Just Like Starting Over?

Old Music Guy

Old Music Guy

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Suffice it to say that I put too many DAWs, and too much junk on my "Studio" laptop. So much so, that I can never get anything done, and therefore avoid it.
I'm thinking of starting over so that come this winter, I may be able to get "Something, Anything" done.
Currently on the laptop is: Cubase, REAPER, Audacity, Ableton, Ardour, a boatload of Waves plug-ins, Some stand alone VSTs, some imbedded, and stuff I can't even remember, Notwithstanding all the unfinished "projects" and templates. My 500GB hard drive is full of crap.
Is it worth trying to keep what's on the disk, or just start all over again? New computer and all?

EDIT: A new computer is definitely in the cards, so that will of course mean an update to Windows 11 (no disrespect to LINUX fans). This will certainly complicate things.
However, one of the BIGGEST problems I've had, with Cubase, and Steinberg products in general, is their incompatibility with NVIDIA graphics cards. Most all of the issues have been there. As well as many Cubase users. I'm inclined to go with an Intel graphics processor if possible. Comments welcomed.
 
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I downloaded all the free DAW’s on my old laptop. But I have a 1Tb HD. Lotsa room. Ultimately. I deleted them all except Reaper…. Which I did end up paying for. And I also have the free version of Abelton Live Lite I got with some piece of hardware I installed on my old Dell Desktop. I keep it updated…. Just don’t use it. Concentrating on learning to use Reaper.
 
iblive said:
Concentrating on learning to use Reaper.
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I decided to keep and clean up my old laptop rather than buy a new one.
I deleted all the DAWS I had on the machine. NOTE: I thought that when you did an update, it just updated the existing program. Nope. It installs a new program. By getting rid of Ableton, Ardour and Cubase and associated files I actually got rid of almost 100GB or crap! I had NO IDEA how much space Steinberg takes up on a disk.
I bought REAPER.
Phase 1 and 2 are complete. Let's see what's next
 
Old Music Guy said:
By getting rid of Ableton, Ardour and Cubase and associated files I actually got rid of almost 100GB or crap! I had NO IDEA how much space Steinberg takes up on a disk.
I bought REAPER.
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It’s amazing, the dichotomy between Reaper, and other commercial DAW programs. We can run Reaper from a usb stick, plugged into most any computer…its footprint is minuscule in comparison to most of the others. It’s packed with some of the most useful tools out there…no…they don’t look all kinds of graphically sexy…but they work well, and once you learn to use them they can really get the job done.
A laptop, an interface, and a couple of reasonably speedy external drives (one for audio destination, and another for virtual instruments and such) can be a fantastic base system.
I wish you the best in your quest!

Disclaimer: Long ago…I went Mac, and never looked back…so I’m of little help on the mechanics of Windows systems, and hardware compatibility anymore. But I started using Reaper in a XP box around V 0.86. Long time fan.
 
Thatbastarddon said:
It’s amazing, the dichotomy between Reaper, and other commercial DAW programs. We can run Reaper from a usb stick, plugged into most any computer…its footprint is minuscule in comparison to most of the others. It’s packed with some of the most useful tools out there…no…they don’t look all kinds of graphically sexy…but they work well, and once you learn to use them they can really get the job done.
A laptop, an interface, and a couple of reasonably speedy external drives (one for audio destination, and another for virtual instruments and such) can be a fantastic base system.
I wish you the best in your quest!

Disclaimer: Long ago…I went Mac, and never looked back…so I’m of little help on the mechanics of Windows systems, and hardware compatibility anymore. But I started using Reaper in a XP box around V 0.86. Long time fan.
Click to expand...
That's so true. Reaper was about 100MB! I was amazed. I have a 500G (?) SSD and 16M of RAM. That should suffice.
I've been around computers since the old Radio Shack TRS 80! Damn thing booted from a cassette :love:
My only exposure to Macs was when I worked at Polaroid in the 80s. I learned on MS-DOS. I've been using Windows from Ver. 1.0, through Windows 10. Soon, I'll be forced to 11.
Hopefully, I'll be able to make some music sooner than later.
 
Old Music Guy said:
I have a 500G (?) SSD and 16M of RAM. That should suffice.
Click to expand...
Key point. If that 500Gig SSD is the drive that the operating system is using, you may find performance to be a bit underwhelming, eventually. There’s a lot of stuff running on the system drive, and audio writing is pretty demanding in itself.
The addition of a separate hard drive, dedicated to reading and writing audio, while running your DAW on the system drive will keep the system running fairly smoothly.
It’s in the Reaper preferences, the settings to assign the places to send audio writing duties.
The same is true of running virtual instruments (like drums, and such). They further tax the system drive, but they also eat a bit of ram along the way.
If you’re just keeping it simple, recording a track at a time, and not using any virtual instruments, you may not notice the performance meter rise until you get a few tracks going…or add a bunch of fx…or start recording multiple tracks in a pass (like recording a live drum kit, or multi mic’s on an acoustic etc).
 
I need to look into Reaper. In the band I'm in now, the leader (our drummer) wants to do originals. He's written lyrics to several songs. He asked me if I could come up with music on the most recent one. He wanted a rocker. I came up with the guitar rhythm and lead parts, as well as the vocal melody. I think I crossed over into metal a little bit.

Weird how that happens!

Anyhoo, I've been recording parts on Audacity. It sounds like Reaper may be more up to the task if we get more serious with this.
 
Seamus OReally said:
I’ve been making MIDI music since I bought my first Atari STe computer and a used copy of eMagic Notator (later known as Logic) that I ran on a 13” monochrome monitor. That was an interface that made Reaper look good.
Click to expand...
In all my years working on and around PCs, I’ve not done MIDI tracks of any kind. Me thinks I have a lot to learn.
 
I was able to get my M-Audio keyboard to make some sound in Reaper with a plug-in :dance:
Next phase is to see if I can make that work with my Boss RC-505 looper.
That would be a stand up double.
 
Old Music Guy said:
Suffice it to say that I put too many DAWs, and too much junk on my "Studio" laptop. So much so, that I can never get anything done, and therefore avoid it.
I'm thinking of starting over so that come this winter, I may be able to get "Something, Anything" done.
Currently on the laptop is: Cubase, REAPER, Audacity, Ableton, Ardour, a boatload of Waves plug-ins, Some stand alone VSTs, some imbedded, and stuff I can't even remember, Notwithstanding all the unfinished "projects" and templates. My 500GB hard drive is full of crap.
Is it worth trying to keep what's on the disk, or just start all over again? New computer and all?

EDIT: A new computer is definitely in the cards, so that will of course mean an update to Windows 11 (no disrespect to LINUX fans). This will certainly complicate things.
However, one of the BIGGEST problems I've had, with Cubase, and Steinberg products in general, is their incompatibility with NVIDIA graphics cards. Most all of the issues have been there. As well as many Cubase users. I'm inclined to go with an Intel graphics processor if possible. Comments welcomed.
Click to expand...
I have a similar amount of various things.
Here is the thing, age old. I completely understand using windows. I replaced my old laptop with a W11 compatible laptop, installed everything. Great? Right?

Nope windows in their infinite wisdom made the damn thing so secure that my 3rd party software was useless. I was so pissed, so now I have a windows 11 compatible computer running on 10 and I won’t let it update. I will never buy another windows machine.
 
smitty_p said:
I need to look into Reaper. In the band I'm in now, the leader (our drummer) wants to do originals. He's written lyrics to several songs. He asked me if I could come up with music on the most recent one. He wanted a rocker. I came up with the guitar rhythm and lead parts, as well as the vocal melody. I think I crossed over into metal a little bit.

Weird how that happens!

Anyhoo, I've been recording parts on Audacity. It sounds like Reaper may be more up to the task if we get more serious with this.
Click to expand...
Definitely it is.
 
ibmorjamn said:
I have a similar amount of various things.
Here is the thing, age old. I completely understand using windows. I replaced my old laptop with a W11 compatible laptop, installed everything. Great? Right?

Nope windows in their infinite wisdom made the damn thing so secure that my 3rd party software was useless. I was so pissed, so now I have a windows 11 compatible computer running on 10 and I won’t let it update. I will never buy another windows machine.
Click to expand...
Windows 10 support ends on Oct 14, 2025.

But according to Reddit, that's the day after the aliens arrive so I'm gonna stick with Windows 10 and just see what happens.

:coffee:
 
Old Music Guy said:
That's so true. Reaper was about 100MB! I was amazed. I have a 500G (?) SSD and 16M of RAM. That should suffice.
I've been around computers since the old Radio Shack TRS 80! Damn thing booted from a cassette :love:
My only exposure to Macs was when I worked at Polaroid in the 80s. I learned on MS-DOS. I've been using Windows from Ver. 1.0, through Windows 10. Soon, I'll be forced to 11.
Hopefully, I'll be able to make some music sooner than later.
Click to expand...
Key word forced. 16gb of ram is minimum. I have a 2T portable drive.
If I buy another computer it will be apple.
 
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