The Glade 4.0

So, I know we have quite a few musicians here, but how many of you are working with Recording software? I've outgrown the LE version of Ableton that I'm currently using, and I'm looking into various other software options. I'm personally trying to find the best "jack-of-all-trades" software that I can use for entirely electronic music as well as live music composing/editing/mixing/mastering.

Who's using some DAW/recording/MIDI software they love, and what are you using it for (recording live instruments/performers, entirely digital music)? I really like Reaper but it doesn't seem like it compares with Ableton for Midi recording and layering.

I'm afraid I'll be of little help. I've scratched the surface of a few DAWs, but I don't know enough about any of them to give any useful input.

My only purpose for recording is to record my practice sessions so I can play them back and see where I need improvement (which is usually everywhere).

Since my needs are exclusively for guitar, and I don't play live or use mics, my needs are simple.

I attended a Roland/Boss product demo a month or so ago, and while there discovered the perfect practice/recording tool for me and my needs.

Boss eBand
http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetai ... rentId=248
Note cheap at $400 retail.... (I got it at a discount at the product demo I attended at a local music store)

Its clock radio sized, and has tons of COSM amp and guitar effects pre-programmed. You can also customize and create your own patches.

It has a USB and MicroSD slot for external storage, and has a USB cable that connects to your computer, where it becomes an Audio device, which can interface directly to your DAW or whatever.

The cool part for me is, you can upload your favorite songs in MP3 or WAV and play along with them. You can associate your favorite amp and guitar settings and save them. You can set up A/B loops within the song and set them to repeat so you can practice certain parts, and it has speed control and pitch shifting, so you can slow songs down to work out the harder bits.

And lastly, I can record my guitar either separately, or over the top of a backing track.

It's really changed the way I play and practice.

Anyway, this is probably not really what yo are looking for, but I thought I'd mention it in case anyone is interested.

Propellerhead and REASON are incredibly powerful, though I'd suggest having another suite specifically for mastering recordings.

Ableton is generally a DJ tool more than anything. It's kind of supposed to be the next step to DJing on vinyl and CDJ/DVDJ/HDDJ/MMJ in that you should prepare your track selection by also having the all composition tracks as well. That way you can mix not only through time, phrasing and key matching, but you can mix instrumentation and create arrangements in real time at DJing speed.

Not many DJ's have tried this live, as the prep work alone is astronomical and normal track selection already exhausts most DH's creativity.

FL Studio (i use this, combined with many VST plugins)
Cubase
Sonar
Logic Studio (mac only)




I really only have experience with FL Studio. I don't use any of the plugins it comes with, but I do like the interface. It's loop based, but it can be used linearly like Cubase/Sonar/Logic/Pro Tools/Digital Performer, etc.. honestly if you're doing live stuff at all Ableton is going to be your best bet. I make music by myself, one track at a time, so FL Studio suits me well. I also found it really easy to use and I've tried to learn other programs and I always get frustrated with that as it seems like the effort could be spent on more important things like song writing, or masturbation.

You can make any type of music with any DAW program. I use a very wide range of different VST plugins....real orchestra samples, real choir samples, synthesizers, effects, mastering suites....anything out there really. You can also record audio...I've had tons of fun making drum and bass tracks and recording electric guitar over them. You can use microphones or direct inject...one of the plugins I have allows me to select an impulse response file of specific guitar cabinets / amps / preamps and get very realistic high quality sounding guitar / bass tracks.


I have a few old tracks I uploaded to my personal site. I made these about 4-5 years ago, haven't done much recording since. Many of the tracks just started out as noodling around with newly installed programs for a few hours, and never expanding on the ideas. I never really intended to release these tracks because they were mostly for my own experimentation and edification rather than to make a finalized product meant for enjoyable listening. Someone talked me into uploading the tracks late last year, so I did. Also, I'm sure this community will recognize and appreciate some of the mp3s I have on there:

http://www.surrealnoise.com


those were all created in FL Studio

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Ron Paul 2012

Excellent feedback, thanks guys! I think you're right Nevan, FL studio probably isn't going to work for live stuff, but I'm definitely going to check it out for any loop based stuff I'm doing.

Also checking out Reason, I remember when propellerhead was just starting to get off the ground with Rebirth, man that was a fun program.

I like REASON just because it's so simple but expandable and customizable. You can take one simple patch and with a few side chain filters expand on the same idea but make it much different. Then when you take into consideration amateurs are sharing their patches and ideas, you have a huge versatility for sound.

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