Qooper on 1/7/2006 at 15:34
(
http://qooper.ath.cx/Qooper%20-%20Lonely%20Spacewhale.mp3) http://qooper.ath.cx/Qooper%20-%20Lonely%20Spacewhale.mp3
Finished that one just now. I used the demo version of FL Studio to create the song. The "whalesong" was done by using a guitar amp -plugin and a microphone held to the side of my throat. The other sounds were the outcome of five software synthesizers, one of which I downloaded from (
http://www.kvraudio.com) KVRaudio.
When I first downloaded the fl demo, I wanted to give it a 10 minute test to see how much I could do with it in that short time (to see how powerful and effective the software is): (
http://qooper.ath.cx/flstudiotest.mp3) result.
So what hardware made this possible for me? At first I had a crappy soundcard integrated in my motherboard. This obviously wasn't going to offer me much other than eternity long latencies. A few months ago I decided to get (
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FireWire410-main.html) this babe. It's really handy to have an external firewire sound card. No more going under the table and behind the computer to handle cabling. What the heck, here's an image for those of you who like to see threads with images:
Inline Image:
http://www.m-audio.com/images/global/product_pics/big/firewire_410.jpgDoes anyone else here use M-Audio's products? I've been really pleased with the FireWire 410 soundcard. It's got a very low latency, and even when I fire up a CPU hungry VSTi the performance is great. :)
Next thing I'm planning on buying is some studio software. I've currently got my eye on FL Studio and am quite fond of it (even though it's more than a bit toyish), but I might go for Cubase later on. After all I can't use the demo of FL Studio forever.
Tonamel on 1/7/2006 at 17:47
Hey, not bad. Which guitar amp plugin did you use?
I have an (
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UA25/) Edirol UA-25, which is similar to yours, but not as fancy. The best part is that if I need to record somewhere other than my main computer, I can plug it into a laptop and record pretty much anywhere. Very handy.
As far as software goes, I'm a huge fan of (
http://www.mackie.com/products/tracktion2/splash.html) Tracktion, which has a totally redesigned interface, so it's pretty different than most other hosts. I don't think I could live without the Racks, though. Pure modular goodness, they are. But really, it just boils down to "try a bunch of stuff, see what works best for you."
Qooper on 1/7/2006 at 19:41
The guitar amp I used at first was the (
http://frettedsynth.asseca.com/ampsims.html#FreeAmpSE) FreeAmpSE, but somehow I got better results when I tried (
http://habib.cba.pl/?vst_extr=1) Extremist, so I decided to use this one instead.
I see your soundcard has a built-in compressor. Very nice! I also noticed it connects via USB. I've heard someone say it causes higher latency, but is this true? How has your Edirol performed?
Tonamel on 1/7/2006 at 20:04
There are only latency issues if you're trying to record more than two sources at once over USB. Any more than that, and you have to upgrade to something with USB2. However, the UA-25 only has the two combo ports, so it's not an issue.
Phantom power is delivered directly from the USB, too, which is extra sweet.
trevor the sheep on 2/7/2006 at 13:14
Can't get to your site mayn.
Qooper on 2/7/2006 at 14:48
Yea sorry about that. My ISP was having some problems, and I was locked out for 18 hours, starting from yesterday evening. It should be fixed now.
