If it was your money?

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My “ideas” were meaningless. I was in an unfamiliar technological maze. It took a good year or so to get a grip on the basics.

It seems the greats, Phil Spector for instance, or Floyd on the Dark Side of the Moon, are the guys who hold
on to a, yes, VISION…a vision that is a sound—the technological maze is navigated until, and not until
the prefered sound is rendered…one should do a lot of imagination while writing the song, all the time
anticipating what gear will make it work—make it come true…

…otherwise we become Recording Engineers working for pay, eh ? ( not that there’s anything wrong with that )

Have you seen the movie WHALE MUSIC ? It’s about a retired old fat rock star who lives in a mansion with gear everywhere ( some beautiful reel to reels ) and of course he’s crazy and writes song for whales—but he
gets it so so right…

You guy have all gone through the technicological maze to make the amazing…
My strategy will be to begin with guitar and voice ( i can do tons of Dylan songs as well as my songs )…

This will give me experience in acoustics as well as just plain recording…of course i’ll edit to get the right
guitar, the right vocal, sounds…I’ll be using a $300 suspended mic for voice and an SM58 positioned
right at the the f-hole of the guitar, as well as a Dean Markely acoustic humbuking pick up—that’s alot of sound …there wil be sound bleed, but hopefully not too much to dis-permit a degree seperate treatment…because i want more chunky guitar, and vocal treatment, than most singer/song stuff, eh ?

Yes, the next path is to track all these independent sounds and get them in to the DAW…just to hear it’s seperate treatment of music, audio, my ears…



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Knitting is easier so I heard.
I prefer a challenge though :sunglasses:

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The challenge is challenging me already—and i don’t have a clue how to knit…

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Who is first ?

I’ve selected a friend of mine to record after i do the above mentioned—He’s gonna bang on a
tom and sing a vocal…he’s good at it

On second thought, in the interest of learning, maybe i should record him first rather than myself
…to not be troubled by my performance
…to give that second perspective on the performance of another



.

2nd opinion is always good, and an experienced musician is much easier to record in my experience, they just sound better and know how to use a mic properly.
Make sure you do some testruns before he arrives, so you have the signal flow figured out and you’re sure there’s no problems with latency/dropouts etc.

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Strophoid

Make sure you do some testrun before he arrives, so you have the signal flow figured out and you’re sure there’s no problems with latency/dropouts etc.

How do you do a test run ?

I suppose i should have gear already set up to do a testrun…i know abstractly about signal flow based on
my textbook reading…but latency, i hear, is a terrible mis-function, causing lots of frustration—What’s
to watch out for re: Latency ???..is it the demon everybody talks about ? —is it the greatest failure
of the DAW ?

What are dropouts ?

The artist is a friend of mine who hangs out here anyway—no need to worry bout his time LOL
…he will tap a rythm on " whatever " and sing a very throaty vocal, a quiet vocal like a raspy hum—it’s his song, and it’s my job to get it in the can, eh ?

That considered, can you suggest any treatment options for acoustic guitar first…a chunky acoustic, yes—i’m
building my trademark acoustic guitar sound—hopefully to out do others while representing my true self
…and for vocals, subtley distinctive, what to try with effects ?..any ideas for the drum or guitar tapping ?

Wow !!! first project: A guy and his drum !!!

john



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Dropouts and latency are related. Latency is the delay between a sound going into your audio interface, through Cubase and then back out till you hear it. Cubase needs a bit of time to calculate, as does your audio interface for the analog to digital and back to analog conversion.
The latency Cubase has (usually called buffer size) can be changed in the ASIO driver, usually from 32-bit up to 2048-bit or more (the higher the longer the latency). How much latency this results in in milliseconds depends on the samplerate (which you should leave at 44.1 KHz) and also a lot on the quality of the driver.
In general, you want your latency as low as possible without getting dropouts, which sound like pops, clicks or scratches. This happens when the buffer is not big enough for Cubase to complete all calculations. You’ll notice that this depends on processor load. A simple project with just a few tracks and no plugins will probably run fine on the lowest buffer size, but as a project expands you’ll find Cubase needs a higher buffer.

A high latency can be a problem when recording, because the performer hears a delay between his performance and what’s being recorded, which can make timing difficult. Some audio interfaces have zero latency monitoring which could be a solution in this case, and if you are using an analog mixer then you can create your own zero latency monitor mix for recording. When mixing it doesn’t matter how high your latency is, as timing isn’t critical here. Note that Cubase compensates for this latency, so whatever you’re recording at high latency will line up fine with the rest of the project, it’s just that the playback is delayed.

Advice on recording your friend is difficult without hearing the song :wink:. Usually on a vocal you use a compressor to create a more even volume throughout the track. You can do the same on the accoustic guitar. Use an FX track with a reverb plugin on it to create a sense of space in your track, send both the vocal track and the guitar track to it.

Use EQ to sculpt the sound of each track. Boosts are usually broadband and subtle, cuts can be very aggressive and targeted at specific frequencies. For example, you can do a low cut with minimum gain to get rid of the low frequencies of the guitar track, which will get rid of some rumbling noises from the frets or mic. You may also notice that some notes appear louder in the recording, because of your room. Use EQ to reduce that specific frequency a bit to compensate.

Anyway, there’s lots to learn/experiment with on this topic, I suggest you just go ahead and try things. If you get stuck, make a post in the made with Steinberg subforum and attach your recording so people can hear it and give feedback/tips.

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Thanks for the preparation info on this first recording venture—i’m going to refer to it like a book…
There are plenty of do’s and don’ts, and reasons why vis a vis latency/dropouts

Yeah, your message was helpful—a prelude to record
Also—and i don’t say this out of thanks—your English is excellent, clear and concise…have you considered
writing a technical manual ?..or something else that requires balance and precision ?
I finally understand the latency problem—but i don’t think i’ll be a bewildered newbie about it…chronic
latency is something i worried about in advance

The UR28M comes with it’s own driver…and since i’ll be working in Cubase 7 i expect top performance…Cubase
plus UR28M—That’s gotta be compatible…and besides, the UR28M has zero latency monitoring with all it’s
outputs…

Does Cubase have adequate equalisers to closely " sculp " the sound—or do i have to buy a 32-band unit ? If so
or no, is a multi-multi band EQ an asset ? In Cubase demonstrations i’ve only seen three way filters

Last, when you post a song in the " Made with Steinberg " forum is there, has there ever been, an issue
with copyright—just being paranoid of course




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Thanks for the comment on my English, I’m not a native speaker but I did take an intensive language course a few years ago.
With a UR28M you will be fine, it should work great with Cubase.
As for EQ, Cubase comes with several EQ plugins. The channel EQ is 4-band parametric which can already do pretty much anything you need in most cases. Next to that there are some multi-band EQ’s available as well, but not with as many as 32 bands I believe.
I strongly believe you shouldn’t spend any money on plugins before you know what you have in Cubase and you found the limitations of the included plugins. If you learn to work with what you have you’ll find you can come a long way without spending much money on third party plugins!

As for posting your songs here: You are not allowed to post music you don’t have the rights to. If you are worried about people stealing your track then check the legalities on the website you’re uploading your song to. I personally use Soundcloud, which lets you chose what license to publish your track under. I have not had bad experiences with that nor have I heard from someone else, but I guess once it’s on the internet it’s always possible for someone to steal it :confused: .

I would consider it a compliment if someone wanted my track though, but I can understand the concern if it’s not a track you wrote yourself.

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Would it be permited by the silent majority to wish a MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!..I have really got inserted into
the CuBase flow…you could say it’s my first seriousness re: a profession…If you are of a different faith
you know how to translate " merry " and " christmas "…may we all prosper in our recordings…eh ???



.

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technojungle

soon…






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Hi friends and experts

This thread was a prep for me to get a set up—thanks for that…i’d like to announce i’ve got two items:

  1. A Yamaha digital piano for $700…very nice, 88 keys weighted, 14 yamaha sounds, USB output (can i
    plug that into the computer or do i use analogue into the interface and then to computer?)…also, this
    is not just a trigger for cubase, it’s for developing musicianship…like a free form jazz-out eh?

  2. A Dell 8700 special edition on sale for $1000…Dell has three that go by this name—mine is the most
    modest (and we are waiting delivery so i can’t say much about it except: 4th generation 4770 Intel i7
    core…24GB RAM…32GB solid state drive…and 2TB hard drive…

I’m a little without knowledge about how the SSD works…for the time being i’m thinking of it as an
extended Cache or Memory serving data and directives to the processor…for instance Window 8.1 will
probably occupy some permanent space there 'cause it’s always in use—am i right?..

And i’ve heard that the SSD simply draws data off the hard drive and offers it to RAM or CPU as needed…
They say that “popular”, often used programs, occupy it…does this mean when i start a project on Cubase
that the computer gets smart fast, leaves the old project on the hard drive and boots up with the
new one ready to work with beloved non-hassles…or is there some manual intervention i have to do
to get this function ???

How much can a 32GB SSD serve up?..how much program can it hold ? …if Windows is, say, 2GB, does that
mean i have 30GB to play with ?

Thanks for your help earlier…i guess i’m getting started as some of you urged…i don’t think i’ve made dumb
purchases with these two ( the computer was agonizing to find )…

Now Monitors baffle me !!!..i’ve got $460 for a pair…looking at the Yamaha 5 inchers…8 inchers if there’s
money left…

Good luck in your work
jb+







.

Hi,

SSD’s are usually used as ‘normal’ harddrives. IE you install programs onto it just like you would with a normal harddrive. Generally people install programs to them and don’t use them for data storage. The response times of your software will increase a lot when they load from an SSD instead of a normal harddrive because the random access times are much faster on an SSD. I just reinstalled Windows 7 on my new PC on a clean SSD, you have no idea how fast that boots when compared to my old 7200 rpm harddrive. It took about 12GB to install just Windows 7 and another 3 to install Microsoft Office onto it.

While you don’t give exact model of your Yamaha keyboard, it’s hard to tell … but probably USB only carries MIDI data and if you want to record Yamaha’s audio, you need to connect it’s analog outputs to your soundcard/audio interface.

As Strophoid already said, it works just like a hyper-fast hard drive.

To be honest … it’s quite small in today’s standards. It was OK 6 years ago (when I bought my first SSD) to hold Windows XP and your basic software, but with Win7 (or 8) and modern software packages it requires some planning (or even serious IT skills) to fit everything into 32G.

If you’re looking at primary monitors at this price range I would recommend Adams or KRKs instead of Yamaha.

fwiw i give a different approach on the thinking.

a) an urm28u is high end but limited on inputs. That can be an issue on small studio environments. the quality difference for other gear is not such a big issue that it gives more direct benifit .
but when talking about being capable in number of channels that is something you will encounter very soon.
so that should be a first consideration imo.

personally i prefer motu, but even they are rather expensive.
i should drop the price on the audio interface and choose more inputs if the rest of the environment is not aligned with a high end environment.

b) i would spend more on the computer. you will not be the first who has spent a lot of money and then finds out that the system itself (where it all happens) can not cope with the desires. imho this should be the first and most important long term investment.

c) cubase yes

d) complete 9: maybe… it is a good choice.
but if integration is important, furture proove workflow and so on, i would advise halion 5 (sonic 2 you get for free) and some extra packages to start with.
complete is without a doubt rock bottom priced, but you get a lot of very old stuff that everyone has.

the integration of halion with cubase and the interface is without any comparison on the market.
as a longetrm investment i would advise that.
but… if you are new… you will get into a very steep learning curve.
this is top gear, but do not expect to know this within a day.

e) mic… do not forget a pop filter for your expensive mic :wink:

kind regards,
R.

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What is required too install more SSD ?..Do you know if the Dell 8700 xps special edition that i bought
permits it ?..It describes " expandability " and " 4 HD bays "—can it be done ?..is it just a matter of
inserting an SSD into a bay…?

.

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The keyboard is a Yamaha P-105 black…more than i’ve experienced yet—it caters to serious piano playing…
there are lots of subtle details to adjust…and i haven’t tired of the sounds: there’s one electric piano
where the low notes have a buzz if played hard, it’s cool…just like the keys in the intros to " Goodbye Stranger " or " You’re My Best Friend "…if you remember those tunes, eh ?

.

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Auditioning Monitors

You’ve picked out three or four pair of monitors…the sales guy knows your serious so he sets them up in
the quiet room…you’ve brought one recording you know well to playback on each pair ( is there a best kind of recording to bring ? )…Now what ?..they play, you listen, but some are unpleasant, so you elimate them…
what about the ones that sound great ???..HOW DO YOU AUDITION MONITORS ?..what can you
listen for ???..i don’t know how to detect " flat-frequency-response “…i hear that it sounds sort of " flat”
—but i would never let a " nice " sound draw me away from the accuracy of flat-response…it being the
essence of a true picture of of the mix. eh ?


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I would suggest a CD with a wide variety of material; A short piece featuring brass and strings for the upper ranges, another with a good kick drum and bass, another with panning effects for checking the imaging.
Try to pick out the individual instruments during play. Always take the specific speakers profile into consideration, specifically the design rolloff when listening to the extremes.
If you want to go so far, you might take an SPL meter to check the levels at various points in the range, as well as to establish a reference level (70 - 75 Db is generally good, but do a check at 95 - 100 to make sure there is no distortion (you might want to use ear protection at that point)) but also check with the speakers turned way down (dimmed) (this is where your familiarity with the material can be very important).

I recommend Alan Parson’s Soundcheck CD (this will have a lot of other material to check range and phasing etc., but there are a number of others available, or you can make your own. The recordings should be rather pristine - CD quality is perfectly good, but MP3s (even if burned onto a CD) are to be avoided. (The soundcheck CD can be purchased with a built-in SPL meter.)

Every room has it’s modes - even a “quiet room” so don’t let these fool you. If a given tone or frequency seems weak, move to a different spot (a few inches is usually enough) and it should get stronger. This is not a problem with the speakers but rather with the room acoustics. (Any room modes will also affect SPL readings.)

See how many SATA connections you still have available, most motherboards have 6 and each optical drive and harddrive takes one, just like every SSD.
SSD’s are 2.5", whereas regular harddrives are 3.5". Your case may have adaptable drive bays, and if not you can buy adapters that will let you mount a 2,5" drive in a 3.5" bay.