80skeys
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should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
I currently use the 2002 version of Cakewalk at home on a Windows XP desktop computer. I don't work in Audio, just Midi. These days I spend time on the train commuting to and from work and I'd like to be able to work a little on my music projects. My laptop runs Windows 7 64-bit. I'd like to be able to hear decent enough sounds to give me a good idea of what it will sound like at home. (At home I run Midi out to a Yamaha CS6x and Roland JV module.)
On my laptop, for sound quality I intend to run loopMidi to take the sequencer output and put it into yamaha vst plugin + the ASIO4All driver. This should work fine for my needs.
The question I have is whether to install a free sequencer that is compatible with Windows 7 64-bit, or purchase and install Cakewalk Music Creator 5. In either case, I'd to be able to transfer my laptop work to my home PC (Cakewalk 2002) with minimal conversion effort and maximal compatibility. I don't want to spend a lot of time tweaking things at home. I just want to make my edits when I'm on the go, and incorporate them back into the master work file.
Recommendations?
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Guitarhacker
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/09 12:28:26
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I would go with MC5. You can install it on 2 computers that you own. It works well with midi and has a number of synths and they have hundreds of sounds. Many are now sampled sounds which are better sounding than general midi.
MC5 supports 258 (IIRC) midi tracks (that depends more on the computer than anything else) (48 audio tracks which the synths will need)
All the music I do is done on Music Creator, so while it it marketed as a beginner DAW it is very capable and I'm pretty sure it has more features than a free midi sequencer.
You will need to run MC5 in 32 bit mode in W7/64..... some of the "bigger" Cake products will run in 64 bit mode.
MC can run most GM files so any midi files you currently have should be able to be imported and loaded to a soft synth with relative ease.
That is one thing you would need to learn a little about if you don't already know...and that is soft synths.... much better actually then the old GM and wavetable stuff many sequencers use.
Another thing you will definitely need to consider is a music interface running ASIO drivers and USB connected. You do not want to run midi and synths in MC5 using the factory sound card in any computer, especially the laptops. The USB soundcard/interface will make the recording experience a pleasure.
If you have more questions, please ask now, before you buy anything.
My website & music: www.herbhartley.com MC4/5/6/X1e.c, on a Custom DAW Focusrite Firewire Saffire Interface BMI/NSAI "Just as the blade chooses the warrior, so too, the song chooses the writer "
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57Gregy
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/09 13:06:11
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Working with Standard MIDI Files (SMF), either will work. Try out the free sequencer and see if it does everything you want it to do. If not, try one of the Cakewalk programs.
As alluded to by Guitarhacker, MC 5 isn't 64-bit compatible, but you may get good results with it when running it in 32-bit compatibility mode, especially if you're MIDI-only.
The Yamaha and Roland synths will definitely sound better than the Microsoft GS Wavetable synth, but I don't know how well they would sound versus modern soft synths.
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80skeys
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/09 14:17:24
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Guitarhacker:
sounds good, I'll go ahead and buy MC5. I might as well have it, and I can use it when I upgrade my home PC to Windows 7 someday. As for the USB soundcard, I was looking at a couple by M-Audio and Creative Labs. Any particular recommendations?
57Gregy:
Are the soft synths something I need to buy separately, or is what comes with MC5 sufficient?
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Beagle
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/09 14:51:47
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80skeys
Guitarhacker:
sounds good, I'll go ahead and buy MC5. I might as well have it, and I can use it when I upgrade my home PC to Windows 7 someday. As for the USB soundcard, I was looking at a couple by M-Audio and Creative Labs. Any particular recommendations?
yes, don't get soundblasters and there are a few others I recommend NOT getting. check my website for some recommendations. 57Gregy: Are the soft synths something I need to buy separately, or is what comes with MC5 sufficient? MC5 comes with some softsynths and the soundcenter is actually pretty good. as to whether you need to buy more? don't yet. get MC5 then when you figure out it's not enough for you then start looking at others. Kontakt is probably the #1 around here.
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57Gregy
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/09 14:52:36
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MC 5 comes with several, TTS-1, DropZone (a sampler/sample player), Studio Instruments Drums, Sound Center, maybe a couple more. There are tons of them available on the internet or in stores, some on the internet are free, some cost hundreds of dollars.
Re: Creative. Their E-Mu line is better for recording and playback than their Sound Blaster line, which is more for gaming and listening than recording.
M-Audio is good.
If you get MC 5 and install it on both machines and open one of your old projects in MC 5, the file formats have changed since way back then. If your old projects are Project or Bundle files and you open them in MC 5 and save them, they won't open in the old program. If they're SMF, you should be able to open them in either.
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Tap
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/09 17:18:12
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Also, according to the system requirements, you should be able to run MC5 on your Windows XP desktop computer, so you don't need to wait until you upgrade your home PC to Windows 7 ( if I read that correctly??? ) When I started with MC4 I was on a low budget and had mixers etc from my analog recording days, so I purchased an inexpensive usb - Behringer UCA-202 ( about $30 ). Although, I was able to get decent results using this to record with, I wouldn't recommend this for recording. On the other hand, I use this a lot with my laptop for doing some preliminary mixing and playback. If you're going to be using your laptop on a train, then the internal sound cards aren't very powerful for hearing back the music. This might be worth the investment. Edit! -sorry, I didn't see the part about looking into usb soundcards. If your going to invest in one, invest in a decent one for what your needs are. As Beagle pointed out, stay away from the Soundblaster line. I use an M-audio FW interface, but many people here do use the M-audio usb Fast track interfaces. Check Beagle's web site for recommendations. Also, the latency of different synths ( I believe ) can be a problem with multiple and /or different soft synths with a on board soundcard? I believe I experienced this problem at one time.
post edited by Tap - 2011/06/09 17:23:32
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Beagle
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/09 17:20:49
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Latency is 95% due to the soundcard and its drivers. a quality made soundcard with solid drivers for the operating system you are using (or will use) is essential to low latency.
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80skeys
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/09 17:41:25
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So I've been using a Roland JV-1010 for years. Is there a softsynth for this?
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Guitarhacker
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/09 19:31:23
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80skeys
So I've been using a Roland JV-1010 for years. Is there a softsynth for this?
probably not... but why would you want it. You can use the roland to input the notes, and if you really want it's sounds simply record it's audio output. The beauty of the soft synth is that you can tell it to play ANY sound from a honky tonk piano to a grand Steinway or a drum from india, or a stringed instrument from Japan..... it all simply depends on the synth and the samples it can play. Listen to several of my songs and you will hear the versatility of the synth.... so many sounds and qualities of sounds and I use a Yamaha DS 27S to play it all, triggering the various samples in my soft synths.
My website & music: www.herbhartley.com MC4/5/6/X1e.c, on a Custom DAW Focusrite Firewire Saffire Interface BMI/NSAI "Just as the blade chooses the warrior, so too, the song chooses the writer "
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RobertB
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/09 20:45:37
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80skeys
So I've been using a Roland JV-1010 for years. Is there a softsynth for this?
As near as I can tell, no. But I'm not sure I would really expect there to be one. The vast majority of the JV sound banks are most likely in a proprietary format, specific to the JV series modules. However, it looks like the JV does have a GM1 (128 patch) bank. If the instrument sounds you are working with happen to be in the GM1 set, you can take advantage of the transportability of that. GM has absolutely nothing to do with sound quality, only that patch X will produce the same instrument on any given machine. It's entirely possible that the tenor sax in the JV sound bank is vastly superior to the tenor sax in TTS-1. That said, it's also entirely possible that the difference may be lost in the environment of a commuter train. That's not to say that TTS-1 sounds bad, and it is definitely usable, plus there are some very good sounds in Sound Center. If I were in your shoes, I would probably focus more on concept and arrangement during the commute, and less on the actual instrument sounds. Just my 2p.
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80skeys
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/10 10:19:12
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RobertB
80skeys
So I've been using a Roland JV-1010 for years. Is there a softsynth for this?
That's not to say that TTS-1 sounds bad, and it is definitely usable, plus there are some very good sounds in Sound Center.
If I were in your shoes, I would probably focus more on concept and arrangement during the commute, and less on the actual instrument sounds.
Just my 2p.
That's basically my goal. But I figured it would be nice to get close to the sounds that I use for recording.
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80skeys
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/10 10:30:11
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Guitarhacker
80skeys
So I've been using a Roland JV-1010 for years. Is there a softsynth for this?
probably not... but why would you want it. You can use the roland to input the notes, and if you really want it's sounds simply record it's audio output.
The beauty of the soft synth is that you can tell it to play ANY sound from a honky tonk piano to a grand Steinway or a drum from india, or a stringed instrument from Japan..... it all simply depends on the synth and the samples it can play.
Listen to several of my songs and you will hear the versatility of the synth.... so many sounds and qualities of sounds and I use a Yamaha DS 27S to play it all, triggering the various samples in my soft synths.
Hi guitarhacker, The JV-1010 is a sound module, not a keyboard. I pipe MIDI into it from my sequencer and connect its stereo outs to a mixer. I'm curious if there's a softsynth for the Jv-series sounds so that when I'm working on the laptop I have a better idea of what it'll sound like when I transfer it at home.
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Tap
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/10 10:57:05
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Perhaps you can sample the sounds from the keyboard and use the samples in a soft synth for development. Then record the real synth for your final versions.
MC4 - M-Audio FW410 / Behringer UCA202 - Fender Strat / Jazzmaster / DuoSonic / Washburn / Peavy Foundation M-Audio Radium 49 Roland Juno 106 / JazzChorus / Seymore Duncan Convertible - HP A1230N ( AMD Athalon 3800+ 2G Ram + 200G HD ) http://soundclick.com/cut2thechaise
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Guitarhacker
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/10 12:04:53
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recording many instruments in midi format very often does not translate well into a believable sound in the final mix. Horns are especially hard to replicate accurately as are guitars. The little nuances a live player on a real sax would do naturally, get lost in the limited ability of midi or the person to program those things into the score.
That's why so much of the midi music sounds "midi", stiff, or outright fake. It's not the sound, it's the details.
Some of the more expensive, and at times very expensive sound/sample libraries do have those nuances built in so it is easier to replicate a live performance. GM, TTS, GPO and 99.9% of the low end synths do not have that, hence they don't generally sound as good without a whole lot of effort.
I'm talking about the kind of performance that would fake out or cause great wondering in the mind of someone who actually played that particular instrument..... is it real or is it sampled?
My website & music: www.herbhartley.com MC4/5/6/X1e.c, on a Custom DAW Focusrite Firewire Saffire Interface BMI/NSAI "Just as the blade chooses the warrior, so too, the song chooses the writer "
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Tap
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/10 20:10:43
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Herb, you make a good point. Using a good controller which can control more of the "nuances" from a synth can make a difference in the believability or quality of the sound. There are pluses and minus's to a hard vs a soft synth. I think 80skey's intent is to use his rack synth. I'm just wondering if he could sample (as wav's) and use them for his laptop with something like the cakewalk soundfont player for development work on the train. It wouldn't be exactly the same, but would it be close enough for what he might be wishing to achieve. I haven't really used it like that very much.
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80skeys
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/13 11:40:15
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Thanks for everybody's tips and suggestions. I've bought Music Creator 5 to upgrade my home PC and install on my laptop. I'll use the built in soft-synth with the laptop's builtin soundcard for now. If I find either of these lacking, I'll install additional equipment later.
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80skeys
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/14 11:32:41
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I ran into an issue. I installed MC5 on my laptop. However when I go to choose MIDI Outputs, I only see "Microsoft GS Wavetable" (ie crappy sounds.) Am I missing something? I thought Cakewalk 5 was supposed to come with its own soft synths ...
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57Gregy
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Re:should I get Music Creator or a free sequencer for commuting/laptop
2011/06/14 13:17:58
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It does, but they're not MIDI devices.
Go to the top, click Insert, select the synth you want to use.
If you already have a MIDI track with notes in it, deselect the Create MIDI Source Track box. Once the synth is inserted, change the output of the MIDI track to the soft synth. TTS-1 can accept input from 16 MIDI tracks, but others, like Sound Center only accept input from 1 MIDI track.
If you're starting from scratch, you can leave the Create MIDI source Track box checked and a MIDI track and the synth will be inserted at the same time.
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