I use Garage Band for a lot of my midi track stuff, but it only runs on Mac.
There is a fairly comparable program put out by Sony that one of my students uses. I'll ask him what the name of it is.
Edited to add---I'm disappointed you didn't ask me to be part of your band. ;)
Thank you liz. From what I've seen of Garage Band, I like it. The hombre who is recording the band I'm in uses Logic and I'm amazed at all of the plugins, and other tools. Unfortunately, both of these are for Mac only, and I'm running Vista.
The Sony program that your student uses is probably either Sound Forge or Acid. With the price of these programs (between $300-1000) I really want to make sure I get one that will do what I want. I want to be able to record, but I also need to be able to do live midi.
PS.
You can definately be in the band.
“Oh Lord, give me some pontiff pumice To scrub the sin grease off my hands…”
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
You're gonna use something running on Vista at a live gig?!
You are a brave man my friend...!
Don't get me wrong - I'm not an anti-Gates kinda guy. I've got an XP - Cubase combo, and for the most part I love the socks off it. But I wouldn't dare let it leave my little recording studio. It regularly freezes up on me...
If you have a few $ to burn, you might wanna consider a dedicated hardware sequencer / hard disk recorder unit for rock-solidity. But then - yeah - you'll miss out on the variety of plug-ins etc.
I think the Mac - Pro Tools combo is known to be pretty solid...
Oh hang on - I forget. You're starting a Christian Rock Band.
Jesus will keep all essential processes ticking over I'm sure...
RenegadeOfPhunk wrote:You're gonna use something running on Vista at a live gig?! You are a brave man my friend...!
Don't get me wrong - I'm not an anti-Gates kinda guy. I've got an XP - Cubase combo, and for the most part I love the socks off it. But I wouldn't dare let it leave my little recording studio. It regularly freezes up on me... […]
Yeah, it does add another potential thing that can go wrong at a gig, but as we currently don’t use keyboard and it will just be added “fluff,” if it crashes mid show it really won’t be that big of a deal.
I was just going to get a keyboard, but then I realized that if I use a computer I will have much, much, much more capability when it comes to instrument sounds (not only capability, but quality as well… like recording some midi sax). I just need to find a program now that will actually do what I need.
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
Doctor Steuss wrote:Yeah, it does add another potential thing that can go wrong at a gig, but as we currently don’t use keyboard and it will just be added “fluff,” if it crashes mid show it really won’t be that big of a deal.
Ahh ok. Fair enough.
Well - in that case - I think most of the suggestions already made are pretty good. I've always been a Cubase man - that would certainly fit your system requirements and would do all the stuff you want - and more...
And to be fair, my studio PC used to be pretty much rock solid, but I recently added an extra USB MIDI doodly-daddle and that seems to have caused problems. (It's a pain, but it's really handy for using the Virus I have - and it's only for recording so I put up with it.)
If you keep your system 'light' and find the right combination of devices for MIDI, audio etc. you'll probably be OK.
RenegadeOfPhunk wrote:[...] Well - in that case - I think most of the suggestions already made are pretty good. I've always been a Cubase man - that would certainly fit your system requirements and would do all the stuff you want - and more... [...]
Cubase is definately something I'm considering. I'm also thinking about Adobe Audition, REASON, ACID, or Cakewalk. Sony and Steinberg tend to look like the two company's products that will give me availability to the most plug-ins.
Dunno.
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
Reason's great, but I don't know if you get a whole load of room to maneuver with it. Does it even support plug-ins? I only used it a couple of times quite a while ago, so not sure. I'm pretty sure it's the least customisable out of the bunch you've mentioned.
Cakewalk is pretty 'Cubase'-ish from what I know.
Not sure at all about Adobe Audition or ACID.
But as far as plugins - yeah - hard to think of what you couldn't get your hands on as a VST plugin...