What do you recommend?

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 7:14 pm

I'm quickly finding myself having to record a lot of rap/hip-hop/R&B style music which is being recorded in loop fashion using real live studio musicians.

My question is this: what software would you recommend for recording this type of music? I'm currently using tripleDAT but it isn't well suited to dealing with loops and such.

Many of the studios in the area advertise Sonar or ProTools (clearly, two ends of the spectrum). A few mention Cubase. But clearly, the majority are indicating they have Sonar. Is that a good choice for loop-based, multi-track recording with Pulsar? Or is there something better out there?

algorhythm · Post by **algorhythm** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 7:32 pm

nothing quite like Ableton Live for loop recording, but it does not have MIDI like Sonar does . . .

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Tue Oct 15, 2002 7:53 pm

If you're working with hip-hop... well, there's only one solution. Do every thing on an Akai MPC!!!
That's the standard hip hop sound. Record each tack using any software, and use the MPC, and its internal sequencer to put everything together.

I'm tellin' ya, that's how hip hop producers have worked for ages.. and these days, still, that's how many of them work. Akai has some sort of filter built into their system, that transforms everythin into that authentic "hip-hop" sound. Not to mension a specific code that actually transforms your sequence so it "swings", in an Akai sense. (the guy who made it says so)

Post by **garyb** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 12:55 am

yes the mpc is a good tool for hip hop.this is mainly,i'd say,due to the fact that it is a drum pad interface and it works with samples quickly.you could do the same with logic or cubase or sonar.i think that live might be an excellent tool to do the things that a good dj can do,without having to be so skilled with a crossfader.........

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2002-10-16 03:49 ]

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 7:56 am

One of the session guys has an Akai 4000 unit which he brings in. We take the direct outs into my DAW and the the rest of the session guys add their parts on top of the beats from the 4000.

I'm not developing beats. I'm just recording and mixing the material here in my studio.

[ This Message was edited by: krizrox on 2002-10-16 08:59 ]

valis · Post by **valis** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 12:10 am

I know quite a few people that do session performances using Sonar, and they swear by it. I also hear it's extremely stable (it's matured a bit finally) although you often sacrifice a bit of performance on most plugins & softsynths as they're vst ports (or wrapped with a wrapper). I have no experience with Sonar myself, but there are users around the Creamware community. Apparently Pulsar/Scope has recently become 'usable' with the kernel mode wdm wave drivers Sonar requires, although it's still lagging behind ASIO.

A mate of mine has Cubase SX & it's extremely improved in many user-related ways, audio editing is a dream as well. I'm Logic Audio based myself, and Sx's audio editing onscreen is definately impressive. It does seem to crash occasionally though, as it's still fairly new to the market (tho Nuendo has been buggy for a while now and they seem to share the same codebase).

Logic, well I personally prefer it but if you're on a PC forget it.

Post by **garyb** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 2:24 am

logic 5.3pc is very good tho and will be usefull for a while....still...(

)

if you're just recording/editing i would suggest vdat or samplitude.vdat is something i've never tried,but it seems to work well for kimgr and marcuspocus,two reliable sources.........being in sfp seems to make it simple.another logical choice would be tripledat for the same reason..

samplitude is a very nice stable program that handles audio and audioedits quite easily.it also burns redbook cds.it's a nice product.upgrades are expensive....

acid would work but samplitude's and logic's audio engines sound a LOT better to my ears,also the program feels kinda,oh,cheesy...(you CAN do some cool things with acid,but if you really are just record/editing i don't think it's the best one)

nope,i still like logic,good sound,good plugs,easy recoding/archiving,syncs to other sequencers easily,great automation(yeah,mixing's great in logic),evil owners(no worse than the pc guys tho)...

[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2002-10-17 03:25 ]

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 3:54 am

I'm not saying this is the best method, but what I would do is:

- record the audio into SoundForge6
- clean it up a bit with DC offset, normalise etc
- do an "auto-region" extraction so that all the little bits and pieces were defined as separate regions (as fine or course as you like)
then EITHER:
- drop the little chunks individually into Fruity and mutate them, add effects etc
- then export the acidised loops to AcidPro
OR:
- Take the long wav and drop it into Kontakt for mangulation
- replay the mangulated file back into SoundForge and reprocess (or open Kontakt in Fruity and sequence the mangulation)

OR:
- drop the long wav into AcidPro. Acid recognises the regions made by SoundForge so in effect you can have dozens of little wavs on a single track (one wav per track is often cited as a weakness of Acid). You can then rearrange and recombine as needed.

Since you mention loops, nothing does loops like Acid . . .
_________________
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Where I rest . . .

[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2002-10-17 04:59 ]

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 6:00 am

Fruity Loops has a sequencer that grooves.
I prefer it to cubase to make drum tracks (hip/trip hop, ragga).
Then you export the tracks, and work in acid, cubase or whatever you like.
That's what I wouldrecommend if you don't have MPC.

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 7:03 am

Thanks for responding guys. Let me expand on a few things which may help zero in on an answer.

I am using tripleDAT and Pulsar for this work. The producer on these sessions hires session musicians (two or three guitarists, a bass player, two keyboard/synth players, a few rappers, etc.) to come in and lay down tracks. The parts each person plays are about 15-20 seconds long. Then I'm asked to simply loop the part over and over. The vocalists obviously sing their parts all the way through.

This is kinda painful to do in tripleDAT although not impossible. It's just a pain to get the samples duplicated and pasted and lined up so they are dead-on in tempo. There has to be a better way.

I've used Acid before but having to get the audio out of 3DAT and into another looping program and then back into 3DAT seems like a pain. Sonar, I think, will handle all this automatically.

I'm aware of Cubase and Logic but these programs cost almost twice what Sonar costs and I'm not sure I need all those bells & whistles anyway. Sonar looks like it has enough features to do what I need for these sessions but I'm not 100% sure about that.

I'm not looking to replace 3DAT per se, just add another tool that works better for rap/hip hop/r&b, etc.

Ableton looks interesting but I'm not exactly sure what it does or how well it works with Pulsar.

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 7:39 am

sounds like any of Logic/cubase/nuendo/sonar will do. I'd stay away from acid cuz it's now quite great to do "trackdown" work.. As far as I know, I'd only use acid to build the loops, and then send the loops into the multitrack software.
Since you're on PC.. I'd say go with cubase/nuendo/sonar. Ableton live seems geared more toward live performance I think.

Also, you can still use an Akai to loop the tracks as was done by many great hiphop producers. I'm tellin' ya, it really does have an authentic sound.

[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2002-10-17 08:40 ]

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 7:56 am

Thanks for the response. I agree with the Akai as a great looping tool but it seems kinda silly to record direct to the Akai, loop it and then dump it to 3DAT. Too many AD-DA conversions if you ask me. I'd prefer to do all the multi-tracking and looping inside a single program if possible.

Anyway - thanks for responding guys. I think I'm going to buy Sonar. Many of the studios in my surrounding area seem to have Sonar so I'm sure it will do what I need.

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 1:29 pm

Have you thought about recording in STS? Perfect for selecting your loop, cutting the wav, recording in 24bits or 32bits if needed, and only 1 ad convertion in the process... After, you can use ANY midi sequencer to just play the loop as long as you wish, apply effects like you need, and for transering to 3dat, nothing's more easy, since it's all in sfp!? That's what i would do anyway... Just a suggestion!

What do you think?

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 6:56 pm

I know lots of people used to have terrible latency problems running Sonar and PulsarII together. A driver update came out recently but I'm not sure how good the result was. I'd advise looking into this before buying Sonar.