Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: Mar. 22 2001, 16:53 |
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I have to say that Cubase and I don't get along too well...
My personal recommendation has to be Digidesign's Pro Tools. This has a bit of a reputation for being expensive, but they're working hard to make the system cheaper. You can now get Pro Tools LE software, which doeesn't need the expensive Digital Signal Processing hardware that the high end systems use. They do two LE systems - Toolbox XP and Digi 001. Take a look at their web site ( www.digidesign.com ) and see which might have the kind of features you want.
With all that said, even the cheaper Toolbox system is much more expensive than a SoundBlaster Live with something like Cubasis VST or MicroLogic AV.
I personally feel that Pro Tools is more stable than most of the midi+audio sequencers (Cubase, etc) but that may just be me having bad experiences with those programs. A point to make, while I'm mentioning sequencers, is that although Pro Tools offers MIDI sequencing facilities, some of the advanced features that you may find in the likes of Cubase, cakewalk, Logic, etc aren't there - a big one that's missing from it is a score editor, which you may or may not want. You can always run a sequencer alongside though...I'll leave it at that - you can always contact me if you want to know more about it.
Other things you'll find useful (with any recording software) are...
RAM - Recording software tends to like a lot of this, especially if you want to run things like software synthesisers as well. I'm not sure how well you'd get on with running one of the current pieces of software with anything under 128mb. 256 would give you more space to work with...
Hard drives - It's best to have a fast (7200 RPM or higher) one for recording with. Ideal is to get an extra drive that you use only for recording to, but not everyone can manage that...Professionals like to use fast SCSI drives, but you shouldn't have any problems with an ATA/66 drive.
Of course, real time software effects like to have as much processor power as they can...
The microphone amplifier can affect the quality of your recordings a lot. I've never used a SoundBlaster card for serious recording, but I'd wonder what the quality of its mic amps are like...You might either want to buy a soundcard that has higher quality mic amps built in. The Digi 001 for example has two built in mic amps with XLR inputs (those are the three pin microphone connectors) with phantom power (certain types of microphone need power - phantom power is sent down the microphone cable and allows these microphones to work). There are also products from manufacturers like M Audio which have similar facilities.
You could also plug in a 'voice channel' or a small mixer to do the same job. A voice channel has a mic amp and some other things, generally an equaliser and compressor (something that controls signal levels). That could then plug into the line input of a card like the SoundBlaster Live. Another thing to look at would be a small mixer, like the Spirit Folio NotePad or something similar. That offers four mono inputs with mic amps and 2 stereo inputs. Things like that are often very useful.
There's a big choice of microphones...One like the AKG C1000S is quite nice if you can afford it - it's a condenser microphone, meaning it can capture more detail than a dynamic microphone (like, say, the Shure SM58). That would be good for recording acoustic guitars. Condenser microphones need power, however. The C1000S can be battery powered as well as phantom powered though. There's also the Røde NT3 which is a similar price and has similar features.
The SM8 is a very popular microphone and you can get some good sounds with it. Similarly priced are some of the Sennheiser Evolution series, which have recieved good reviews, and there are also some from AKG...and other makers...
There's a lot of choice out there really  I could go into more detail on some parts some other time - I think everyone knows where to find me...
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