Here's my new setup... anyone have any hints/insight/advice?

P

Phil

New member
Okay, after months and months of research and a few frightening credit card bills here's what I have assembled:

A dedicated DAW computer: PIII 450, 128mg ram, 13 gig 7200 rpm IBM hard drive partitioned. I'll buy a plextor CDR when I need it.
Aardvark direct pro 24/96 which just came in the mail today.
Alesis monitor ones powered by a samson servo 120 amp.
Martin DM acoustic/electric guitar. Ibanez electric guitar and Ibanez bass. 2 Crate amps. Several Harmonicas.
Hosa mic cables with Neutrik XLR connectors.
Octava 0012 (?) mic which is in the mail from Taylor (cool dude at Sound Room)--thanks to you all guys for the advice about it. SM 58 and SM57.
I have Cakewalk Professional 7 and was going to upgrade to pro audio 9 before I realized that I had no idea how to use the program. I had planned on buying the N-track software with plug-ins, but now I have to run Win 98 instead of NT like I had planned because teh Aark card doesn't have NT drivers, and N-track isn't as good in 98 as it is NT, so I might just bite the bullet and go with cakewalk, I don't know.
I will construct a little sound room in my room here by hanging blankets and foam.

I also have 12 rockin' original songs all ready to go. I used to think that writing music was the hard part, but after the first few months and after looking at the software manuals I think that writing songs is the easy part!!

Anybody have any ideas for me on how to optimize my equipment or critiques or anything?

P.S. Will I need a whole different mastering software program or can I do it all with Cakewalk/ N-track?
 
If your going to be running cakewalk anyway, it might be worth getting 9, or even eight if it's around anywhere... latency is significantly better in 8, and much better in nine. Also, I'm not sure version 7 will record 24 bit audio.

With the Direct Pro, once you know how you'll be hooking your equipment into it, setup a few global presets with the gain, pan etc settings as you'll be using them, and make an individual preset with the eq, with all the controls centered (by default, they're set to full cut).

Hopefully, this is useful...

William Underwood
 
I have heard GREAT things about Cakewalk 9...
Anything with the word CRATE on it is a weak link... BUT you can do a lot to improve a crappy guitar sound with the software tools available today... Get some good plug-ins. Hosa cable is another weak link but if you're like me, that will be the last thing you fix... It's hard to lay down $500 and not have any new gear to show for it... But it counts, none the less.

There are some good software reviews at:
www.prorec.com
 
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