who use live both in the studio and to play out.

Reason is MIDI/sequencer only (it doesn't offer audio recording)?

It is a sequencer only (it will not output midi). It is however a wonderful synth rack with limitless sonic possibilities. The whole "rewire" thing allows you to integrate reason into another program (such as cubase, sonar, etc) where you can record audio so it is not too big of an issue.

Komplete is just a group of softsynths and tools to use them, but not actual recording software of any kind?

Yes, they are VSTs and you will need a VST compatible host like cubase, sonar, live etc. AFAIK, most will also run as standalone devices

Sonar and Cubase are full out DAWs, edit MIDI and audio etc?

Yes. There are a number of other also (Reaper, Tracktion etc)

And now, here's where I try to apply my understandings, please correct me where I'm off. Now, this is clearly hypothetical, because I don't have the knowledge or access to use all of these programs but I want to understand how they all fit togather.

Native Instruments can use Rewire to connect in with Reason, which looks to be a very nice MIDI sequencer. If someone was using MIDI, this could be a nice setup. Then, to use audio, they could record that in Sonar and use all the audio editing etc for that within Sonar. To combine into a full fleged track, they can use Rewire from Reason to connect to Sonar. So, at this point you have a chain that looks like... NI-->Reason-->Sonar. If you were ever to do a live performance, it sounds like NI-->Live would be good.

Not quite. With rewire and plugins, you need to have a master host. This is usually sonar or cubase or live. NI does not rewire since they are just plugins and need to have a VST host running them so in cubase, you create a midi track and then assign a NI synth to that track. When you add a vst in cubase, it automatically creates an audio track for the audio output (s) of that device so the midi track controls it, and its output is automatically routed to a new audio track. rewire is a little different since you have more control over what is bussed back and forth between the host and the rewire device. I wont go into detail, but you can have the audio from each device in reason appear as audio tracks in the host and you can either have reason's internal sequencer running in sync with the host OR you can control any device from inside the host bypassing the reason sequencer. The important thing with rewire is that a) you can use regular audio tracks along side of reason and b) you can use regular midi tracks routed to VSTs along side of reason


It sounds like you pretty much get it, congrats!

 

[darrvid]

Very informative post altitude, thanks. For anyone else interested, I've found videos showing off this software on youtube to be pretty helpful in clearing up any confusion as well. What takes a page of reading becomes clear very quickly when you see this stuff in action.

I'll be doing some more indepth research, but are there some good Cubase Rewire resources anyone would direct me to? Rewire seems to be very interesting, I'd like to know some more details of it's full capabilities (which of course change program to program from what I can tell). The software that's really peaking my interest at this point is Cubase, Reason, and the NI offerings.

 

[Halion]

Well, each of these programs is going to do some things that the others do as well, but then also have a bunch of features unique to that package. Rewire allows you to send all the audio coming out of one program to channels of another audio program (for instance, Ableton Live rewired to Cubase sends live tracks to cubase). It has it's limitation (the main one beeing that you cannot use VST plugins in a rewire slave) but it's usefull for some features.

Reason is very good and easy for producing electronic (parts of) music, something that Cubase cannot do without a lot of extra software. So rewiring Reason to Cubase might be a good idea if that's what you wanna do (since Cubase allows you to cut up audio, record tracks, apply third party audio processing etc. things Reason cannot do). You seem to be on the right track!

 

[darrvid]

Regarding Rewire, what isn't clear to me is at what point mixing should begin. So, say I have a beat I've made in Reason. With Rewire I can send that as audio into a Cubase track. But both Reason and Cubase allow for mixing. Is there any advantage over using one program to mix over the other, or is it more a personal preference? Or is the mix information also sent properly through Rewire (ex: turning an eq knob in Reason turns the knob in Cubase). It sounds more like Rewire is simply an audio send protocal that saves on system resources.