I'm an anolag guy. My first post here. Need advice. . .

[honkyjonk]

Hi all, I'm a regular on the General forum. I've hit a streak of good luck though, and inherited an imac. Now I've tried the waters of computer recording before, and I got frustrated enough to shit a monkey. That was with Logic/cubas/Reason.

I tried all those programs thinking they may be cool beans but I never even started to get into them.
So I've gone analog and havn't looked back, until now.

What I want is a program so rediculously easy to use that a hampster could do it.
What I want to do is very simple. I want to be able to run some audio into the puter, cut/paste/and loop it. Maybe four tracks at the most would be fantastic. Effects I don't really care about. I know they mess with latency and processing speed and such.

I just like the idea of running some tracks I've already recorded into the computer, and being able to visually cut and paste things, maybe adjust some volumes and then sending them back out to another track or tracks on my anolog or standalone digital recorder.

Anyway, is there something like this, with these bare bones features that is absolutely stable as rock, and easy to use with an imac running OSX, and that doesn't cost a whole lot? Anybody recommend the GarageBand thing for this?
I've heard ever-so-little about it, but the fact that it is made by apple for apple is easy on the driver/communation paranoia.

Oh, also, as far as audio cards go, I'm in the process of possibly getting a swissonic converter box for my masterlink. So some kind of deal where I could use that to go into the computer would be cool. It has AES/EBU digital outs, so I don't know if I'd need some tybe of USB adaptor or what.
Anyway, suggestions for a setup here?

[Milkmansound]

You can actually download a free version of pro tools at the digidesign website. You can do 8 voices I think. The program is for OS9 though. If you can boot up in 9 you should be good to go! The best part is - you don't need digidesign hardware, so you can go ahead and buy any USB interface. Hope this helps

[chikkenguy]

bias deck is a pretty easy program to get started on. ive not used it much, but when i did it was pretty stable.

i dont see why garage band would not meet your needs however... it is quite a bit cheaper too.

[spiral]

Get Apple's Garageband. It is perfectly suited for what you want to do. And is amazingly fun. I use it alot to compose music as sketches and also for my day job doing web and multimedia stuff. It won't be so hot for hardcore editing, but will be extra hot for making loops, and doing light mixing, arranging, tweaking, soft instruments, multitracking etc. It now can hook up with ReWire and uses AudioUnits plugins which is a new plugin format for OS X, but you can find some pretty high-end stuff already. The other nice thing is that you get iDVD, iMovie and iPhoto as well for the $50. Pretty amazing deal. The extra nice thing about garageband is that you can create your own library of loops using the free Soundtrack Loop Utility. This will mark points in your loop that garageband understands so you can put your one loop on the timeline and it will line right up with whatever tempo you have. It's great and is something i've looked for forever. It also helped me get my feet wet with soft instrument as i was quite opposed/scared of them before.

On the slightly more powerful tip tracktion looks very very nice ($80) though i haven't used it for more than 2 minutes. I like the interface though and seems to be quite powerful. Mackie bought it and will include it with their new Onyx mixers.
http://www.mackie.com/products/tracktion/index.html

On a slightly more more powerful, more loop oriented tip, Ableton Live gets many props. I couldn't really figure it out though (i didn't try very hard). I use Cubase and GarageBand. So hopefully some Ableton Live users can comment about that as well as cost.

As far as the D/A converter, what kind of iMac did you get? Hopefully one with firewire. If so, that opens a whole world of pro-audio to you. Also, being on a Mac in general helps you avoid driver/communication paranoia. Stuff just works. You would need a digital input into the Mac if you only had the Swissonic. How many tracks will you want to get in and out at one time?

If i were you, i would borrow or buy Garageband and see how it goes. If you get into it and want to do more and feel limited, move up to Tracktion.

Post back with any questions and also what kind of iMac you inherited (bastard! nice one!).

[honkyjonk]

Thanks guys, and thanks Spiral for the long reply. The imac is a couple years old. It's not the lamp looking thing but it was slightly before that, and was one step up from the bare bones model. I think I'll look into Garage Band. As far as editing, jeeze, I could live with something very minimal. I just want it to be easy and stable more than anything.

Putting one track in at a time is fine, and well I guess it would be nice to get like four out at a time. As far as going in and editing wrong notes, that doesn't concern me too much. I'm so used to just doing another take and getting it right anyway, I don't feel like I need that feature, and as far as Midi goes, I don't really need it. Well, I guess it would be nice to say, use an electronic kick drum with the rest of my live recorded set. That would be super cool and useful, but I don't know, that might be more complicated than it's worth. You have to understand how much of a knob turner, and not mouse pusher kind of guy I am. Mostly what I want is a sampler that can mix about four tracks, where I can visually cut and paste waveform data like it was wordprocessing. As far as effects, well it's always fun to have more effects but I have some pretty cool sounding stuff that I can run things through before and after going into the puter.

Yeah, it would be cool if I could go out of an outboard converter like the swissonic, through AES/EBU outs and into a firewire port? I'm sure there would have to be something else inbetween right? I forgot you can't put PCI cards in an imac.
Anyway, thanks guys

[spiral]

This will give you 2 analog ins 4 outs, and SPDIF/coax digital i/o:
M-Audio Firewire 410 Interface

This will give you 8 ins and outs and optical:
Edirol FA-101 Firewire interface

On the cheap(er), i got a used MOTU 828 (the first one, not the new fancy one) for $300 on a newsgroup. You can prolly get one on eBay for nearly as much. That will give you 8 i/o and coax and optical digital i/o. Way overkill but cheaper. The M-Audio seems good for price w/ simplicity. The MOTU looks like it goes for about $450 on eBay which is more expensive than the M-Audio, but some claim the 828 has better converters, but if you are using the swissonic, it won't matter.

Garageband can only do 2 tracks at a time though, just so you know.

[drliebs]

I used to wave the Mac banner and I still do but Win2000 and XP have made my computing life a lot less frustrating...I think that anytime you are involving computers there is going to be some shitting of monkeys going on sooner or later, even on Macs.

I use Cubase for just about everything bowadays, but I have been a long time Cool Edit Pro fan. I think when it comes down to editing this is a great app. It has a multitrack side and you can get fancy if you want with a lot of tracks and midi and effects....or not.

If you are into loops, Acid or I think it is called Vegas Video is a great app. Actually, I think Vegas is very strong all around for audio video etc... It is fast and pretty easy to use as well.

[chikkenguy]

the original motu 828 would be a great choice. i second that suggestion.