Iostream
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About the only time you want a hard repetitive drum line through an entire song is if you are trying to give the feeling of a machine. Otherwise there is always variation
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Studio One has ARA (Melodyne integration). Very cool. Sort of what Sonar has done with V-Vocal for years, but Melodyne is actually good. A large point in Studio One's favor. Hopefully it comes to other DAWs.
Cubase has something similar, I think that's pretty standard now.
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The lack of love for Sonar in this thread is staggering. Once you figure out Sonar, you can probably figure out anything.
Which makes it the best.
Actually, I used Sonar, pretty much since the beginning of time (92 with Cakewalk for DOS). I still have X2 Producer installed. I have always had good experiences with it. I tried out Cubase because I got into more orchestral work and liked the idea of expression maps. I did the 30 day trial, and eventually bought it. In the end, I do think Cubase is stronger for midi if you are doing orchestral work. Not much of a difference for the typical EDM or rock band DAW. If you are not doing heavy orchestral, and starting from scratch, I would say pick Sonar or Cubase, both are good, but if you already have Cubase, I can't think of any reason to switch to Sonar. If you already have Sonar, I am not sure Cubase is worth the purchase unless you are dealing with lots of sample libraries with different keyswitching, etc.
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Glad you found something you like. Enjoy it!
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Another chime in for Cubase here. It is a composer's DAW, not to say that there are not others, but things like expression maps, note expression, and sane handling of VSTs make it great for composition. It can also do a fine job of the final mix and mastering. If you are not heavily into midi, Pro Tools is great for audio. If you are more likely to do your composing with audio clips (or loops) ableton is a great choice. That doesn't mean that other DAWs are a poor choice, they all have their strengths, but if you have Cubase, and are doing heavy midi work, I don't know that it's worth investing in anything else.
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Holy crap...
I just have a laptop, keyboard and a guitar.
There are very successful producers out there who don't use anything more than a laptop.
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If you are looking, I mistyped it when I made my original post. It is the AX3000B
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thanks for the notes, guys. lostream, anything in particular that you'd recommend about the ax300b?
It's an all around great multi board. The amp and cabinet modelling is good, the distortion is decent, the chorus is great. All the usual suspects are there. What I really love about it are the synth effects (even a nice ring mod) and the pitch shift (drop an octave, etc). It has a step sequencer for controlling effects as well.
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2) You can not sell it if you used your ownership of Komplete 6 to buy an update version of Komplete 7
Actually, that part is slightly inaccurate. If you have upgraded off of Komplete 6, they will let you sell your komplete 6 license, but your upgrade license becomes invalid. It really doesn't make a lot of sense, but they will let you do it.
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If I had to limit myself to just a couple of VSTs, Zebra and Kontakt are what I couldn't live without. Reaktor if Ihad to pick a 3rd. Sure, I use a lot more, but those end up in constant use.
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I know you can sell the NI stuff, you cannot resell cakewalk products, so I am not sure how that will work out with Z3TA
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I tend to do most things in the box, but when I just want to plug in and jam, I use a Korg Toneworks AX300B. It's a great all purpose box, and has some unusual effects as well.
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I have some of ProjectSAM's stuff and I recently bought the "Hollywood" expansion for Nexus; which actually sounds awesome, but like anything has its downsides.
I disagree that gear doesn't matter. Someone who is skilled will make East West sound 100x better than an equally skilled person will with Edirol.
It's like how I have a friend who has really expensive, good amplifiers and guitar, but he can't play very well or write music worth shit. So yeah, the music he makes with it isn't very good. However, in terms of sound quality and in the right hands, that gear totally destroys my setup no matter how good of guitarist I could be. So therefore, when I play through his gear, it definitely sounds better than when I play through my own.
I think that's exactly what he was saying, it doesn't matter if you have the best of everything, if you don't know how to use it, someone with crap gear but great talent will sound better.
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I would agree as well, the strings at the beginning more gradual would make a big difference. That really long sustain just doesn't have enough expression to make it seem quite organic. It's a subtlety, but can make a big difference.
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they also make an 88 key one with weighted keys, which while its 500 something dollars, it seems to be a pretty decent keyboard. and like flexstyle said, the mpk line is built like a tank and has pretty much any feature you could possibly want, except maybe automap
You have to be careful with the mpk88, search the internet for mpk88 rattle. They can be quite noisy. I looked very closely at this board before getting the CP33. From the friend I know who has one though, he has been very happy with it, so maybe they are not all impacted by this?
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So, here's what I'm using right now:
1. Yamaha Arius Digital Keyboard: Not intended to be a controller, but it happens to have a MIDI output. Nice because the keys feel real (I am a piano player) and I can get really exact velocity out of it. It also has sustain pedals. No mod wheel, no other functions.
You could also replace that Arius with a Yamaha CP33. It has the same keybed as the higher model Arius, in fact it looks almost the same, but it has mod wheel, pitch bend, and 2 sliders to set zones which can also be set to transmit aftertouch. This is what I am using now, and I set a Korg Nanokontrol 2 on top for knobs/sliders.
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Full Moon rising is much better in the mixing area. Still a few areas I would watch the levels of individual instruments. There were a couple of points where a single synth sound, or drums were just higher than they probably should have been.
Lion of Judah, this again is better mixed than the first track. Still, the piano is a bit dry, as are the strings. You don't get much of a sense of space. Brass is missing expression, especially noticeable on the longs. Generally speaking it sounds a bit more mechanical than it could with some more expression thrown in for everything.
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The pipes in general have an unnatural quality to them, but I play the pipes, and to be honest, I haven't found a realistic sampled pipe yet. Bagpipes are a weird instrument, very difficult to play on a keyboard even if you do have a good sample set.
I would agree with the above critique on all points. Particularly the composition is good, but the mixing/mastering is off. Guitar should be a bit louder, drums a bit quieter, everything needs a bit of EQ to clear out the mud. A multiband compressor can work wonders in the mastering too.
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That's one of the advantages of Cubase Expression maps... You don't have to care what any given library uses. I wish every DAW would pick that up.
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Awesome, I will pick this one up when I get a chance. I actually ended up using Cinematic Synthetic Drums in my latest single. Great work you do.
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If I had to guess, I would say your ASIO device is the default sound device, and firefox is grabbing it at start up for some reason. Some apps will let you share the ASIO driver for playback, while others require exclusive control. Good ones let you choose whether it is exclusive.
I use the onboard sound as the default and run it to a mixer with my audio interface. All audio apps use this, default win crap uses the onboard, and everything is happy.
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I keep a standard template for orchestral pieces, and remove tracks I don't need once the basic composition is done. My standard template uses 5 16 out instances of kontakt:
1 Percussion (4 frequently used patches loaded, 4 empty slots)
2 Strings (fully loaded)
3 Brass (3 albion brass patches loaded 5 empty slots)
4 Woodwinds/Piano (Albion woodwinds hi/lo plus a piano, 5 empty slots)
5 Synth (8 empty slots)
In this template, all empty slots already have their midi tracks and outputs enabled and routed. This makes it fast and easy to add new sounds with minimal hassle. I also have all tracks going prefader to a reverb bus so I can get a basic feel as I am writing.
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This is the first track from an album following the concept of the machines taking over using the information we post. Let me know what you think.
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I was also looking at the AKG K701's. What do you like/dislike most about those?
I was looking for a second set of headphones and bought the Q701s after 8 years with these if that says anything. The are crystal clear, I can tell exactly where in a mix things are off. Many people consider them to be bass shy, but I find that they just are not bass heavy. You can hear a 30Hz hit just fine, on some systems which push more EQ into the low frequencies, they seem shy, but they match up with my monitoring set up well, which is within 3db from 26Hz - 20kHZ+.
My only real complaint is that there is a break in period. I never believed it when I bought my K701s, but when I bought my Q701s which are supposed to be the exact same headphone, they sounded different to me. I let them play for about a week without listening and they suddenly were in line with the K701s.
They are harder to drive than the specs would suggest. But I have driven them with everything from my mixing board to high end headphone amps over the years (Schiit Lyr, Meier Aria, Peachtree Decco). They do sound slightly better on the Lyr or Decco, but you are well beyond diminishing returns at that point. The mixing board is fine, the Scarlett 2i2 is not recommended.
At this point, I listen for pleasure to the Q701s driven by the Peachtree Decco, I listen to record/mix/check my master on the K701s driven by the Yamaha mixer.
Any headphone suggestions?
in Music Composition & Production
Posted
There are 2 big changes:
1) MK2 has a slightly different fit, it is supposedly more comfortable and a bit easier to get the correct sound out of them.
2) MK2 comes with 2 cables, one coiled, one not.
The drivers are the same, the sound is the same (provided you have them on snug). To be honest, the regular K240 studios at $85 are a great deal.