music creation software question - Page 2

Hey, people.... Adobe Audition v2 rcoks.. and fixes all for me. Live monitering is built into it. Version 1.5 might have it to, but it was to hard to find the settings for it. The newer version fixed all my monitoring issues. You can control the latency of the responce time of your sound card and all.. so sweet!

Tho's MAC's have nothing on us, PC's!!! yeahhhaaaa!

Do you really want me to comment on that one?

Trust me you probably dont Of course I could comment on it on the PC side of things as well, Linux vs Windows

Audition 2 worked on its sequencer a LOT, I havent used it yet myself, but the strength of Cool Edit and Audition 1.0-1.5 was not the sequencer, it was the single file editor, which I hope they havent neglected in 2.0

It sounds to me like you just want a decent sequencer There are still better than Audition out there though trust me, but Audition may be a very good place to start.

Seablade

Yeah, I am not to interested in creating music from the software program, just editing what i have recorded. And Audition will do that for me just fine.

Would be nice to see a comprehensive chart that would provide a comparsion and good- better- best rating system on the most popular sound programs out there, that might direct someone like me starting out.

On a slightly different topic: Does anyone know what PC program that will write sheet music from a pre-recorded sound track or write on the fly (live), while recording?

Most notation software can fill out sheet music from Midi notes I believe.

In as far as your chart... Good luck. You will get a thousand opinions on things about a thousand different software programs, from a thousand people. Noone will agree on a good better best system unfortunatly, we are all to biased

Seablade

Seablade, thanks for the responces you have given already.

My input for the notation software, would not be from a midi file or midi device. I am looking for something that will write sheet music from a pre-existing wave or mp3 file.

You would probably have a hard time doing that. The last time I used software like that was stuff that would identify guitar chords etc. It never worked well, technical details as to why would take me to long to write, just leave it at it never worked well for me.

Seablade

SB, you mentioned earlier in this thread that you use Ardour. What type of set-up do you have for that software? Your running a linux system?

Also the Ardour site mentions "low-latency multimedia work". I was wondering what that involved exactly. Is that just refering to the audio performance?

When recording, what do you record the sound too? Just hard drive space on your computer or do you have a seperate external recorder? If a seperate recorder, what type?

Well first let me point out that when using Ardour you are actually using two things, one is Jack which is a low latency audio subsystem, the other is Ardour.

Jack is a VERY cool program, the closest equivalent on Windows is ReWire, however Jack I find much more powerful and flexible myself. It allows me to route audio between programs as well as between outputs and inputs on my soundcard(s) and any combination thereof, so long as that program supports Jack. On OSX this is any program that uses CoreAudio. On Linux you can get almost anything into Jack, but sometimes it takes a bit more work for older program, or programs especially corporate written ones that stupidly decide to use OSS for their audio. But most audio programs intended for pro use on Linux use Jack. Its the consumer programs that tend to be the problem.

I use Ardour on two machines, one is my main workstation that I dont have out here with me on this gig. That is a straight linux box set up for two things, audio and basic 3d modeling. Primarily audio though.

By low latency, lemme try to explain this...

Latency, in this respect, refers to the difference in time between audio being played back and audio being recorded. It mainly comes into play when you are tracking, or recording one or a few tracks at a time, and layering the rest of the tracks on top in other sessions. This can show up in two ways, one the audio being recorded being slightly behind the audio being played off the computer, or two, is the audio recorded is monitored as it is recorded, resulting in it being heard slightly behind when it is performed.

Most true audio sequencers are set up like this, Audition 1.5 and earlier were not capable of it really, but with the update to 2.0 it may be, again I havent used 2.0 to be able to comment.

Many sequencers now have latency compensation(Ardour is included in this) so that the only true time audio latency is a problem anymore is for live performance.

My current audio workstation for examples sake I run at <3mS latency. That is lower than the human ear can really hear, it can tell under certain circumstances that it is there, particularly with two identical audio signals, and delays that small are used for positioning of audio in live performance sometimes(Delaying Front Fills vs Stage Sound vs Center or Stereo Clusters) but for recording purposes not many people run lower, though I have run mine at 1.5 before jsut for grins and giggles and could probably do lower.

The other machine I run it on is my laptop(Mac OS X G4 Powerbook) for some semi-portable recording work I do on occasion(Typically recording voices and the occasional sound effects for a show). Anything I need a truly portable recorder for I have a marantz for, though I am looking to replace that because of noisy pres, there is an interesting linux based portable workstation coming out I may look at, if not Ill probably go for a HD-P2 or something of that quality for my next recorder.

On my workstation I use an RME card to get the audio in, I used to use a Roland interface, but had a few problems with stability at 96kHz so I replaced that. Considering it was one of the first to do 96k I was pretty happy. I tend to record straight to HD, If I can I use a seperate HD than my system drive, ideally I would use two HDs, one to record to and one to playback off of, but at the moment I dont have that set up. Ardour does have a nice capability I havent played with yet to take a JBOD array and turn use it as a RAID array for your recording session, woudl be fun to play with but I havent done it yet, I have heard good reports from some people that have.

I have considered external recorders, but for the work I do, a HD is a much better bet, cheaper, safer, and easier to work with. I would(And do with my Marantz for 2 channels) be using external recorders to do live recordings though if I didnt want to haul my workstation in, and my laptop wasnt availiable. They are nicely set up to do 24 track live recordings for one like the Mackies etc.

For the record obviously Ardour is not the only tool I use. What I use depends on the application, I have ProTools, but I consider it vastly overrated anyways, I do however use it for audio for video projects I do, though the next one I am going to try xjadeo slaved to Jack TC to do that in Ardour and see how that works.

I also use ReZound and Audacity for my single file editing, ReZound is a nice program, unfortuantly only maintained by one person primarily and very slow in development as a result, though he does an excellent job. Obviously I have a high opinion of Audition 1.5 and earlier version for single file editing, and they are great basic sound effect cue builders. The other thing that Audition and Audacity both have, and I believe slowly other software is starting to add, is frequency spectrum based editing for single file editing. This is one of the coolest features and most useful at times for myself personally.

Now the one thing that has to be brought up is running VSTs in Linux. I have a Mac on hand specificly for this I am going to start routing audio in/out and use as a VST server myself. The reason for this is that thanks to steinberg's licensing, it is somewhat difficult(Read illegal) to include native support for VSTs in most open source software. Along with this is the need to osupport the GUIs of the VSTs, which is typically done thorugh software called WINE, which translates native system calls for windows into the appropriate LInux calls. While it works decently in a lot of instances, it still is not a garuntee that it will work, so whatever doesnt work on Linux for me I will be running on my Mac. However taking a look around lately I have seen deecent luck with many that I use or will be using(Such as Kontakt) so I will try the linux approach first myself, but it is tough for many newcomers to linux to understand, and even considered difficult by people that have been around a while.

So in other words, running Ardour and Jack on a Mac can be a good balance at times for those that dont need the flexibility of linux(Or headache depending on who you are

Seablade

Wow, that creates more questions then answers. It going to take me some time to learn what 60% of all this means. I want to learn it.. so i'll might have more questions after some research, based on what information you just provided.

Go ahead and ask. I dont nessecarily say Linux is the best for everyone, I do think it or Mac OS is better than Windows in many cases myself. But using linux typically means learning a LOT, both about how your computer works, and how linux works.

Seablade

Getting an audio station up and running, assuming your card works out of the box, is easier on linux than any other platform. Just install jackd, the jack control center, ardour and rezound and your done.

I'm gonna tackle ardour again. I'm getting my us-122 back today so i'll see if it works in Dapper. I really hope the kernel module is enabled. I got my audigy2 working with ardour, but I really don't want to use that card.

Seablade, I can't find any info on ardour's midi sequencer. Does it even have one? If it does, how does it compare to Cubase's? I need to be able to work with a click track so I can program drums properly and I need some kind of quantanizer because my keyboard playing is beyond terrible.

yeah, i hear that... i'm currently planning on building a linux box for a server with raid storage.

Here are the gutt's of the system: (we might fine tune it before ordering)

• ASUS P5MT-M Socket T (LGA 775) Intel E7230 Micro ATX Server Motherboard
  
• Intel Pentium D 930 Presler 800MHz FSB LGA 775 Dual Core Processor
  
• OCZ Gold Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model OCZ26672048ELDCGE-K
  
• Areca ARC-1220 PCI-Express x8 SATA II Controller Card
  
• Lian Li PC-V2000Bplus II Black Aluminum Server Computer Case
  
• Thermaltake W0101RU ATX 12V 2.0 Version 550W Power Supply
  
• (4) 300GB Hard drives

So i'll need to be learning linux for this system. If you have any thoughts for better parts for same price let me know.

Honestly, I think it's a no brainer to go the Athlon X2 route now. You can get a dual core 64 bit machine really cheap with all the price cuts going on. The amd64 arch is very well supported in ubuntu.

If you really like Intel then that machine should be fine too.

Please explain this further. A Marantz what? And what is the portable workstation your looking at?

Which RME card do you suggest i look at? Which model do you have?

What type of media would you be recording too if you got a external recorder?

Which Mackie are you refering too?

How do you use VST's in your recording or editting?

I will not be running anything on a Mac any time soon. Trying to make do with my windows PC and my Linux server (which i am planning to build in mid September with raid storage).

So the US-122 has a interface that will allow you to record multi-tracks to your PC via USB? am i understanding this correctly? Did you pay around $155 for it? Would there be any reason it would not work with Audition 2?

Well, I paid a lot more than $155 for it. It's a USB1 audio device that works well for multitrack recordings. I got it because it's one of the few usb audio devices supported in linux. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get it working in linux yet.

I have used it with cubase and have had decent results. I get about 5ms latency with cubase and I'm sure I can do better with jack in linux. It has controls for realtime output (forget what it's called atm) which is extremely useful. My audigy 2 is a pcmcia card so i'd have to get crappy cable adapters to get it to work plus I wouldn't have any external controls. The US122 only needs a usb connection to work.

Ok going to take these one at a time....

Well I tend to believe a true low latency setup requires customizing the computer fo rit which still can eb a bit tricky for newcomers BT. You and I might be able to do it rather quickly and much easier in Linux than other OSes, but we are both used to Linux and understand how it works.

But a decent setup is still default in Mac OS, I was running my laptop(Powerbook) with 5-6mS latency compared to my workstation out of the box with a MAudio Firewire 410. Thus I would lean toward for most people Mac OS is probably the easiest.

Ardour doesnt have a Midi Sequencer.. yet. Any drum fixes we still do by hand at the moment, takes a bit of time. However for your reading pleasure.....

http://www.ardour.org/node/237

Midi tracks are a SoC project for this year. I havent heard how it is going yet though, so well see how it works, I would probably expect it to be set up in Ardour2 though instead of .99.x series. I also wouldnt expect it to soon, so in the meantime there are a couple of other options, RoseGarden is very good for Midi work, not so good for audio work, and Muse tends to be a balance between the two. Personally I do much more Audio than Midi(Though Midi will be starting shortly for me as I move more into musical composition along with sound effect building and recording, I will probably be beta testing the Midi funcitons in Ardour when I get to that, I also tend to play)

I believe the US-122 does work, but then again I think you and I went through a lot with problems on that card earlier if I remember right? That was a while ago.

Seablade

A Marantz PMD-670 is what I have now, but I dont reccomend anyone buy it because of the Pres being somewhat low quality. I get around that by using the Line ins to record and using external pres, I may pick up an Apogee Mini-Me to take with it sometime, still deciding what to do with it. At the moment though I dont have the money to replace it and do some other stuff I need to, so it is being put on the back burner.

The one I am keeping my eye on is a new company called Trinity Audio Group, they are doing something I was considering, and licensed some technology from Echo for the audio componets. Echo may not be the best but they do do decent stuff so I will be waiting to hear how good the pres are on it. If they are decent it may be useful. It records into Audacity on Linux, but they are working on other options, personally being Linux means that it will be easier for me to customize if I need which I like, and Audacity will work fine for simple 2 track recordings.

My other options would be a Tascam HD-P2 or the Edirol, I believe it is the R4 that is a 4 track recorder, and just did a decent price drop not to long ago to make it desireable over the HD-P2 now, only like a 200 dollar change.

Keep in mind these are primarily for recording sound effects for me, though I do 2 track recordings off the board on shows I run sometimes on the Marantz I have with good results.

The only one that I am aware of that doesnt work in Linux is the FireFace unfortunatly. Other than that one RME was pretty open with Linux development, providing detailed specs on their machines to a LAD developer who wrote the drivers, much more than I can say for many companies, while still not providing drivers, it does mean that their drivers work very well.

I would reccomend looking at the sound card matric(Compatibility list) on alsa-project.org if you are looking for something that works in Linux.

RME in General are very good quality, however sometimes that arent your best bet depending on your budget as many of their things dont come with Mic Pres and are intended to be used with external Pres, which for many budgets isnt feasible.

Um most multi track external recorders like I was referring to all go to Hard Disk, but I believe with a custom format on many of them.

The HDR24/96 was what I was referring to, having used previous ones on occasion, however I cant find the thing on Mackie's site anymore....

At the moment I run them on Mac or I dont(Use LADSPA on linux instead) however I will be tackling VSTs on linux as my next project once I pick up the new version of Kontakt, but if I cant get the ones I need running I will be using an iMac I picked up for playback for shows I run as a VST host and run that alongside of my workstation. Obviously running the VSTs in linux is preferable, just tricky.

Completely understandable.

Keep in mind in reading all of this, my primary work is in theatrical sound design, so my equipment and work is all based around this. This means some musical recording, but more sound effects recording and mixing. ALso means I do some seemingly arcane things, for example on my last show I mixed into 10 channels for my cues. It gets more complex at times

Seablade

As long as the US-122 has ASIO drivers, it shouldnt be a problem is my udnerstanding on Windows(Which keep in mind I havent done my audio on Windows in a while so take with a grain of salt But I believe it should work fine.

Seablade

Well, I finally got my Tascam US-122 working in linux with jack/ardour. Only took a year! It helps that Dapper supports realtime audio monitoring by default so I didn't have to recompile the kernel.

If anyone is interested in audio in linux this site has helped me a great deal so far: http://ubuntustudio.com/wiki/index.p...%2C_Musicians! (everything has worked perfectly in my 64bit system)