Switching from GarageBand to ??????

iblive said:
Maybe someday if can get ambitious to (1) learn Abelton and (2) actually record something to share with this awesome group..... I can put up a review.

Sneak preview. First song I’d be posting is my version of The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes”.
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Ableton lasted precisely ten minutes on my machine, it was unfathomable. :D
 
Beagle said:
Ableton lasted precisely ten minutes on my machine, it was unfathomable. :D
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My youngest has it on his computer. He’s been dabbling at doing some home recordings. I’ll be able to quiz him if I’m in trouble. We are a musical family and I’m not sure there’s an instrument my two oldest grandkids can’t play if you give them a couple minutes to figure it out. Get that from their dad.... my son. Anyway. He/they have been doing some recording of the kids.

Couple stories on my kid. He like his brother are lefties. For a short time my eldest was trying to learn guitar. His strung for a lefty. Youngest son plays righty. One day he picked up his brothers guitar. Swung it to the lefty position and in a couple minutes was playing it like he’d been doing that way forever. Second quick story. They have a couple Ukes. He was messing around one day and I challenged him to do an AC/DC tune. Different tuning than guitar, but once he found the notes... he played the darn thing. His kids have that kind of talent as well.

Sorry about the hijack. I return you now to your regularly scheduled thread.
 
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iblive said:
My youngest has it on his computer. He’s been dabbling at doing some home recordings. I’ll be able to quiz him if I’m in trouble. We are a musical family and I’m not sure there’s an instrument my two oldest grandkids can’t play if you give them a couple minutes to figure it out. Get that from their dad.... my son. Anyway. He/they have been doing some recording of the kids.

Couple stories on my kid. He like his brother are lefties. For a short time my eldest was trying to learn guitar. His strung for a lefty. Youngest son plays righty. One day he picked up his brothers guitar. Swung it to the lefty position and in a couple minutes was playing it like he’d been doing that way forever. Second quick story. They have a couple Ukes. He was messing around one day and I challenged him to do an AC/DC tune. Different tuning than guitar, but once he found the notes... he played the darn thing. His kids have that kind of talent as well.

Sorry about the hijack. I return you now to you regularly scheduled thread.
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My niece has a Uke she plays in her school strings class. She brought it over once to show me and i asked to play it, after a few minutes i was playing Pantera Cowboys From Hell and she asked " Whats THAT?" in a disgusted tone. I have never felt such disappointment lol
 
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One more vote for Reaper (although I don't have any experience with other DAWs). I try my hardest to avoid getting bogged down with non-essentials (such as dicking around with the computer instead of playing) and it took me maybe one or two evenings to learn enough about Reaper to do what I need to do. The video tutorials are quite good although it's not the best format if you just want to find an answer to something quickly.
 
Kerry Brown said:
I've been using an old Mac Mini with GarageBand for recording The Mac can't take the latest OS updates. If I get more than six or seven tracks it starts locking up. I can't afford a newer Mac but I do have a decent laptop I can dedicate to recording. It has a Core i7 CPU with 16 GB RAM. It's running the latest version of Windows 10. I'd like to try recording with it but I know nothing about PC based DAWs. I know some have free and/or trial versions. I don't want to learn one DAW only to find out I need a different one. I currently use an Apogee JAM interface for guitar and bass. I have an Apogee Mic+ and an Akai MPK mini keyboard. They are all USB so I'm hoping I can use them on the laptop. If not I will get a Scarlett or something similar. Looking for recommendations.
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I have to ask, are you trying to record on the system hard drive? Or do you have a secondary drive hooked up to your mini that you can direct audio file writing to?(thus letting the system drive concentrate on running the programs and OS)
Kerry Brown said:
I have downloaded and installed Reaper. It is very different from GarageBand. I’m watching some video tutorials.
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I am a fan of Reaper. Longtime user too. I’m happy to help out if I can...if needed.
I also have an old Mac Mini...running Reaper.
 
Thatbastarddon said:
I have to ask, are you trying to record on the system hard drive? Or do you have a secondary drive hooked up to your mini that you can direct audio file writing to?(thus letting the system drive concentrate on running the programs and OS)

I am a fan of Reaper. Longtime user too. I’m happy to help out if I can...if needed.
I also have an old Mac Mini...running Reaper.
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The Mac is too old. I thought about putting a SSD in it but it has been out of support with no updates for well over a year. It has an i3 CPU, 4 GB, and a 5400 rpm hard drive so it is very slow. It is time to retire it. The new laptop is one I got in trade from a client. It has a fast i7 CPU and 16 GB of ram. It has a 500gb hard drive right now but will get a SSD. It has USB 3.0, Bluetooth, and an IDE external interface so I can hook up almost anything. It will go in my music room with a 32” TV for a monitor. The Mini was in my office with a 23” monitor.
 
Kerry Brown said:
The Mac is too old. I thought about putting a SSD in it but it has been out of support with no updates for well over a year. It has an i3 CPU, 4 GB, and a 5400 rpm hard drive so it is very slow. It is time to retire it. The new laptop is one I got in trade from a client. It has a fast i7 CPU and 16 GB of ram. It has a 500gb hard drive right now but will get a SSD. It has USB 3.0, Bluetooth, and an IDE external interface so I can hook up almost anything. It will go in my music room with a 32” TV for a monitor. The Mini was in my office with a 23” monitor.
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My mid-2010 Mini only gets security updates these days...and those days are numbered. My point is that it’s easier on any system to assign a separate drive to write audio capture data and to play back from. The system drive should be allowed to do its thing without having to do that chore. This holds true for your new laptop as well. I upgraded my Mac Mini system drive to a SSD, and it flys now....but knowing that its days are numbered, I chose to update to a MacBook Pro for the studio. I still use an external drive to record audio and/or video to. This time I chose a little 1 terabyte SSD...so far so good... I can record at least 6 tracks simultaneously, while playing back 10 others. I’m not doing much in the way of live drums durin the pandemic...that usually is my benchmark for acceptable performance...usually 10-11 tracks at a pass.
The old Mini runs great, and has been tested by recording a few 12 track rehearsals, and a 10 track live drum project, without breaking a sweat....using an external USB drive as the media destination. Not a pop, or dropout...CPU loads were low....
The MacBook Pro is much the same....even snappier...and I’m starting to explore video with reasonably good audio capture with it. :)
 
I'm bringing this one back. I think I have finally had it with Ableton. It just isn't intuitive to me at all. I downloaded the Reaper program this morning for the free trial. I haven't even remotely started to figure it out yet. Boo is going to have to watch some tutorials. Anybody know if I can control EZ Drummer 2 with Reaper? I would really like to use the DAW to control drums if at all possible. If I can't get it to work I will just have to buy a cheap electronic drum set.
 
I've been using GB since 2015. DL'ed Reaper a few years back and loved it. Finally slid back to GB just for familiarity's sake, but if I were to switch it would be to Reaper all day every day.
 
Get on Reaper's YT channel. They have so many tutorials that I think they spent more time on videos than programming. I love Reaper and will never switch. The only thing I miss is the thousands of MIDI instrument files I lost when I dumped Ableton. I need to find some VST instrument and MIDI packs to download on the cheap.

I've seen people control EZ Drummer and GGDrums with Reaper so I know it can be done. I just don't know how since I'm lame, and have no drum programs. :(
 
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