FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Sonar Home Studio

Question:
I Here's what I'm planning to get. Any experts out there have opinions about this setup? vpr matrix computer with 2.4 MHz processor, 520 Mb RAM & 100Gb harddrive Audigy 2 sound card Band in a Box sequencer (possibly move to Cubase or similar later) Power Tracks Audio 8 Decent software synth with effects Best Roland external sound module I can find on ebay for

Answer:
Go with Windows XP and Cakewalk Sonar, then you can use softsynths with no audible latency and eliminate the external hard synths. Make sure your Edirol audio usb interface operates over usb 2.0 and the computer comes with usb 2.0. Cool Edit Pro from www.syntrillium.com on top of Sonar is the best of all possible worlds and you will have more effects, and studio widgets than two walls of racks. Another way is to goto www.digidesign.com and get Pro Tools and one of the hardware interfaces. But XP with Sonar and Cool Edit is hard to beat. The problem with softsynths has been latency but that has changed with the combination of new drivers in XP and DXi softsynths. I would also get a second hard drive at 7200 rpm, so you can have one drive for program and one for data. This is critical in non-destructive editing like both Sonar and Cool Edit do. Cool Edit will appear as a tool in Sonar. It will save you hours and hours of time because of all the pre-planed effects curves are built in and a preview button. I always use a couple of condensor mics in the studio, one for vocals and another to mic cabinets. You can get a couple of cheapies that work pretty good from bayproaudio. You will be amazed at what bringing in a nice condensor flat wave can sound like when compressed by some of the curves in Cool Edit.