If it were you... $500 budget: software choices

  • Thread starter Thread starter Treeline
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Treeline

Treeline

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I'm using n-track and am now building a DAW with a bit of horsepower, for a change. I'm thinking of moving to a different software platform and need something stable that will do the following:

1. Record signal easily from 16/44 to 24/96
2. Work with multiple formats of pre recorded signal - .wav, AKAI, etc.
3. Allow for sensible numbers of tracks - up to perhaps 40 total.
4. Allow for some reasonable mastering tools - good enough so I can do a decent job of summing a mix and begin to learn the differences between a stereo mix and a mastered mix, by ear.
5. Include and accommodate high quality, basic plug ins.
6. Accommodate conversion and burning to red book standard.

I'd like to be able to use this with some pretty challenging material, at least stuff that pushes my limits: chamber music, operatic solo, grand piano solo work, violin, viola and cello work, choral work, and my 12 channel live Bill Kirchen / Hank Williams / Asleep At The Wheel rockabilly band mixes.

My gear is pretty much entry level - a truckload of live gear, good working condensers, basic preamps, dynamics, a few outboard live rig effects, live capture to a DPS16 in 16 or 24 bit. No pedigreed gear but pretty decent working stiff stuff. I'd transfer submixes to the computer for working up.

If it were you, what would you do next?
 
IMHO,
If you still have any chance, get Sonar 3 Producer Edition on your local dealer before it's taken off market!!! That will give you extra VSampler3 DXi to play AKAI format! Then call Cakewalk for FREE upgrade to Sonar 4 Producer edition! You'll get almost everything you mentioned above.

;)
Jaymz
 
Samplitude 7 only program made to be a multiple tracking program as well as mastering program

Does all that except it doesn't come witha DXI/VSTI that can read akai, exs, giga sampler etc.

You'd have to purchase that separately

FYI Sonar 4 can't burn CD's, and isn't suited for mastering
 
Teacher said:
FYI Sonar 4 can't burn CD's, and isn't suited for mastering
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Yup. But with $500 limit, you can't always get what you want... :)
 
treeline. as always before trying more expensive software try the demo of powertracks that i use and be very surprised.
read the customer reviws on the site.
if you feel you MUST spend lots of money - two i rate highly are samplitude and saw. but the midi features that are in powertracks included you have to pay an extra 300 bucks for midi in saw.
 
manning1 said:
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if you feel you MUST spend lots of money -
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You sound like my wife - who must be credited with getting us completely out of debt when I couldn't even begin to do it. I have to admit she was right all along, and that's one reason I'm going to check out powertracks!

Another is maybe I can get something done without spending a fortune... :o

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Just checked out the demo. Pretty cool stuff. The whole ball of wax is about $300.
 
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While you're at it, check this out too:

Tracktion Free!

It usually costs a very reasonable $80 but there's no (apparent) catch in their free giveaway. I use it, and have found it VERY friendly and have enjoyed the ReWire functionality w.Reason and the VSTfx and VSTi compatability.
 
treeline. be decent, and give powertracks a full in depth demo.
but go into it very in depth to appreciate all the carefully thought
out touches and features. jeff yankauers team are the gurus behind it at pg,
and the more i worked with it when i started out a few years back the more i appreciated the carefull thought they had put into it.
it became quickly apparent to me that this team was not only technically brilliant but also understood the nice touches musicians needed in the midi area in particular. take a look at the notation editing in particular and the thought that went into it, and the slew of notation options as just one example of the depth of talent behind the product.
just give it a fair honest trial, and youll be surprised like i was. peace.
 
Manning, I think you might have misinterpreted my posts - I intend to give it a deeper look, particularly because it seems to be designed to do the kind of stuff I'm interested in. I hope my posts didn't come across as dismissive as my intent was the opposite!

Thanks for your help with the DAW thing, by the way. I just got the box put together half an hour ago, fired it up and nothing sparked or smoked... All right so far. Next is to pull the Delta 66 out of the box I'm using right now and get it in there. My old dual video card works fine and there's a new and an old hard drive that both power up. Now for WinXP and all that good stuff. :cool:
 
no problem treeline. hope your daw goes well.
if you have q's - just ask.
actually it was my wife years ago - got me into powertracks. just a stocking stuffer at the time. arent women wonderfull !!
one of the reasons ive stayed loyal is the no bs upgrade policy.
every other package in the same time frame would have cost a lot of money to upgrade from version to version. but i have no qualms when its the price of a good meal out.
actually your testing it out at a good time. there are so many new features - it boggles my mind. the other thing i like is how the company listens to its users. for example in the new version are fretboard displays for midi not just for guitar but other fretted instruments like ukes for example. and apparently the new version lets you edit the different left /right channels of a stereo track independently. this is what i mean by nice touches/thinking.
 
I'll be studying powertracks, particularly because I like the modular purchase idea. But I found something very interesting in Adobe Audition, [edit] formerly Cool Edit Pro[/edit] and that is a peculiarly graphic way the program represents sound. I looked at it and for the first time I felt I understood what I was looking at. For some reason, it seems to be written the way I think. Or so it appears now, anyway.

I spend a lot of energy recording live performances - acoustic bands, kids choruses, professional string ensembles, solo violin, solo operatic vocals. When there is a cough or some unfortunate chair bang in the audience, I go nuts trying to compensate for it with the basic tools I have. Audition has a way of graphically representing multiple signals in a wave so that you can identify one for manipulation while leving the rest intact. In essence that allows you to find and largely scrub the cough or the chair rattle in the middle of a high end viola's signal. Things are complex enough without picking flyspecks out of pepper and this allows a different way to see what you're doing.

So I've ordered it and we'll see what happens next.

I'm swapping files on the new DAW from one drive to another. So far, so good. CPU temp seems OK so far.

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Edited on Tuesday after I figured out Cool Edit Pro and Adobe Audition are the same thing, Adobe having bought up the Syntrillium skunkworks. I may be slow, but at least I'm breathing. :cool:
 
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James Argo said:
IMHO,
If you still have any chance, get Sonar 3 Producer Edition on your local dealer before it's taken off market!!! That will give you extra VSampler3 DXi to play AKAI format! Then call Cakewalk for FREE upgrade to Sonar 4 Producer edition! You'll get almost everything you mentioned above.

;)
Jaymz
Click to expand...
Are you serious about that free upgrade thing? How did you do that?

And to be on topic, any decent music store will have workstations set up with various sequencers on tap. Call around and ask if you can spend some time with what they got on tap.
 
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