Fray

Yeah -- "monitoring" was the first thing I thought when I saw Zirc say it sounded way off and you said you thought it sounded sweet

Well, for one thing this test asks you to turn dithering off. Dithering really does make a difference in how good your music will sound, so if you use a DAW with crappy or no dithering vs. one that uses a good noise-shaped dither, the latter will sound better. I guess you could buy a separate app to do your dithering FOR you, but you might as well buy a DAW that does it right. Do all these DAWs support POW-R or something of similar quality? (Not a rhetorical question, I have no idea). There's a pretty strong degree of truth in what the guy in the KVR thread is saying though -- I think most DAWs have reached a level of parity in terms of how they handle level boots/cuts, panning, and that sort of thing. Four years ago that wasn't the case at all. I don't know if FL has a 64-bit engine in it yet. Obviously that would be a relative weakness if it didn't.

You probably shouldn't trust hardware reccomendations in those guides. They are very old (like over 5 years old). MIDI controller + software is usually the best way to start out these days. Or just software if you want to click stuff in on a piano roll instead of playing it on a keyboard.

Plus it's called "Cockos", which has got to be the most awesome name ever. Although I don't know that I'd buy a breakfast cereal by the same name... I like Sonar because the workflow of it seems to fit me well (although I admit my experience with the full versions of other apps is limited; I just liked cakewalk express a lot more than cubasis when I tried them a few years ago). It's generally well-regarded for coming with very good mixing/mastering plugins, especially in the Producer versions.

Active noise-cancelling headphones are generally not very good for mixing and mastering (with the possible exception of the Sony ones). Bose QC's in particular, while they are badass for plane rides, make no attempt to give you a transparent sound, which is what you need. So unless you have major construction racket by your house or something, I'd shy away from those. Sennheiser HD-280 Pro's are also a good $100 pair, and they're fairly well-padded, so if you're trying to block out noise from your computer fan or air conditioner, they'll be fine.

Sweet, glad that helped. I think people are going to flip when this hits the front page

Both versions already sound great. I think the compression helped. One thing I did notice, though, is that the lead instrument parts sound a little too quiet and lack punch, whereas the vocals have it. Of course you need to keep the instruments out of the way most of the time, but, for example, starting at 1:05 there's a question-and-answer going on between the guitar and the vocals -- it seems like the guitar should have roughly the same presence, but it doesn't; it's much quieter. This is a badass remix by the way.

Yeah I skipped 6 not because I didn't like it but because I've been a total slacker on the mixing front in the past couple of years. But I probably will get 7 -- for one thing I've really wanted the vintage channel from 6. That LP-64 EQ might finally replace the Timeworks one I've been using from Sonar 2 XL (the Sonitus one didn't tickle me as much for some reason). And the fact that they finally support sidechaining in 7 is really hot imo

Jeez, he didn't post anything THAT bad

I have a couple of synth modules -- an Evolver (which has analog filters, so obviously needs to be hardware) and a Roland XV-5050 that in theory could be replaced entirely with software. Don't get me wrong, I like the XV-5050 a lot -- it has good effects and some really nice presets, but bouncing back and forth between MIDI and audio can be a bit painful. I second analoq's suggestion that if you don't play your parts in live (I do, and then edit them as needed), it's going to be doubly annoying. One of the main things that makes me keep the XV-5050 is that it does offload a bit of work from my computer, so I haven't felt much need to buy a new one. But it sounds like your old PC is shot anyway. So I also nudge you towards the computer upgrade (either laptop or desktop like dannthr suggested).

Ok thanks, I will check that out Yes

From what I understand, an overtone or partial is by definition an integer multiple of the frequency of the fundamental. If you start throwing other frequencies in, I think it would sound more like a chord than a single note. I imagine there has to be some kind of tolerance (i.e. if you're nearly at the partial but not quite). Has anyone experimented with this? I've always been curious but I'm too lazy to do it, plus I've never actually had an additive synth.

Oh yeah, speaking of accessories, what preamp are you planning to use?

I like the Rokit 5s I have, although I haven't had much to compare them to. Rokit 8s will have better bass, so go with them over the 5 if you have the desk space (I don't).

Ultimate Answer: No. Just to confirm -- the two possible setups you're talking about are: #1 Piano -------(Audio)---- Soundcard | (USB midi) | PC USB Port and #2 Piano -------(audio)----- Soundcard | (MIDI cable) | Soundcard MIDI port In #1, the MIDI does not go to your soundcard at all. The piano's USB driver installed on your computer basically acts as its own MIDI interface, and you'll select it as the MIDI in/out in your DAW instead of the soundcard. That's fine, it's not going to hurt your latency -- the jitter and latency times on modern USB MIDI drivers are at worst within ~1ms of other interfaces. That's way less than you can notice. And there's the answer to your question of "Why only one MIDI port?" -- people generally only use the serial MIDI ports for older devices that don't have builtin USB interfaces. Plus that's what MIDI channels are for -- you can chain several devices together with MIDI cables; you're just limited to 16 timbres total.

Since we're talking about audio interfaces... does firewire have much of a leg up on USB 2.0? I know it's better, but by how much? Edit: oh hell, I'll just do a google search and answer my own question. From a forum post at tweakheadz: its an issue of performance. USB 2.0 allocates bandwidth differently from firewire. for 2 channel units there are soem stuff that works pretty good like hte Mbox 2 but larger interface, usb 2.0 is harder to keep in sync and more supcetable to jitter because of its design. the Design relys heavily on CPU for allocation of bandwidth, which the firewire protocol is not, meaning that there is many many more software interrupts and this increases jitter and latency. Firewire in general is more stable, because it does not rely nearly as much as the CPU to allocate bandwidth, and will achieve lower latency, and keep in sync easier because of fewer Interrup requests.

I know nothing about FLStudio, but you'll need to check whatever synth you're using to make sure it actually does anything in response to aftertouch. Most synths are pretty configurable in that regard.

Yeah there's a separate mute control for the line input. I think some of the creative drivers have an option where you can set which things get recorded when you select the card as your input source. Not sure if the Audigy has that feature or not, but take a look.

Eh, does your audigy by any chance have both a line input and a mic input? You need to plug into the line input.

Some nice deep bass pads can make a big difference too. Doesn't have to be real loud or anything.

If he was seeing double it would have been 110000. Or maybe 101000, if the double images were aligned just right...

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan07/articles/mixingheadphones.htm Is a pretty good article about mixing on headphones. It should probably be online for free in a month or so. And I agree, if you're in the $100 range, you can either get good headphones or crappy monitors. Go for the good headphones.

Nicholstein... you are now officially the goofiest person on this forum. <3

On this subject, is it bad to use a condenser too close to an amp? My understanding was that high sound levels could harm them.

If it's any comfort, I've been trying for years to get drum processing down and I STILL don't quite get it