Oh nooooo, one musician more has changed to the other side...

Well, I have two beers now...

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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

[This message has been edited by Sheriff (edited 04-30-2005).]

My laptop is very simple Ed. Just a 2.8 gig P4 and 1024 mb ram. The hard drive is a mere 40 gb, but I'm going to be upgrading that eventually. It also has a USB quattro soundcard / midi interface. It's basically the "synthesizer" and effects box portion of my setup. I sometimes run my Motif ES midi output into it as a controller, via Usb. I do have Sonar 4 on it, as well as FL studio, so it can become a portable recording daw as well, but it's main purpose is to be the host for my Vst's. The Vst's on it include Absynth 3, Pro 53, Jamstix, Imposcar, NI's B4, RGC Pentagon, Chris Gill's Superwave series, and Arturia's CS80v and Moog Modular. Effects include various kjerhaus and Voxengo plugins, Ampltitube and Guitar Rig, and the Antares microphone modeler. I also have Steinberg's Hypersonic, Edirol's Super quartet and Kontakt, with several commercial and freeware soundfonts, and quite a bit of samples. The samples are the reason I need to upgrade the hard drive. It's getting filled up quickly.

My PC ,a 2.4 gig Athlon with 768 mb of ram and 80 gb hard drive, is the "tape recorder", and sequencer-daw, and that's where I'll normally use Sonar and those type of apps, especially if the laptop is running some CPU intensive plug-ins. I also use apps like Jammer pro and even Band in a Box, and if need be I can simply switch the Motif Es to non usb midi mode and run it into the PC as a controller via midi cables into my Midiman Audiophile card. I also kept my SB live, mainly just to host / edit soundfonts. I use Mackie Acuma labs plugin, along with a few Voxengo plugins, Steinberg's wavelab, and sometimes Adobe Audition for mastering.

So, I have a good bit of stuff, I guess, but neither computer is very extravagant. My next one will be a dedicated machine, with a couple of seperate hard drives. Stripped of as much of the unneccesary windows apps as possible, although in both of my current computers, I've removed as much as I can think to get rid of.


I might even bite the bullet eventually and get a basic Pro Tools system, and some higher end soundcard / midi interfaces, since we are slowly moving more toward making this a commercial studio setup.

I'm not even entirely sure that Pro Tools is worth it, or that it's going to be so much better than what I have now, but .. it's generally what the pros use, for better or for worse, and I suppose most modern studios have it, although I see Nuendo in a few as well.

AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 05-02-2005).]

Why not a SCSI barebone? You would need a SCSI card for PCI slots only and then you could connect your SCSI drive tower. It works fine and SCSI is mostly the better choice than IDE...


Nuendo isn't really a studio software. Nuendo was made by Steinberg for building trailers and videos. It's the better choice if you plan to create your own movie with soundtracks.
For working in studio surrounding Steinberg has built its Cubase MX/SX (a modern version of my Cubase Audio).
Sonar4 seems to have a little bit of both programs. For this fact Sonar4 isn't very expensive. Maybe I will buy some new studio equipments but as long as my Falcon is running I won't really need it...

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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

Thanks. When I decide to go shopping, I'm going to have to look you up Sheriff. I have a pretty good working knowledge of midi and how to integrate and work with software, but there is still much for me to learn about hardware I think.

I suppose I could "get by" with Sonar.. lol.
I did some tracks for a local artist at a smaller studio near Woodstock a while back. I did not get a chance to lok at the entire computer setup, but I know he was using Nuendo, somewhere in there, because I saw it. I'm no expert on Cubase or related stuff though. I used it a little on the Atari Platform, but went to cakewalk on the PC. I don't know how many pro studios are using Sonar though now. I plan on researching a good bit before we do anything major though.

AJ

Okay, you're right, I have to add one thing...

Nuendo isn't really a studio software BUT you can use it for that too. Nuendo provides the ability to work in network surrounding. You can use vst and mix it with movies, waves and some more stuff. Each computer in this network can work with a part of the whole arrangement.
You can use (for example) one PC for supporting the video tracks, one PC for supporting vst, one PC for supporting wave tracks and one main PC for collecting all parts into one arrangement - this can be done in real time! And that's really professional I mean...

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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

Pro Tools was indeed once considered to be sort of a world standard for har disk professional studio recording ; those days are gone.
Sure, one can spend the mega bucks on Pro Tools setup but is it really wirth it?

I used to record with digidesign hardware years ago and back then there wasn't anything besides TDM anDAE that did the job. Today there are so many other options...
So many I can't even fit them onto this page.

BTW, even when I used Digi hardware I used Logic as a front end. I find that even though they make good hardware their software is rather limited and is designed for sound engineers who live in the SMPTE world as in oppose to musicians who just want to write music,
So AJ, if you are planning to expand your setup then expand the hardware side of things. Stick to using the software that you are comfortable with.
Mind you, being a software fanatic by hardware I mean computers and audio interfaces.


-ED-

[This message has been edited by 3351 (edited 05-03-2005).]