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Posts: 39
Location: Augusta, GA | Hi everybody,
I'm looking to buy a Home/Computer recording software package such as Cakewalk. Does anyone have recomendations...I'm looking for something that won't brake my bank, that will be reasonably easy to use, and that makes a decent recording---any help?
Thanks,
Jake
'79 Baladeer
'01 Baladeer Special
'98 Ernie Ball Music Man Custom Axis Sport
'96 Rivera R5512 |
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Posts: 6202
Location: Phoenix AZ | I use Cakewalk Sonar which is very nice, but they make a less expensive version called Calewalk Home Studio for about $140. that has great capabilities for the money. Check out their website. I think you may even be able to download a trial version. Dave |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I use Sonar professionally. I have been useing Cakewalk since it was a DOS program years ago. I highly recommend it. As someone already posted there are "lite" versions for home users which have pretty much the same features as the pro versions just scaled down to number of tracks and such, but plenty for any decent project. Also, if you ever take the plunge and upgrade, the file formats are the same. |
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Posts: 39
Location: Augusta, GA | Cool...how do the recodings sound? |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Sadly, the recordings only sound as good as the input. Yeah, you can do a lot of "fix and mix", but I'm always limited by raw talent. Dave |
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Location: NJ | digidesign |
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Posts: 39
Location: Augusta, GA | What is digidesign? |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | If you are using a MAC, Digidesign Pro Tools is a cool suite that comes with the hardware also. It was an industry standard for a long time in the MAC world. I think there may be a stand-alone lite version of the software that works in Windows, but it's hard to tell from the website.
http://www.digidesign.com/ |
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Location: closely held secret | It's also noticably more expensive than Cakewalk Home Studio.
How much is your budget? |
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Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | +1 on Cakewalk (Pro version here, although I'm a rev behind...on purpose).
Cakewalk GuitarTracks (I think that's the name) is also interesting, but IIRC couldn't do all that I wanted. Might check that out, too, although it's not strictly a 'home recording' suite on the level of Sonar, Cubase, etc. |
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Location: closely held secret | Here's a link to a great board for all things home studio. Lots of pros post on it, you'll find more advice than you ever knew you wanted, on software, hardware, gear setup, whatever. |
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April 2005
Posts: 39
Location: Augusta, GA | Got it...My budget is under $200 for this. I'm computer savvy in other areas, but I don't know anything about home recording programs. I'm looking for the best combination of: ease of use, quality, value. Can you record vocals on these programs, also? If so, how do the vocals come out? |
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Location: Orlando, FL | If you use a Mac, try GarageBand. It's not in the same class as ProTools, but I got it recently and it seems to do a lot and has some nice features.
http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/
Only $99. |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | You might also look at Riffworks from Line6. Pretty cool with nice features for under $100.
I personally use Cubase, Cakewalk, and Reason depending on what I am trying to accomplish.
Like Dave said....rubbish in rubbish out. No program can fix a crappy recording....and I have many examples of crappy I can send you as proof! |
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Location: Fayetteville, NC | I always Liked Cooledit Pro. The 2nd updated version was a better version to work with in Multi-trac configuration. They were bought out by adobe and the product is now sold as adobe audition.I have alot of Producer Friends that use it for Radio Production Too. |
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Posts: 7247
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Ya know, I'll tip the derby to CoolEdit Pro also. I never used it much for recording, but as I recall they had some great simple/easy to use effects for noise reduction. Now I use Sound Forge for any straight audio work like that, but I remember CoolEdit really living up to its name. |
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Location: Fayetteville, NC | Country Artist Blake Shelton recorded his CD exclusively using Cooledit Pro. a friend of mine says it works best using afew other software programs along with it like T-racks. He says it really warms up the the recorded material. |
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Location: Augusta, GA | anyone know about how much $$$ for this Cooledit Pro program? |
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Location: closely held secret | It's not available anymore. It's now Adobe Audition, and they gutted it, IMHO. |
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Location: Scotland | I'd second Garageband. Comes free with all new Macs and got me started recording some of my better efforts ( which unfortunately aren't much better than my poor efforts). As far as I can tell it has just about everything for someone starting off and I've found the learning curve pretty easy so far. Like the idea of having it on a laptop so I can take it with me round to friends' houses when we jam as well. |
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Location: Fayetteville, NC | I played with The adobe Audition program adn it's Identical to Version2 Of Cool edit Pro. They added a few things but it basically works the same.
Jake, I shot you an email. |
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Posts: 39
Location: Augusta, GA | Cool..Thanks Steve. Jim, I'm guessing that they don't make Garageband in a windows version? |
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Location: closely held secret | OOps, sorry, scratch that last post of mine - was thinking of a different package.
Adobe Audition sells at about $299.
If you just want to get your feet wet with audio recording, try Powertracks . It's actually the first program I started out with (use Cubase & Acid now), but for $49 it really has a lot of features.
Basic Cakewalk Home Studio is good, too, at $150, tho for $229 you get a lot of additional effect plus the Dyad sampler. |
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Location: NJ | I'm considering getting into this as well . . .
What're some of the minimum BASIC hardware requirements (PC) you guys'd recommend? |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Mac. |
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Home Recording Software
