Music Software???

[Harvey]

Well i know some of you guys play and i've just bought one of those little Digitech all singing stomp-boxes that has a USB out on it, so i was wondering if anyone could recommend some good recordiung and/or sequencing software. I've tried Cubase but find it a little too much as i'd prefer somthing more like a digital 4-track than a Mackie with enough outboard to launch a space shuttle.

TIA

[GrahamB]

GarageBand is frankly superb, and incredibly easy to use for stuff like this.... but you need a Mac.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/

[Harvey]

Well since i'm not gay and have an iButtplug, that's out

[Darth Rock&Roll]

audacity is free and is really quite good.
you can only throw down one track at a time, but you can click track and multitrack overall in one project.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

for all intents and purposes, it is a handy dandy free recording studio for your pc.

cubase is super high end stuff, so yeah, it gets heady.

audioforge by adobe is cool too, but it is about 400 bucks.

[Steve James]

Whaddya gonna record, btw? Is it live recording or manipulating previously recorded (audio) material? Audacity is good for the latter, and you can get it across platforms. You might have some fun playing with Linux media disks. They have all sorts of goodies. When you get to sourceforge, do a search.

[Harvey]

Mostly live, i've a mate with a nice Yamaha digi kit and i play bass & geetar. But something that i can do some rudimentary sequencing on as well would be nice but basically something that works like an old skool 4 track would be good.

[Steve James]

Well, I think that Audacity could do the trick. Check it out. I've never tried multi-track live recording with it, though.

[GrahamB]

Well, I think that Audacity could do the trick. Check it out. I've never tried multi-track live recording with it, though.

It can't do it, afaik.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

audacity doesn't do multi track, only one at a time.

which is not unlike how professional recording is done anyway. lol with the exception of live off the floor type recordings where the whole band plays and you lay down teh vocals later.

usually it goes like this:

a click track is laid down in the tempo desired for the length of the tune.
the next track is laid down, either a drum or bass track
the next track is laid on top of that, can be anything.

last track down is vocals.

every track you lay down, you record while listening to the former tracks.

it's a reiterative process, but it allows you to do a bang up job overall.

[Harvey]

No i'll be using the classical method as that's how i used to do it on a four track back in the good old days