MadGav's studio needs sorting out

[EvilDragon]

Interesting how VAZ is Windows only, yet you use OSX regularly?

DAW stuff I need to consider:
- Ease of use with CV output plugins, being able to set a mono channel to no panning so 0dB meant 0dB would be handy
- Easy to use drum sampler (Ultrabeat...not!), the S1 one is nice, Reaper would need a plugin and nothing cheap/free which suits on OS X?

Reaper doesn't have mono tracks per se, but you can set the routing pins in your CV out plugin so that only one channel is used...


About sampler, check out TX16Wx which is free... and very capable. It's not a drum sampler, it's a sampler (and it can actually sample).

[xalama qo]

hey MadGav, i might have missed some important details as i scanned this post, but have you considered Cubase Elements or LE. They have some limitations on track count, etc, but both include the Agent One drum sampler.
I have Cubase 6 Elements. It gets registered to your harddrive, so no dongle needed. I went off Cubase for a while after SX3 etc, but have found Elements to be a joy to use.
I have the limitation details somewhere in my docs, so i can dig it out if you're interested.
I believe Cubase supports true mono audio tracks. (?)

[MadGav]

Interesting how VAZ is Windows only, yet you use OSX regularly?

Indeed, the Mac thing was driven by my wife, but postdates any VAZ major releases...

[MadGav]

Have you considered Cubase Elements or LE.

Cubase is in mind, I need to do some testing with Cubase and even have a dongle for the purpose so I will do this test. A pro for S1 if I could afford to buy before the end of August is that my wife could also have a copy (5 activations per license).

As a total aside I've found that Logic 8 Pro goes for just £40-50 on ebay.co.uk...! (so not much to recover there...)

Martin

[xalama qo]

coolio, good luck!

[MadGav]

I've had a brief play with MuLab, my main concern is that it's not really set up for tracking, which I will be wanting to do with the analogue synths. Has anyone done this with it?

[VariKusBrainZ]

Ive got a Live8 lite license I dont need if you want it

[secretkillerofnames]

So i've been messing around with my workflow lately... swapping out synth plugins for external synths (still using VazMod though ) and looking at what works best.
I haven't tried ProTools, Cubase or Studio One but I have tried the following DAWs:

[deep breath]

Logic 9 + Mainstage - Workflow not to my taste though undoubtably powerful. Too much setup time before using - seems to be better for virtual stuff though Mainstage adds an interesting live workflow (that is again not to my taste)

Digital Performer 8 - I had a go at the trial of this and gave up after a week. It is super hefty and not immediately intuitive. If I was getting paid to do sound design I would spend more time trying to learn this as the "Chunks" workflow seems to really suit working on short bits of sound. As a part-time sound lecturer with occasional projects i'm too much a hobby musician to justify it. Still... it looks good.

Ableton 9 - I had gone off Ableton 8 so was surprised to hear that a largish game design studio had adopted Live 9 as their primary DAW. It actually seems to me to be very stable and runs super light on CPU and RAM. This is currently the most useful DAW for arrangement and live usage though I would not use it for mixing and production. It has more than enough versatility and with Max For Live and the full Max/MSP/Jitter/Gen product I think a fair amount of future proofing.

Numerology 3 - This one is designed to be used for controlling external (and internal) synths and with a Launchpad is an easy to use and very fun step sequencer with extras (like flexible routing, multiple AU hosting, separate channel recording.) I was hoping I could use this instead of Ableton 9 as it has exactly what I want... alas there is some kind of bug in the Aux Send which adds a buzz I can't get rid of into my output and send/return routing. Which kills it for me. Hopefully the creator can fix this.

Reaper 4 - I've used this since the start of version 3 and paid for it at Reaper 4. It has some quirks that are awesome and some that are annoying but any other DAW I use has to be AT LEAST as good as Reaper before I dump it. It's pretty easy to get started in but probably the main annoying thing is the routing is difficult and annoying (not as difficult as Logic but also seemingly not as useful) In the experimental music and computer game / installation sound art area that I somewhat fit into... I don't know anyone that uses ProTools. Everyone either uses this or Audition (see below)

Tracktion 4 - Routing is great - workflow is a bit confusing. Compared to Reaper I found it difficult to use but it certainly seemed promising for the price. I would compare this to Mulab.

Mulab 5 - if I needed a self-contained DAW equivalent with equal emphasis on Audio and MIDI this would be the one. Reminds me of what i've seen of Fruity Loops but with a smaller footprint and much cheaper. Being able to modularise most of the generators or effects is very nice.

Adobe Audition CC - I remember using Cool Edit Pro a decade ago and it was "the shit!" Audition is a buggy piece of crap but for me it competes with Reaper as it adds a few useful features (integrated wavefile editing, excellent noise reduction). From what I gather it is only useful for mixing / mastering though - I've no idea how to get midi working on it or even if it is possible.

Usine Hollyhock - it is a stretch perhaps calling this a DAW but it does feature RACKS so... This seems to be the future (from my perspective) of creation. It's similar in idea to Mulab in that you can modularise everything but it happily chucks out any need for timeline based production. It's some parts of Audiomulch and Bidule with the depth of Max/MSP. I would say it is still heavily in development though. The previous version (5) has 1000s of DIY modules built by users with the SDK. If the same goes for Hollyhock then it will be an awesome tool but at the moment it seems relatively slight


All my opinions and i'm probably wrong on some things.

[MadGav]

Ive got a Live8 lite license I dont need if you want it

Thanks for the kind offer But having had a quick hunt to find the limitations of lite I think it's so limited I'd be better trying the full thing unregistered (and of course throwing away the results at the end of the session). The killer for me is stereo out only i.e. no extra outs to use for for CV.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Ive got a Live8 lite license I dont need if you want it

Thanks for the kind offer But having had a quick hunt to find the limitations of lite I think it's so limited I'd be better trying the full thing unregistered (and of course throwing away the results at the end of the session). The killer for me is stereo out only i.e. no extra outs to use for for CV.

Fair enough

Definitely check out the full version of Live with m4l.
With a couple of controllers and some decent midi remote scripts its amazing for playing, tweaking and recording on the fly.

http://fabriziopoce.com/download.html
http://julienbayle.net/ableton-live-9-m ... e-scripts/
http://isotonikstudios.com/
http://www.controllerism.com/launchpad9 ... enri-david
http://www.nativekontrol.com/Products.html

Those are some links to controller scripts.

Think of them as like Automap on steroids and turn Live into a hardware style tool ie you dont need to touch or look at the computer


Heres the best source for m4l devices
http://maxforlive.com/
and other stuff
https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/categories/downloads/

No wonder I never get anything done

[MadGav]

And to throw a 180... I've been considering hardware which could sequence synths over MIDI and do some drums, Korg ESX-1 is leading the list.

[Kire]

And to throw a 180... I've been considering hardware which could sequence synths over MIDI and do some drums, Korg ESX-1 is leading the list.

iPad?

[MadGav]

iPad?

Equals staring at a screen (after a day staring at a screen), so no!

[Kire]

iPad?

Equals staring at a screen (after a day staring at a screen), so no!

Yamaha RM1x/RS7000 has alot of possibilities for sequencing of external synth's and has pretty good internal sounds.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Have you looked at the Ableton options of the remote scripts or m4l devies with various controllers?

Can turn the APC40, Novation stuff and quite a few others into sequencers in various guises.

Or is it the limitationa of hardware that forces creativity in a different way?