Home Studio - Home Audio Recording
 

It has come to my attention that some of you guys tinker with music recording like I do. I'm mostly recording bass, guitars, & vocals. I want to try some new shit and I could use some help. (I didn't want to hijack the Line 6 thread so I started a new one)

1. What type of software do you guys use? I've used Cakewalk Home Studio in the past & it does OK. (I am not an Apple guy) I've heard good things about Acid.

2. The thing that always kills me is drum tracks. I don't have a drum set so I have tried a fer drum simulators, but the sound bad. I also have a drum machine which sounds good, but is a huge pain in the ass to use. What do you guys use to do this?

1) I have a legit copy of Pro Tools 8LE for PC with the majority of plugins from WAVES with an Avid DIGI003 rack.

2) Toontack EZ/Superior Drummer

So basically you can use ToonTracks "EZ Drummer" to map out the drum beats of your creation. Once you get those into MIDI format, you can then open them within Toontracks "Superior Drummer" and mix them better than any real drum you could possibly mix. It's becoming quite standard as real studio's close down across the country that drums are being manipulated within Superior Drummer/Drumagog/Slate/etc. The technology is just too good.

Of course if you only use the Preset that you start out with, the drums are going to sound fake... but within Superior Drummer you can adjust the bleed from every single simulated mic in order to create a realistic sounding room presence. It's quite phenomenal.


Mapping MIDI beats is very time consuming, and if you are getting technical with rolls and fills, a total pain in the ass.

The way I do drums is to record them live in my home studio and then use Toontracks software "Drum Tracker" to turn those real recordings into MIDI beats. Then I can manipulate the tone from there.
Drumtracker is not perfect, you still have to do some manual labor of beat detection, but it will shorten the task quite a bit.

I do home recording as a hobby. My setup is laughable but the songs actually come out quite nicely.
1. I use Cool Edit Pro 2.1 which is software from 2003. Cool Edit was bought out by Adobe and is now know as Adobe Audition. I've tried Cakewalk (because it came with a pedal I bought), but I find Cool Edit to be far superior in terms of tools and usability.

2. I use an analog drum machine from the 80's. It's a Roland R-5. It sounds great but is a bit of a pain in the ass to program.
I also have my old drummer play on some tracks. I'll lay down all of my stuff to a click track, mix it down and send it to him as an MP3. He records his drums and sends the files back. (I've found dealing with a real life drummer to be more of a bitch than my programming my prehistoric drum machine).
http://www.dancetech.com/aa_dt_new/h...nd_r5_main.JPG

Peter Quistgard is that you?

I've used Adobe Audition with good results for a long time. I have a friend who is a Senior Audio Engineer at NASA and he has a home studio as well and he swears by pro tools.

I like your recommendation for drums too. If I need drums for anything, I send the file to a buddy of mine and have him play and record it.

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong. I wish I had Pro Tools but I've heard it's super expensive.

It's tough to find a guy who'll do that well. My buddy's dad had a home studio when he was growing up. It had the huge soundboard, reel to reel recorders and all that jazz so he's into both his drumming and the audio engineering aspects.

ROFL Rep.

Pro Tools 7 has been cracked and is out there on the torrents.
The problem being that you need an M-Powered compatible audio card, like older M-Audio cards. (Delta66 or Delta1010)

If you can pick up one of those cards for under $100, you will have a decent setup for the cheap.

Haha, I was imagining you not understanding that and thinking to yourself, WTF?!?!?

SM-57 -> ADC -> Line-in on my PC -> Goldwave. Am I DIY low-fi punx yet?

Exactly, which is why my buddy Peter Quistgard (he has a LOT of friends doesn't he?) set me up with Adobe Audition. It's really a pretty good recording program for being so "old."

Oops, wrong thread!

I was actually thinking of getting Pro Tools even though it costs about 5x what everything else costs. Some guys at Guitar Center here use PT & so that seems like the only way to get tips & whatnot. I just wish I knew other people around here I could bounce ideas off of. What's so damn special about Pro Tools?

OK, what's the difference between EZ Drummer & Superior Drummer. Do I need both? It looks like EZDrummer will do the entire track.