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March 2002
Posts: 15682
Location: SoCal | I'm a newbie at recording. I've got Powertracks Pro Audio (Version 11), and and M-Audio Fast Track interface. Forget the actual recording (of which I have no idea how this stuff works), so far I'm just having trouble getting the Powertracks to read the Fast Track. I hate this stuff. There's got to be an easier way. |
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January 2007
Posts: 672
Location: New South Wales, Australia | I'm hopeless with that stuff too. The sum total of my recording equipment is an old Sanyo radio/cassette player with a little red button that says "record".....I push that and away I go. That's as easy as it gets but the results are questionable to say the least.
Sorry for being less than helpful. |
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November 2005
Posts: 4833
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | pay someone to do it.
Get a cassette recorder.....gawd I miss my Tascam Portastudio. |
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December 2001
Posts: 7247
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | There will be a clinic at the NW Gathering.
Hopefully it will clear the fog a bit. |
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March 2002
Posts: 15682
Location: SoCal | There will be a clinic at the NW Gathering. Hopeful it will clear the fog a bit. Send me your notes.
Seriously, I feel like I did 12-15 years ago, when we'd get the kids a Disney game to play on the computer, then I'd spend two days on the phone with their tech department trying to get it to work.... |
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September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | Originally posted by moody, p.i.:
I hate this stuff. There's got to be an easier way. I know what you mean. After a couple years of looking and testdriving, I just committed and dove into the most user friendly manual I could find.
All 328 pages of it. |
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March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | ". . when we'd get the kids a Disney game to play on the computer, then I'd spend two days on the phone with their tech department trying to get it to work . . "
I've heard-tell that Goofy has a problem with annunciating properly over the phone . . . |
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May 2003
Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | I remain a ludite in this regard. My recording studio consists of a four-track tascam casette recorder and an alysis mixer. I know, I'm a chicken when it comes to technology. |
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December 2001
Posts: 7247
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I will give you a hint, as this learning technique is quite opposite of what many of us have learned.
DO NOT READ THE MANUAL!!!. SERIOUSLY!!!
The "MANAUL" which even Sonar now calls a "REFERENCE" is just that. You do not need to confuse yourself with all of the extra things in most recording packages that you may NEVER use. There are significant features and tools in Sonar that I can honestly say I have NEVER used, and I've been recording with it since it was called Cakewalk and was a DOS program.
What I will be demonstrating are the basics of HOW TO RECORD, and the source will be a guitar. It doesn't matter if you are using a $19.95 Radio Shack cassette player, Sonar hooked up to stacked 24 track digital recorders, or Pro Tools. IT'S THE SAME.
Essentially, there is STILL record, PAUSE, PLAY and REWIND. A sound SOURCE and a RECORDING media.
What you SHOULD do with the REFERENCE is look things up AS YOU NEED THEM. All you need for that is the terminology.
Also, find the forum for the software you are using. It exists, and I don't even know what you are using, but it exists. In those forums you will find people just like you, doing just what you are doing, or trying to do.
Bottom Line, as with ANY computer program. It will be MUCH easier if you learn the "process" BEFORE you use the software. As example, I won't teach someone Word, until they KNOW what a document is. I won't teach Excel to people that don't know what spreadsheets are and how to use them. Neither a Document, nor a Spreadsheet needs a Computer. But if you know what they are and how to use them, create them etc.. learning the software is a piece of cake. |
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April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Originally posted by Mr. Ovation:
What you SHOULD do with the REFERENCE is look things up AS YOU NEED THEM. All you need for that is the terminology.
Also, find the forum for the software you are using. Excellent advice. Also having a good INDEX in the manual is essential (and believe me, some of them really suck!)
Finding the forum that supports your software is essential. There are true EXPERTS out there that are glad to help the noobs....but be forewarned, sometimes they will tell you to RTFM or reference a page from it. They typically do this when they think the poster might be using pirated software.
I had a question with Cubase about a week ago and I looked for it in the manual for almost a day. Posted my question on the forum and had 3 usable answers within a 1/2 hour.....should've gone there first!!!!
Anyway, great advice Miles. |
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December 2004
Posts: 2150
Location: Orlando, FL | So Miles, any chance of anybody video taping your clinic?
I'd happily pay for some clear and concise help to get started. |
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December 2001
Posts: 7247
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | We'll see about the video, It's going to be more of a "workshop" so it might work out... |
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August 2005
Posts: 3736
Location: Sunshine State, Australia | Originally posted by Designzilla:
So Miles, any chance of anybody video taping your clinic?
I'd happily pay for some clear and concise help to get started. +1 |
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October 2005
Posts: 4081
Location: Utah | Originally posted by Mr. Ovation:
What you SHOULD do with the REFERENCE is look things up AS YOU NEED THEM. All you need for that is the terminology. For me that was a huge hurdle. I would know what I wanted to do, but not the terminology to look up instructions on how to do it. Having a basic understanding of recording using real studio hardware would be very helpful before using software at home. If not, the online forums can be a big help. |
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May 2005
Posts: 486
Location: North Carolina | What I really like about using a recording software program without reading the manual is when you spend hours getting several tracks recorded. You look at the screen and see all the waves lined up neatly; you have a feeling of accomplishment. Then you click on a button and - poof - the whole thing disappears.
Then you go scrambling for that manual (after your heart restarts) |
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April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | save frequently and remember that most DAW software has an "undo" button that often restores mistakes! |
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April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | ......double post....... |
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December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | That's definitely worth repeating!  |
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December 2001
Posts: 7247
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | A unique aspect of audio recording is that unlike a word or excel file that you could easily have pages of stuff "in memory" and loose it if you forget to save... the inherent nature of audio software is that it's ALREADY ON DISK by time you see the squiggly lines on the screen.
Now things can happen, but in general, the worst thing you may have to do is start a new session and locate the files and import them.
A good rule of thumb, is to SAVE AS before you do ANYTHING. Open the software however you do that, and immediately hit save and give it a name. I have had issues where I've recorded several tracks without saving the project, and then lost them because the audio that was recorded was in a "temp" state and just disappeared when the software closed.
If a project is named, in most any of the popular brands of software... 90% of your worries are gone. I have actually had Sonar crash during a record. The disk lights were still flashing like the computer was still recording. It was !!! After reboot, I opened the project and there were all of the tracks. |
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August 2005
Posts: 3736
Location: Sunshine State, Australia | Miles, are the files from all the different programs compatible with each other? For example, if I recorded something in GarageBand, could I email it to someone so they could add something using Logic? |
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April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Not in the sense that you could record individual tracks but they could export their song into a wave file which could then be imported into another DAW than the original. This would allow you to add onto the original but you would lose a lot of the mixing and editing capabilities.
If you did it that way, you would want to have a pretty decent mix before you sent it off. |
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December 2001
Posts: 7247
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | It depends on the programs. Some have import/export from each other, but Stephent's method is what I use the most because I know it's going to work...
However, you don't have to just dump a final mix. You can just solo each track individual, insure the entire length of the song is selected (takes extra space,... so what), and save each track in it's entirety as a single mono track, or if it's a stereo track (which is confusing sometimes) as such.
Label the names of the tracks so they can easily be imported with whomever is importing knowing what they are importing. An old fashion track sheet is useful too.
A program like Sonar, I can take a group of tracks, select them all and do a SAVE AS and select "mono tracks" (I think that's the box) and it will dump them all in one swoop named whatever I have them named.
This also works for import where I can select a gaggle of tracks and if I recall (it's been awhile) it prompts for the track to start loading at, and just put them in one after the other.
By the way, if you do output individual tracks for someone, as a courtesy, give them a mixdown too. |
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OT: Recording Equipment
