Narcissism Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 Hey everyone, I'm looking around and I haven't had much luck aside from some trial versions of cakewalk and some other program that i used that had 2 tracks on it. I was wondering what programs everyone used to record as far as multitrack software goes. If anyone has free ones, that'd be awesome! I just got my wii drumset plugged into the brain that i used to have for my roland electric set a while back, and it seems to work pretty nicely, so I can now record drum tracks through my bass amp! So I would like to write some more songs and hear them somewhere besides through the voice in my head, lol. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudz Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 Try audacity just do a google search on it. It's free, easy to use, and has many features. It may not be what professionals use but it works well and sound quality is good. It's free sou you can easily download and try it and just delete off of your computer if you don't like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpcrash Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 http://audacity.sourceforge.net Works very well for free software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesy Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 +++1 for Audacity - it's the default free audio software Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psw Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 +++++++1 for audacity here... Not all the bells and whistles, but they can be confusing anyway...but as a completely free software it is the default and worth having for lots of purposes for basic recording of audio to a computer in the windows format.... Of course Mac users (which I am not) have garage band which is supposed to be very good and comes "free" Audacity can accept open source tools like reverbs and stuff that you can download as extentions for it and has a basic set of things like fading and such. As I recall you need the program and some conversion tool or something to generate MP3's and such...so read the instructions in the download part of audacity...probably some kind of driver. A lot of free stuff is for the dance scene, but a good basic drum machine is hammerhead...dance oriented, but can accept samples and you can download a number of additional "kits" into it, generate a drum track and then load that into audacity. As I recall, audacity can load and play midi, but there is no editing or direct sequencing as you would find in something like cakewalk...however, you may well find suitable software sequencers about...that way you can make some backing tracks from midi files for which there are thousands...and load them into audacity as well...and then record your guitar or whatever over those. While not exactly free...although I can't quite remember how I came across my copy of version 4... I have been using Guitar Pro lately and it is a super cool program. It is a great tab writer and composer...or normal notation using the mouse, lots of tab about...but it is also a midi sequencer... One cool thing I was using it for for a while was to get a midi file and download this into guitar pro and have it play all the parts. What is cool about that is that it tries to tab out every midi track. Now, while much of this is "impossible to play" on guitar...you can often find some essential riffs from other instruments or inspire new approaches to playing stuff that you might not otherwise have thought of. I was using it to load in elton john piano parts there for a while and you can get enough to do guitar approximations of things like "benny and jets" which is so typically piano in nature but still a great riff...and a new approach. But it doesn't need to be particularly keyboard type things, you can dig a little deeper into horn arrangements and stuff too... Regardless...such programs are sequencers and so can be used to edit midi files and make them ok to replace tracks with real bass and guitar for instance. So...there are a few tips...look for "freeware" at sites like tucows or just do a bit of a google search on 'freeware audio' and see what you can find...but audacity is a good place to start and less confusing than some. I was trying to get into computer based recording at one stage, but in the end I got a boss BR600 as a stand alone recorder, drum machine and complete effects suite. I got mine as new for half price because people often get something like this but soon get the bug and move on up to complete digital home studio things. But even with something like this, audacity is still useful. Something to consider however is your interface with the computer...there are some USB type things about, generally plugging into the sound card isn't the best. I when a little over the top with an edirol UA-25 but there are probably cheaper simpler things about. Such things though often come bundled with "lite" versions of the big name software. Mine came with a version of Sonar (the new name for cakewalk) which is pretty good, but a little more confusing compared to audacity but includes sequencing. It is not crippled, but it kind of starts making you want more things like add on effects, amp models or a drum module...obviously designed to suck you in and start spending big dollars. I have a relatively big vinyl record collect that I have yet to transfer over to CD, but that was a part of my reasoning behind getting the edirol and audacity would work pretty well for that purpose... Anyway...hope that helps... pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted January 10, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 Alright, i'll try the Audacity program. Thanks a lot for the help everyone. As far as recording goes, I really just want to get my ideas into an audiable form so i don't forget them. I have a tape recorder, but having one track kinda sucks. Plus, i'm really not looking for extra high quality or anything like that. Just something where i can say "computer mic... record this." and "program, record this track while i play over this track." and "other program, turn these 4+ tracks into an MP3 so I can upload it onto myspace" All the effects I need are in my crappy little Digitech RP50 which I run through my bass cab. I traded a Line 6 POD in for this thing, and it really does the exact same thing... only without the problems, lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imott Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 Reaper www.reaper.fm Loads of free plugins. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted January 11, 2009 Report Share Posted January 11, 2009 Reaper is only free for 30 days. Except, in not so many words, the owner/writer says, "After 30 days, you can keep using it fully-featured, but you should start feeling guilty about it and eventually give us some money for it." It's really about the best "free to begin with, and free unless you have a guilty conscience" software you can get, though. And if you decide to buy it, you're getting far more than your money's worth; it's at least worth a trial, no? If you buy even an entry-level audio interface some day, you'll usually get a "lite" sequencer program. The Line 6 stuff comes with Ableton Live Lite; the Mackie stuff comes with Tracktion, which is my commercial software of choice. But if you want absolutely purely free, you can't do badly with Audacity or Kristal (http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/index.php?section=details); though Kristal really slowed down in development after its initial push. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesy Posted January 11, 2009 Report Share Posted January 11, 2009 Those of us in the linux world are really lucky to have Ardour. There's even distributions like Ubuntu Studio that come with it pre-setup, and it is really great software. It's a full Digital Audio Workstation http://ardour.org/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psw Posted January 11, 2009 Report Share Posted January 11, 2009 That looks cool...I was thinking of taking an old computer and going linux on it one day...maybe that could be the motivation. Audacity is still incredibly basic no nonsense and useful... As far as reaper...I didn't see that trial thing...I saw a $50+ download thing...still it might be worth it... But...getting the sound into the computer is an important step and as GregP says, with even an entry level audio interface you will get a "lite" version of a major program to get you hooked. Even so...I still often find audacity easier and less cluttered and confusing to use for a lot of things. Plus, you have to consider computer power and memory...audacity tends to be lighter on the resources because of the simplicity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesy Posted January 11, 2009 Report Share Posted January 11, 2009 That looks cool...I was thinking of taking an old computer and going linux on it one day...maybe that could be the motivation. Audacity is still incredibly basic no nonsense and useful... As far as reaper...I didn't see that trial thing...I saw a $50+ download thing...still it might be worth it... But...getting the sound into the computer is an important step and as GregP says, with even an entry level audio interface you will get a "lite" version of a major program to get you hooked. Even so...I still often find audacity easier and less cluttered and confusing to use for a lot of things. Plus, you have to consider computer power and memory...audacity tends to be lighter on the resources because of the simplicity. I have a Digitech multieffects pedal that has a 96kHz sample rate stereo audio to USB interface built in. Ardour recognised it automatically (as well as the midi control interface). I made some test recordings, multi-track layer upon layer as you do in home studios, as was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the sound I got. You are right about resources required, and that's yet another reason to go to linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted January 15, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 15, 2009 well, i've been avoiding Vista due to the resource hogging. I still have XP. However, resources are definately not a problem, as I have a 500GB HD, 8GB of RAM, an Athalon FX 2X64 Duel Core processor, a GeForce9600 Graphics card.... okay getting nerdy... Resources shouldn't be any problem, but the goal is just to get sound from my amp/drumset to multiple tracks on my computer. Just memories, and maybe some rough band material. You know the deal. its like when you have a song written in your head and you don't have a tape recorder, so you just call your voicemail/answering machine and record it there... except you're slightly more prepared. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thoughtless 7 Posted January 22, 2009 Report Share Posted January 22, 2009 well, i've been avoiding Vista due to the resource hogging. I still have XP. However, resources are definately not a problem, as I have a 500GB HD, 8GB of RAM, an Athalon FX 2X64 Duel Core processor, a GeForce9600 Graphics card.... okay getting nerdy... Why do you have 8GB of RAM and using a 32-but OS, unless your using the 64bit version. I would go for a 64bit version of Vista > XP anyday. Its more stable and has good driver support these days. Also, thanks to Greg, i use Tracktion and its fantastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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