ELECTRIC-MAYHEM
New member
Hello all,
I'm a longtime musician finally getting around to doing some home recording. I guess I would have to call myself a "singer songwriter", although I'm a reluctant vocalist. My strengths lie more in composition and playing rhythm and lead guitar. Also fairly proficient with piano and harmonica as accompaniment, bass guitar, some hand percussion....basically tried my hand at anything I've had an opportunity to pick up over the years, like most musicians.
Influences are all over the board, from blues and early British invasion stuff like the kinks, Stones and the Who to songwriters like Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot...punk and post-punk, funk reggae and jazz....alt-country and folk, and a bit of electronica sprinkled in for good measure, ha ha. Again, typical musician I guess.
After a nearly ten year hiatus from performing or jamming with anyone, my wife recently purchased the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 studio for me. It comes with Cubase 7 as the DAW.
So... I'm here to learn my way around the program. Now let me just say that I am the typical "artist" in the sense that I am entirely right-brained. As much as I do feel that I was gifted with a certain amount of talent and creativity, I have always lacked the focus and practical thinking required to master the technical aspects of recording. That is, up to this point. I am bound and determined to get the songs that have been banging around in my head for years out and on tape! (or wave file, or MP3, or....whatever)
So, in addition to the Scarlett interface and Cubase 7, here is what I am working with: a Dell Inspiron 570 running windows 7, 64 bit OS, 3.75GB usable RAM. Processor is AMD Athlon II X2 250, 3.00 GHz. And no, I really don't know what all of that means but figured it might be pertinent.
I currently have two acoustic guitars, one set up permanently for slide work. Neither have a pick-up, but I've never liked the sound of a direct line on an acoustic anyway so that probably won't change. I have one electric, an Italia Modulo. No amplifier. I used to have a LOT more equipment until a certain hurricane hit New Orleans in '05...ah well.
In addition to the guitars I have inherited the family piano, an old Wurlitzer spinet that needs tuning but otherwise plays great.
So obviously, with the acoustics, the piano, and the harmonicas I'm going to be doing a lot of recording via microphone. Included with the Focusrite kit is the CM25 condenser mic, which has gotten me some good sounds but I'll be looking to get more mics and will be asking advice on that subject.
My BIGGEST questions revolve around how to navigate around and USE all of the features in Cubase 7. Obviously, there is a wealth of information to be found on this site, considering that Cubase/Steinberg have their own sub-forum. I will be spending an awful lot of time there.
Of course it's no fun to just read about things all day so I have taken the alternate approach as well -I've plugged in and started laying down tracks, and then monkeyed with all of the various knobs and sliders, menus and tabs. I feel like a caveman in a spaceship, with about the same results as you would expect.
I've watched a number of Cubase tutorials on Youtube as well, some put up by Steinberg and others not -one thing that confuses me is that the programs being used don't seem to match up to my program. For example, one guy does a video where he brings up a program called Groove Agent, that allows you to lay down drum tracks. This program does not show up under my VST instrument pull-down but it is listed in my programs....other small discrepancies abound, making me wonder if I loaded the program incorrectly. (BTW, why the #@$@ doesn't this kit simply come with a disc to load on to the computer, instead of the painstaking process of downloading programs, typing in endless license numbers, etc? what a PITA!)
Speaking of drum programming, I will also be looking for advice on purchasing a MIDI keyboard controller. I'm not going to be doing a lot of beat programming, or crazy effects...just need something that can be used to assign key commands to, write drum patterns, perhaps be used to control some virtual instrumentation.
Also, would like to know which amp and effect simulators you all would recommend.
Well, that's a pretty lengthy introduction I guess but I figured it's best to take stock of where I'm at and where I want to go...
As I said previously I am here to read and learn, feel free to post links to previously discussed topics instead of spelling it all out again.
Looking forward to any insights!
I'm a longtime musician finally getting around to doing some home recording. I guess I would have to call myself a "singer songwriter", although I'm a reluctant vocalist. My strengths lie more in composition and playing rhythm and lead guitar. Also fairly proficient with piano and harmonica as accompaniment, bass guitar, some hand percussion....basically tried my hand at anything I've had an opportunity to pick up over the years, like most musicians.
Influences are all over the board, from blues and early British invasion stuff like the kinks, Stones and the Who to songwriters like Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot...punk and post-punk, funk reggae and jazz....alt-country and folk, and a bit of electronica sprinkled in for good measure, ha ha. Again, typical musician I guess.
After a nearly ten year hiatus from performing or jamming with anyone, my wife recently purchased the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 studio for me. It comes with Cubase 7 as the DAW.
So... I'm here to learn my way around the program. Now let me just say that I am the typical "artist" in the sense that I am entirely right-brained. As much as I do feel that I was gifted with a certain amount of talent and creativity, I have always lacked the focus and practical thinking required to master the technical aspects of recording. That is, up to this point. I am bound and determined to get the songs that have been banging around in my head for years out and on tape! (or wave file, or MP3, or....whatever)
So, in addition to the Scarlett interface and Cubase 7, here is what I am working with: a Dell Inspiron 570 running windows 7, 64 bit OS, 3.75GB usable RAM. Processor is AMD Athlon II X2 250, 3.00 GHz. And no, I really don't know what all of that means but figured it might be pertinent.
I currently have two acoustic guitars, one set up permanently for slide work. Neither have a pick-up, but I've never liked the sound of a direct line on an acoustic anyway so that probably won't change. I have one electric, an Italia Modulo. No amplifier. I used to have a LOT more equipment until a certain hurricane hit New Orleans in '05...ah well.
In addition to the guitars I have inherited the family piano, an old Wurlitzer spinet that needs tuning but otherwise plays great.
So obviously, with the acoustics, the piano, and the harmonicas I'm going to be doing a lot of recording via microphone. Included with the Focusrite kit is the CM25 condenser mic, which has gotten me some good sounds but I'll be looking to get more mics and will be asking advice on that subject.
My BIGGEST questions revolve around how to navigate around and USE all of the features in Cubase 7. Obviously, there is a wealth of information to be found on this site, considering that Cubase/Steinberg have their own sub-forum. I will be spending an awful lot of time there.
Of course it's no fun to just read about things all day so I have taken the alternate approach as well -I've plugged in and started laying down tracks, and then monkeyed with all of the various knobs and sliders, menus and tabs. I feel like a caveman in a spaceship, with about the same results as you would expect.
I've watched a number of Cubase tutorials on Youtube as well, some put up by Steinberg and others not -one thing that confuses me is that the programs being used don't seem to match up to my program. For example, one guy does a video where he brings up a program called Groove Agent, that allows you to lay down drum tracks. This program does not show up under my VST instrument pull-down but it is listed in my programs....other small discrepancies abound, making me wonder if I loaded the program incorrectly. (BTW, why the #@$@ doesn't this kit simply come with a disc to load on to the computer, instead of the painstaking process of downloading programs, typing in endless license numbers, etc? what a PITA!)
Speaking of drum programming, I will also be looking for advice on purchasing a MIDI keyboard controller. I'm not going to be doing a lot of beat programming, or crazy effects...just need something that can be used to assign key commands to, write drum patterns, perhaps be used to control some virtual instrumentation.
Also, would like to know which amp and effect simulators you all would recommend.
Well, that's a pretty lengthy introduction I guess but I figured it's best to take stock of where I'm at and where I want to go...
As I said previously I am here to read and learn, feel free to post links to previously discussed topics instead of spelling it all out again.
Looking forward to any insights!
