I know enough about Sonar to get my simple jobs done.
As for learning new instruments, I traded a laptop for a pedal steel some years ago. <facepalm>

kennywtelejazz
... 
You are a smart guy and I do get where you are coming from ... Learning how to use a  DAW efficiently with any level of creatively takes a lot of work and commitment
 ...

 
It got to the point a couple of years ago, that I have not touched anything on my computer setup for over a year ... kinda disappointed in some ways, but discouragement for me is a bad thing, and it has a tendency to interfere with my imagination and "desire" to get there. I'm wanting to get there, but at this time, the wanting is not strong enough, and probably waiting for someone to show up and give me a kick in the butt. 
 
I've even offered to pay for it ... if you can believe it, and it's not like someone has to teach me the ABC's in music!
 

kennywtelejazz
...
Have you started specific threads asking for help on the forum ?
ex, setting up your sound card , setting up your midi , recording audio , editing audio , recording midi ,editing midi inserting synths , inserting plugs , various views and how to work in them ... importing audio , midi , video ....exporting audio , midi , video .....
 ...

 
A couple of times, but getting stuck, and not being able to get anywhere with it, became way too far and frustrating for that time. Again, as much as I want to get back into it full blast, right now, my head just is not there ... too worried about the Social Security thing, the Medicare thing, and such, and just not in a good space all around.
 

kennywtelejazz
...
If you have tried those things and you still feel stuck . Then  it sounds like to me that you just need a little one on one time with somebody to help you along with the basics of using SONAR (or fill in the blank for the chosen DAW )
 
hang in there .....help may be closer than you think .......
 
all the best,
...

 
Thanks. It seems like the easiest things are the ones not working ... I can take my cassette player, turntable, microphone and computer, all plugged into the mixer and be a veritable radio station ... and I am actually putting together hours of my "favorite" music (I really don't have favorites since anything can take me away real quick!), and pop it into a mp3 and then CD it and voila ... my own radio station while driving!
 
 

(Only have about 25 CD's worth of mp3's with some 40 different bands to listen to in the car. Favorites while driving are usually Can, Hawkwind, Caravan, Guru Guru, Banco, Ange, Mike Oldfield, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Popol Vuh ... the usual culprits with the so-called "krautrock", probably the best represented.)
 
Some day ... before I give up ... it might happen. But I'm a bit like an autistic child, that goes with a sound/something and you wonder how he ... where the heck ... but one funny thing. Some 25 years ago, a friend of mine was taking guitar lessons and I decided to take the bass lessons at the same time. And the funny part was learning a song or two (I really did not want to do Chuck Berry, so to speak!), and then while playing as the teacher played his accoustic along, I would always make small adjustments here and there that Mike (his name) always thought were really cool, and suggested that I was a good listener to detail, that should make a good musician ... but I think that somewhere along the way, I got discouraged. None of the things I was doing or learning, were anywhere near what I was hearing and seeing in my head, and that is a problem. 
 
One of the secrets of creativity, is finding that seam, and staying there, and I can do that in writing, directing on stage or film ... but as much as I would love to do this in music ... just not there ... yet (hopefully).
 
I'll send you something I wrote on a novel ... btw ... to get you a better idea of what I hear.
 
Some piccies:
http://www.pedrosena.com/homestudio.htm

Randy P
Interesting thread Kenny. Since day 1 of this DAW thing, I've relied on treating it like the old analog studios of old. I've yet to try and learn midi or even one of the drum programs. I knew how to mix and record going in. It was just a matter of using a mouse to turn the knobs on plugins instead of my fingers.
 
I do remember one thing from when I started down this DAW road. When I got my first DAW (Guitar Tracks) I hadn't played live in a few years and my playing/practicing routine consisted of playing along with CDs. When I started recording I was shocked at how sloppy my playing had become from that. Of course, being the knuckle head I am, I jumped right in doing collabs with the likes of James, Larry Hansen and Mark Wessels. When you get tracks from those guys, you quickly realize you better step up your game. So thanks for that guys.

Hi Randy ,
 
Yes I agree , there are a few interesting reply's going on with the topic 
 
The closest thing to analog I had on my own was a 4 track cassette ... later on I  had gotten an 8 track ....
Other than that , the only  analog experience I had was from way back in the day where a studio had been booked and I was only there to play the guitar ....
It was a Real Gas on one level for sure feeling all pumped up , yet back then I could see clearly that the engineers were super busy just setting up for the session ...
I didn't have a working relationship with any of the engineers where I could have picked their brains off the clock ...so that left a lot of gaps in my knowledge regarding recording ...
 
Thankfully a lot of kind people here on the forum got me up to speed on learning how to use my first DAW HS 2 ..then SONAR 5 at the time ...
I would have been lost with out their help  
 
Yeah , Randy those were some nice collabs you did all the people you mentioned are decent players also ...
 
all the best,
 
Kenny
       
 
 
 
 

bitman
I know enough about Sonar to get my simple jobs done.
As for learning new instruments, I traded a laptop for a pedal steel some years ago. <facepalm>

+1 on getting the simple jobs done .... then when I listen to them the next day I want to fire myself
 
I got to Love Beagle .... I paid him in beacon for helping me w some song critiques and he told me the truth ...

 
Kenny

Hey Pedro ,
OK I looked at your pics ,
I see you have mixers and a bunch of other stuff ...that's all cool yet, a few quick questions ..
Do you have a proper audio interface / soundcard for audio that also does midi ? if you do what is it ...
how are you recording your synths ...as audio ...as midi ...
what's the main creative hang up ...is it learning the DAW ? or is it the musical / playing end of things ?
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny
 

kennywtelejazz
Both learning activity's seem very necessary to bring one's own personal Music creation to the next level .... 
I've been wrestling with this one myself for a long while ....
I'm curious to hear how folks around here balance both learning curves  .
 
all the best ,
 
Kenny

Kenny, I would only add Songwriting to that equation. If you want to be a songwriter you have to be able to write them down. On paper or a recorder of some type. It's not a song until you can get it outside of you. It's a concept until then. If you could have exactly what you want, which side of the glass would you want to be on? If you write  songs that forces you to play stuff you can't play right now. So the song drives your playing and improving. Not just technique for it's own sake.

When fingers bleed, switch from guitar to DAW. :P


I really wouldn't know. 
 
When I received my copy of Guitar Studio, back in 99, I sat down with the manual and read it from cover to cover twice before I installed the software.
 
At first, everything was centered around the guitar. Progressively though, my DAW and tools like Fruity Loops and the first few Virtual Instruments started taking more and more place. The guitar started gathering dust, and eventually, I ended up writing things that required no guitar at all. For years. So I guess I learned my DAW pretty well back then.
 
I shouldn't neglect to mention that I had reached a plateau on the guitar and had been stuck there for years - so it wasn't all that hard to focus on something else. Heck, the whole rock scene and guitar itself were in some weird place during that decade. 
 
When I switched to Logic, I didn't want to waste time figuring out things, so I read the manual, watched tutorials every chance I got and ordered advanced manuals. I became proficient very quickly. And by some strange coincidence, it's at that point that I finally got back to guitar, and methodically started working on improving my playing.
 
So now, I spend a lot more time on the guitar. And I feel comfortable enough with my DAW not to worry about it.
 
Mastering your DAW requires intense commitment for a certain amount of time - then you simply need to work with it regularly and  just stay on top of things. 
 
An instrument is a different story.
 
I remember reading that story about cellist Pablo Casals and how he still spent 4 or 5 hours practicing every day when he was in his 80's. When asked why, he answered "Because I think I am making progress." To me, that sums it up.
 
 
 
 
 
 

kennywtelejazz
Hey Pedro ,
OK I looked at your pics ,
I see you have mixers and a bunch of other stuff ...that's all cool yet, a few quick questions ..
Do you have a proper audio interface / soundcard for audio that also does midi ? if you do what is it ...
...

 
The sound card on that machine is the Delta 1010LT ... which has so many ins and outs that you can't use? (Hehehehehe!!! Their software only allows one to be used!)
 
Audio interface ... a small cheapie, but otherwise none and not sure what I need to get.
 

kennywtelejazz
...
how are you recording your synths ...as audio ...as midi ...
what's the main creative hang up ...is it learning the DAW ? or is it the musical / playing end of things ?
...

 
I have IKT Philharmonic, Jupiter 8v from Arturia and a few other thingies here and there, some VST's and enjoy fooling around on the sound of them. All in all, sort of too much software to confuse one's noodles. Midi is setup and it plays things fine, and I have setup a whole bunch of slides and knobs in the Jupiter setup (lots of fun!), but have not been able to extend things as I hoped for in it, to make them more useful for me. 
 
I have used, in the past, Audacity to record on the second computer, as a way to learn things some and get used to recording levels. The nice thing about Audacity was/is its simplicity and I can turn the files to mp3 real easy.
 
I simply take the outlet from the mixer and send it to the 2nd machine to record ... this way, the 1st machine is free to play different things, and allows me to play the keyboard or mix anything from the stereo receiver or turntable or cassette machine. In essence all of these feed the mixer as do the keyboards and this allows me to use the 1st machine on a VST, or Jupiter, or IKT individually, and even mix them up with a mp3 or two ... the levels of which I have to be careful and aware of ahead of time.
 
It's a "radio station" kind of setup, you could say ... and I was hoping to be able to move to Sonar (a DAW, anyway) instead of Audacity, to have more flexibility about adding things and making changes here and there, for example. I'm not even a good one for using Audacity ... for that matter, and up to now I have just really recorded on it, and almost all the stuff I had has long been erased in favor of new stuff, before the advent of the cheap hard drives in the past couple of years. Both of those machines do not have huge hard drives yet, and I will probably add them as secondaries for the purpose of saving work ... that is still in the thinking stages I think!
 

kennywtelejazz 
...
all the best ,
Kenny

 
Much appreciated. As I mentioned before, radio is pretty much where I am closest to, but the DAW has thrown a curve ball that tied me up in knots and spins! Maybe I'm just ... over thinking things.
 
Thanks for your checking out things ... much appreciated and I'm really hopeful that it will help. I'm not frustrated with writing, but more and more and more ... of music is needed ... for me, they go together, not apart.

Moshkito
 
The sound card on that machine is the Delta 1010LT ... which has so many ins and outs that you can't use? (Hehehehehe!!! Their software only allows one to be used!)
 

Hi, Pedro. I had one of those a few years back, and was able to do multitrack recordings with it, using a Behringer mixer as preamps. I never used it on Win 8 or 10, though (Win 2000, Xp, Vista and Win 7).
Do you have the latest ASIO drivers for it? 
http://www.m-audio.com/support/drivers-search (this assuming you are using Win 7 SP1 X64) 
(If on newer Windows, try installing driver in compatibility mode)
I remember having issues with one of their drivers, though I do not remember which (but not the latest driver).
If I can be of any help, just PM me. Regarding this, or SONAR wise.
All the best.

Seems like most of you here on this forum have been doing hands-on music since you were babies. I don't have that experience so I tend to hang back on posting anything, but the subject of this thread got me to thinking about things.

I suppose I'm not your typical DAW user. I know my way around a keyboard and guitar but only enough to pick out a melody. I've never been in a band (except playing clarinet in the high school marching band) and I've never been in a recording studio doing whatever those guys do.

Music has always been a source of bliss for me, so in the mid-80s I followed that bliss with an Atari 1040ST computer, an Ensonique ESQ-M synth, Dr T's sequencing program and proceeded to create my own songs, mostly by way of entering notes via MIDI.  And I have to admit that things haven't changed much since then except for the technology. Basically I play a melody line into Sonar then correct/expand it in PRV with MIDI.   So I know the MIDI capabilities of Sonar pretty well and that's how I play an instrument and for me it works pretty well. The main thing that's lacking is how it's played, the dynamics of it, which can be corrected in PRV as well, though it's laborious. 
 
I think about picking up the guitar lessons where I left off about ten years ago but then  reality sets in. I'm getting on in years and my fingers don't move as well as they used to. And it seems kind of pointless to try and attain a level of competency on an instrument at this point in my life that maybe I should have attained fifty years ago. I don't really need that skill anyway to accomplish what I want to do in music, which is to create a song that I like.