Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

lowonthetotem wrote:

Please pardon these questions if they are sophomoric, but is there a difference between a DAW and "sound production software."  And, if anyone has an opinion about which of the systems is best, I'd like to hear it along with reasons why.  I look forward to your responses and thanks in advance.

No essential difference. In fact, Cakewalk (maker of Sonar LE) even uses the term 'DAW' on their promotional info. Strictly speaking, a 'DAW' implies a combination of software plus some sort of hardware interface to get the signal into and out of the computer in which the software operates.

Last edited by edosan (2009-01-06 09:26:52)

lowonthetotem wrote:

OK, thanks to Cafeind's input, I decided on Cubase.  The problem now is that I cannot record because my sound card is not hefty enough.  Does anyone have suggestions for a quality sound card for a Windows system that will not break the bank but still allow me to record?

I was using an M-audio fast track http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6829998005 It's really nice and cheap, around $100. I found it difficult to use, but it works. I used Audacity for software but it looks like now it comes with some software.

I'm far from being a sound engineer but I think what my problem was is that my vocal mic (a shure sm80 knock-off) wasn't the right impedance for the computer. The sound card took care of that problem, but considering the difficulty in getting it working, it probably would have been better to just buy a USB microphone. Maybe you've already got a USB mic and I'm way off base. As it is, I want to do some more recording but am slow getting around to it because it's such a hassle. It seemed an awful lot easier to just press record on my old Teac 4 track, but those were the good old days and gone forever.

edosan wrote:

I may be wrong here, but I don't think the M-Audio product is the issue. The sound card is IN the computer, the M-Audio thing is the INTERFACE; the hardware which gets things like mics, synths, guitars, et al into the computer. In addition to the sound card being too slow/low on RAM, your processor may be too slow to do the job as well. In addition, your hard drive read/write speed may make a difference—not necessarily if you're recording only a couple tracks, but if you lay on more tracks (unlikely...), the system may choke. In fact, if it's an older box, it may choke with only one or two tracks. I had a similar problem with my previous computer, on which I used an M-Audio 420 interface, but the cpu just couldn't quite keep up.

It's possible, and not difficult, to replace the sound card in your PC with a faster/bigger one, but the processor may still not be up to it.

I think your sort of right in that the M-audio fast track device I mentioned is an interface, but I think the M-audio device also bypasses the computer's internal sound card. I was using alsamixer with it and the text at the bottom of the alsamixer window said the sound card was M-audio's when the device was plugged in. Without the M-audio device plugged in alsamixer indicated that it was the Nvidia card being used. I'm not sure but I'm assuming that Lowonthetotem's problem is similar to mine, and the M-audio device is a solution but I'm not sure if it's the best. I wasn't having any problems with slow processing or anything, but without the M-audio device I couldn't get anything recorded without tons of static no matter what settings I tweaked on the Nvidia sound card via alsamixer (the recording I made with the static is on my myspace page titled "Aftershock"). Part of my difficulty with the M-audio setup is probably that I didn't really know what I was doing, it may actually be an excellent solution (at least for the problem I was having) but I still wish it was intuitive enough to not become a day long project just to get my computer to record.

I use Logic (Mac) I love it.

I've used a lot of these recording devices before and the way they work is that THEY become the soundcard for the program.  what you have to do is select the M-Audio device as the input/output device.  it completely bypasses your onboard soundcard in the laptop.  the selection must be done from inside of cubase or sonar or whatever.  you must select the device for each new track that you use.   i'll see if i can get some more clear directions and post them. 

yes, i'll admit that it is very complicated....but....that's why i use Adobe Audition 3.0........ i can't stand cakewalk products....   they're incredibly difficult to use and besides...they're both more for MIDI manipulation.  they can do audio stuff too.. but it's not their strong point.     it will work really easily with Audition...

i'll post some directions later today

jacques

nice songs Jacques!!

BTW...you're no slouch yourself there geni...  what mic did you use on the Lullaby for Taimu?  It sounds really up close and personal.... i really like that.   some shakuhachi recordings sound too far away.....yours is just the sound i'd want....

jacques

Logic (eMagic) 4.7 program  is the last cross platform program b4 going exclusively Mac. 
eMagic / Logic is the best midi / audio program. I prefer it over the upgrades, as it has a great notation component done away with in the newer versions like Logic Express and Pro, (believe it or not).
I have the last disc they made, I could rip you a copy-

jaybeemusic wrote:

some shakuhachi recordings sound too far away...

jacques

Isn't a lot of the reason for this that the recordings use too much reverb? I'm sure you could get that far away sound with almost any mic. I understand the importance of the mic characteristics, it's just that a lot of those nuances get swamped with the recording engineers post-processing.