Cheap recording/editing program?

L

Leftie117

Junior Member
So my friends and I have been recording a few songs, and we have mics, mixers, and all the other equipment. My bassist, who's in charge of recording and editing, uses Audacity, which is not at all my first choice. I would prefer a more reliable program where you can make smoother, more precise cuts, and more easily mix tracks together. Also, being able to add effects in in post would be nice. We record tracks separately and mix them together, if that helps. Something in the 50-100 dollar range would be preferable. Oh, and he's using a pc.
 
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Audacity is a great program - for what it is.

That said, there's entry level programs from most of the DAW's. Everyone will have their favorite.
I like Cubase best, but also have older versions of Logic, Cakewalk, and a few others.

What you want ideally, is a program that allows each person to have their own track, with multiples for drums.
You might also want to double track guitar, and so on. So extra tracks help.
In order to use them simultaneously, you need to have an interface with multiple inputs too.

For recording your band live, you might also want to consider a hardware DAW.
 
Leftie117 said:
So my friends and I have been recording a few songs, and we have mics, mixers, and all the other equipment. However, no matter WHAT I say, our bassist who is in charge of recording and editing insists on using the free trial of Audacity... No joke. PLEASE help!!! I've been arguing with these guys about it for months!!
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It's not a free trial, it's freeware. It's an excellent wave editor and does pretty well for limited DAW use. It's very powerful for what it is. You'd be amazed at how ubiquitous it is in the professional community.

For an inexpensive full DAW with wave editing capability, Reaper gets my vote. I still do most of my wave editing with Audacity but I bring together it and arrange it on Reaper.
 
Leftie117 said:
...we have mics, mixers, and all the other equipment.
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Like what? Do you have an interface-mixer capable of simultaneous multitracking, or just an analog mixer? Also are you recording piece-by-piece or as a whole band, or something in between?

Depending on those things, a proper DAW might be a night and day difference or a waste of money.
 
Look at Cakewalk Sonar (now owned by Gibson). I use X3 studio but they just came out with a new version.

It is really easy to use. When looking at DAWs, it is really the plugins that make the package and even the lowest priced versions of Sonar has a bunch.

It is very different from the older versions of Cakewalk from years ago.

Oh, and you can control it with "DAW Remote" on an ipad as a control surface.
 
I would recommend using Garageband if you're just beginning to get into recording. You can then change to PT or Logic if you find you've hit a specific limitation.
 
if you're on a Mac, Garage Band is powerful and you go straight to Logic if you decide you need more (Logic is my personal fav).

I used Krystal many years back. It's free and I remember it working pretty good. Google it. It's PC only.

I know folks who use Reaper as well. $60 is cheap for what you get.
 
BacteriumFendYoke said:
It's not a free trial, it's freeware. It's an excellent wave editor and does pretty well for limited DAW use. It's very powerful for what it is. You'd be amazed at how ubiquitous it is in the professional community.

For an inexpensive full DAW with wave editing capability, Reaper gets my vote. I still do most of my wave editing with Audacity but I bring together it and arrange it on Reaper.
Click to expand...

+1 on all of the points above. Reaper works great and you can use any of the 3rd party community of software add ons (VI's, Effects, etc.) like you would with any pricier product. Reaper is not time bombed so you can try out the full function product with no crippling for as long as you like and then pay $60 (last time I checked) for a single user version. Full MIDI and Audio capabilities.

The interface is not as elegant as big number DAWs like Logic, Digital Performer or Pro Tools but it works equally well in what you can do with it. You can also change the way the interface works and looks in countless ways. I highly recommend the Groove 3 video tutorials with Kenny Gioia. Well worth the money. Kenny's the bomb when it comes to effective tutorials and they have several different Reaper products reasonably priced. I own two of them.

Audacity is free, free, free. No license or payment required.

Jim
 
Recently I've been trying to take a crash course on getting back into some light home recording (been a long time....think Tascam 424 etc.). So this topic is right on time for me.

What are people using for mixers? Back in the day I would mic up my drums etc. and run the mics to a passive mixer to eq them a bit and get the mix right then we would funnel that into a single track on the recorder as we were dealing with only 4,6 and 8 tracks.

Is this the standard approach still or is it more 1 mic per track etc.?
 
I use synthesizers, and the ones I use the most have midi release velocity.

The only programs I've found that can record it are Cubase and Logic.
Reaper, Cakewalk, Studio One, and the others I've tried are a no-go.

Not really pertinent to the discussion - just an aside.
 
I always use Studio One. It is extremely user-friendly, and comes with most plug-ins you would need. They aren't the best in the world, but the suit home recording just fine.
 
River19 said:
Recently I've been trying to take a crash course on getting back into some light home recording (been a long time....think Tascam 424 etc.). So this topic is right on time for me.

What are people using for mixers? Back in the day I would mic up my drums etc. and run the mics to a passive mixer to eq them a bit and get the mix right then we would funnel that into a single track on the recorder as we were dealing with only 4,6 and 8 tracks.

Is this the standard approach still or is it more 1 mic per track etc.?
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I use a pair of GT Brick preamps and a Mackie 1402. The overheads go through the Bricks and into DAW inputs 1 and 2. The kick and snare each get a track on the Mackie and are fed to DAW inputs 3 and 4 via the insert/send on the channels. The tom mics go to the remaining tracks on the Mackie and are mixed to a stereo pair via the alt3/4 outs on the Mackie to inputs 5 and 6. The DAW only has 6 inputs. If there where more I would put the toms on their own tracks as well. To be honest though, just having the stereo pair of toms has never felt like a limitation. The tom mic generally sound great with little to no effort. Its the other 4 that require the effort.
 
River19 said:
Recently I've been trying to take a crash course on getting back into some light home recording (been a long time....think Tascam 424 etc.). So this topic is right on time for me.

What are people using for mixers? Back in the day I would mic up my drums etc. and run the mics to a passive mixer to eq them a bit and get the mix right then we would funnel that into a single track on the recorder as we were dealing with only 4,6 and 8 tracks.

Is this the standard approach still or is it more 1 mic per track etc.?
Click to expand...

There's no real right or wrong answer to this but:

1 Mic per chan. No mixer. Workflow is typically:

Mic-->Interface-->PC/DAW
or
Mic-->Interface/DAW-->PC/DAW

The mixing is done on the PC/MAC. Mics are recorded raw and treatment applied to the recorded track.

I can vouch for the following configuration: http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121114

I'd give consideration to a mixer if I were doing live recording, and if that were the case, I'd buy a Presonus Studiolive and still get individual tracks.
 
Hi fellow leftie(117), what do you want to achieve?
Just a (stereo) recording of the band or individual tracks which you can mix afterward?
Audacity will do the first but you'll need a DAW for the latter.

I use Reaper. Not the most user friendly interface but it's cheap and offers some pretty advanced features and basic recording & editing is pretty straight forward.
 
eric_B said:
Hi fellow leftie(117), what do you want to achieve?
Just a (stereo) recording of the band or individual tracks which you can mix afterward?
Audacity will do the first but you'll need a DAW for the latter.

I use Reaper. Not the most user friendly interface but it's cheap and offers some pretty advanced features and basic recording & editing is pretty straight forward.
Click to expand...

Usually what we do is record separately and mix them afterwards. Also, what should we use for a click track? They've just been using a metronome on one speed for the entire song, despite the varying tempo of it.
 
Leftie117 said:
Also, what should we use for a click track?
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For home-studio, use the metronome that's built into the DAW you're using. This ensures stuff is lined up to the grid. This helps later for looping, punching, quantizing, and numerous other things.
 
KamaK said:
There's no real right or wrong answer to this but:

1 Mic per chan. No mixer. Workflow is typically:

Mic-->Interface-->PC/DAW
or
Mic-->Interface/DAW-->PC/DAW

The mixing is done on the PC/MAC. Mics are recorded raw and treatment applied to the recorded track.

I can vouch for the following configuration: http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121114

I'd give consideration to a mixer if I were doing live recording, and if that were the case, I'd buy a Presonus Studiolive and still get individual tracks.
Click to expand...


Saw your thread, read it; thanks....good sound samples too. Not bad for 4 mics with kick, snare and 2 overheads.

Are you capturing 2 rack and 1 floor tom? I've considered the FP5 type kits from Audix however it looks like that would require a couple overheads to effectively capture the cymbals so I am intrigued with possibly going the route you have gone with the 4 mics.

I think I caught what you were saying about bringing the cymbals out in the mix from the overheads by doing the counter-intuitive low cut filter which would drop the toms lower in the mix effectively bringing the cymbals up without having to deal with all the harsh high tones by raising the highs.....I hope that makes sense....

My setup is a 3 up 1 down with a non-ported 22x18" bass......currently thinking maybe the Zoom R16 and possibly a 4mic setup.....
 
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