Help with DAW and Plug ins

[T.C. Elliott]

I've got a two... two and a half year old laptop and I can do dozens of tracks in Reaper without a problem. But... (big butt) it depends more on the plugins than anything. If you put a reverb plugin on every single track you'll have problems. If you put a plugin on one aux track and set it up where it controls the reverb on all the tracks you'll use a lot less CPU. As a for instance.

I love recording to my 900. I love mixing in Reaper.

[Flash Harry]

I love recording to my 900. I love mixing in Reaper.

Tracking in a recorder, production in a production tool....

[Blooby]

I love recording to my 900. I love mixing in Reaper.

Tracking in a recorder, production in a production tool....

I do that for our live stuff. My BR-1600 has started acting a little dodgy, so I went online to look at the two Tascams with 8 simultaneous inputs, and they are both discontinued. I feel this is the last gasp for all in one units. Too bad as they are great and portable.

Can't say enough nice things about Studio One. I would at least take a look before discounting it. Seeing how old this thread is, I don't know to whom I would be preaching.

Blooby

[Flash Harry]

ah -  yes, I have three Alesis LX20's, 24 tracks of simultaneous digital audio. Just too damned big to lug around to gigs. Much as I'd love to.....

[SteveB]

This may be the last gasp for the big-multitrackers -
http://tascam.com/product/dp-32sd/
It's still available in the UK, though apparently stocks are diminishing and there are no more on the horizon. No CD burner, no Midi, no drum-machine, so it's basically a large-track tape-recorder, where I suspect many of us came in!!
My BR1200 is knocking on a bit now - probably 8 years old, though still functioning well, and the move to DAW-mixing is a route I like. But the recording to a 'physical-looking' recording device is a habit hard to shake off, so perhaps a Tascam in the corner for whenever isn't such a bad idea.

[seriousfun]

It really doesn't mater which DAW you end up with when it comes to the sophisticated ones as they all get the job done, just with different interfaces. The learning curve on them is steep but worth it in the long one. If you know someone who already uses a DAW then I would be inclined to gat the same one so that you can tap into their vast reservoir of knowledge and fast track your learning curve. If not then perhaps find out who uses what here and align yourself to them so that you can get online assistance.

I personally use Cubase, Its stable comes in 32bit and 64bit flavours so can grow with my pc as it gets upgraded. But pro tools, reaper, ableton, even fruity loops are all viable alternatives though I see fruity loops as a rather different animal and more suited to loops. The advantage that swung me in the way of Cubase is that it is a Steinberg product and they are right at the forefront of midi.

I bet if you ask around enough you will find people that can recommend every DAW out there.

[Mike Huntingford]

I've used a bunch of them.  My DAW of choice now is SONAR Platinum, however; I use Reaper as my second DAW of choice.

Reaper is a real good DAW, simple, and it can rewire, and its fast to work with.  I too have had 20 or so tracks open (all audio) and no problems.

Good luck,

Mike

[Bodiemusic]

Hello I'm kind of new here even though my name has come up on this site before as a collaborator. I've used a few different DAW software's like Sonar, Reaper, & Cubase, and have yet to find any that match the simplicity and workflow of Tracktion, so I've always gone back. I ditched a project in Sonar once and started from scratch in Tracktion just because it was so cumbersome to get a simple copy and past done correctly. In Tracktion you can chop things up and copy cut and past with ease. Quick editing is where it shines.

[Blooby]

I've used a few different DAW software's like Sonar, Reaper, & Cubase, and have yet to find any that match the simplicity and workflow of Tracktion, so I've always gone back. I ditched a project in Sonar once and started from scratch in Tracktion just because it was so cumbersome to get a simple copy and past done correctly. In Tracktion you can chop things up and copy cut and paste with ease. Quick editing is where it shines.

Check out the new Arranger and Scratchpad functions of Presonus Studio One 3.0 (there are YouTube videos). They have a free version called Prime to dip your feet in the water.

Good luck.

Blooby

[Bodiemusic]

I've used a few different DAW software's like Sonar, Reaper, & Cubase, and have yet to find any that match the simplicity and workflow of Tracktion, so I've always gone back. I ditched a project in Sonar once and started from scratch in Tracktion just because it was so cumbersome to get a simple copy and past done correctly. In Tracktion you can chop things up and copy cut and paste with ease. Quick editing is where it shines.

Check out the new Arranger and Scratchpad functions of Presonus Studio One 3.0 (there are YouTube videos). They have a free version called Prime to dip your feet in the water.

Good luck.
Blooby

Thanks but I'm very satisfied with Tracktion. I just wanted to point out for those starting out that it's one of the less cumbersome ones IMHO... Of course you need good hardware for anything to run smoothly. Also should say I'm working in a windows based environment, I've heard good things about apple systems and software, but going that route is usually quite a bit more expensive.