Korg Forums

Dee · Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 9:19 pm Post subject:

Thanks sewa, there's a lot to read over there. I learnt a lot just from a few pages of it.

Dee

sewa · Platinum Member Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 1293

That guy is great at explaining things and its always a pleasure to read his guides.

Diego · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 3:03 pm Post subject:

Hi!

I'm jumping into the discussion just to inform you about progress of my february song...

As I saied when I joined OSAM, I'm so busy and involved with choral arrangments that I don't have any time for different music; having that saied, I would have posted just my own vocal arrangments, but I've taken a different direction in these last days: I'm working on an electronic tune, not that much interesting, it's so short, about 1'10''; BTW, I'm enjoying a lot, because I've decided to use that OSAM to work not on my strong skills, but to improove my poor musical abilities.

I hope it's not a problem if the song is so short, I need to become familiar with that kind of music: the hardest things for me are to learn to use a few ideas and develop them into the song, create simple melodies, using in-style sounds...
I'm sure I'll learn a lot!!!

Regards
_________________
Diego http://www.myspace.com/diegoinmusic

Korg M3 with EXB Radias & EXB-256 onboard
MOTU Traveler - iBook G4

georgeinar · Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:39 pm Post subject:

Diego, I think that is great that you are taking chances. And if this short submission is going to help you create better music, then it's your choice here that matters. We are here to encourage and suggest things that may help your process. Sounds like some experimenting going on this year. That is a good thing.
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)

JonSolo · Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:21 am Post subject:

Diego,

Size does not matter...but tell that to her! Twisted Evil

Seriously, short songs can be some of the most important songs. Think Maurice Williams "Stay"...just a little over one and half minutes. And it not only was a number 1 song but has sold millions worldwide.

So bring it on!

Solo
_________________
Jon Solo

http://www.solosounds.net
http://jonsolo.me
http://www.soundcloud.com/jonsolo
http://www.twitter.com/thejonsolo

Windows 10 | Intel i9 9900K | 64 GB RAM | Scarlett 18i20 | Nektar Panorama P6
Korg Kronos - 88 | Korg Kronos 2 - 61 | Roland Fantom 6 | Push 2 | Maschine Mk2 | Slate ML1 | JBL LSR308/310
Nuendo 11 | Ableton Live 11 | Reason 12 | FL Studio 20.9

DrWho · Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:03 am Post subject:

Yea - song length is interesting - for me getting the right length can be a problem - it is related to idea development etc .... in fact, my present tune - which I have been working on for a month now - has this very problem. I really like the 1st 1/2 of it which is about 1min 10 secs. Where to go from there has taken up most of the time.
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Dee · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:46 am Post subject:

Hi guys

This is a change of topic from the above, but I would appreciate some advice. There's a chance that I MIGHT be able to buy a computer for my music room, just for my own use Very Happy

.....what a luxury that will be. Now the question is, desktop or laptop?

I'm being encouraged at home in the laptop direction......

What should I be looking for in a laptop (the one suggested is a Dell 3GHz) for music production. Or is desktop the way to go??? All I've got so far is a Triton!

Thanks,
Dee

Stephen · Platinum Member Joined: 28 Aug 2002 Posts: 4709

Laptop seems to be the way most are going.
The issues you'll deal with, are interface, and that's no small deal, and making sure it's compatible with Windows Vista.
Lot's of conversation about audio recording and Vista, driver issues mostly.
I have been told that it's getting better as time passes, and they continue to upgrade, but slow going so far.
If I were to upgrade I'd go with a Desktop, and Windows XP for now. I don't have a need for portability, and I like my Soundcard installed in a PCI slot for some reason, but that's just an indivigual prefrence.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-fp&p=Windows%20Vista%2c%20and%20recording%20audio&type=
Might be some enlightening information there.
I think you'll get a variety of opinions here.
Good luck.
_________________
Stephen
https://www.soundclick.com/artist/default.cfm?bandID=1514031
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Location Central U.S.A.

JonSolo · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:43 pm Post subject:

Maybe I can help. I have both. I have a Dell 1720 laptop loaded, and a Dell XPS 410 desktop loaded. Since you have come this far without a computer in your music room the following point may or may not be useful: think about the future.

Desktop advantages:

Laptop advantages:

While the laptop has "fewer" listed advantages, that does not mean the list is not long. By portable, you could work out of any room in your house, record remote live sound easier, and edit your work from anywhere you go.

For both machines, if you want really good recordings with future options to do things like multitrack, you will need a good audio device. Many here like myself use the Audiophile 24/96 or 24/192 from M-Audio for their desktops. It is an inexpensive and very usable solution. With both analog and digital I/O and MIDI I/O you are covered with this card.

If you go the laptop route, you will need an external unit. Firewire is preferable because it is much faster than USB. I personally have the Firewire Audiophile from M-Audio for my laptop. It has the same I/O as it's PCI sister card mentioned above.

It is not always the biggest bang for the buck to get the best, latest, greatest, fully loaded laptop if you go that route. Getting one with "last weeks" Core Duo 2 processor verses the newer Extreme or Quads could save you over $1000 USD. The biggest thing is to get the most memory you can...AND do NOT do that from Dell. Order that with minimal and then order your memory upgrades online. I ordered a laptop with 1gb of memory, and upgraded it to 4gb myself and saved almost $300.

Last but not least, do NOT settle for a 5400rpm drive if you get a laptop. Spend the little bit of extra cash and get a 7200rpm drive.

Hope all goes well, and hope this helps some.
_________________
Jon Solo

http://www.solosounds.net
http://jonsolo.me
http://www.soundcloud.com/jonsolo
http://www.twitter.com/thejonsolo

Windows 10 | Intel i9 9900K | 64 GB RAM | Scarlett 18i20 | Nektar Panorama P6
Korg Kronos - 88 | Korg Kronos 2 - 61 | Roland Fantom 6 | Push 2 | Maschine Mk2 | Slate ML1 | JBL LSR308/310
Nuendo 11 | Ableton Live 11 | Reason 12 | FL Studio 20.9

DrWho · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject:

Hi Dee,

Good question - these days the laptops have plenty of computing power to do music mixing and processing. They also have able hard drive space as well. As for adding on to them - the USB port can be used to externally add more hard drive space, and other audio devices. Also, you have to consider the laptop screen size - a 15" laptop screen might be small if you use a lower resolution. Some people - like me - crank up the monitor resolution so much that the text and icons are very small - but it allows lots of data (audio tracks for example) to be on the screen at once. The comments I usually get from others is "how can you see that - its so small". Keep in mind that you can use an external monitor on most laptops. This gives the best of both worlds - portability, small space, and a big screen when docked in the studio.

Desktops usually require more space, and a monitor. They often are less expense for equal or more computing power than the laptop for a variety of reasons which I won't bore you with.

The next thing will be the audio interface. Desktops come with many good choices for an audio interface - and are inexpensive. The laptop doesn't have this choice with the built in audio interface so you will probably want an external USB audio interface. There are a few good choices for this - M-Audio makes a couple as do others.

And finally - as Stephen said - Vista is a PITA! I would recommend XP if you can still get it - you might not be able to. I think Dell was still shipping some systems w/XP. Vista is bloatware. It is about 14gigs of hard drive space! <SICK>

Hope I didn't scare you - once you get past all this - and get it setup it is fun Smile

Then comes the software for putting together tunes - there are a zillion options for that.

Cheers,

={> Art
_________________
Care for a jelly baby?
http://www.soundclick.com/artist/9/surfacetension_music.htm

Dee · Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 8:32 am Post subject:

Hi guys

Just a quick thank you for all your help - think I'll go with the PC+XP option, but can't afford it yet......probably next month. Vista - someone called it "bloatware" (oh yes it was Dr Who)!! There was an article in the paper saying: "Private Microsoft emails unearthed during a US court case have revealed that even the software giant's own executives struggled to get Windows Vista running smoothly."

What worries me is that it might become difficult to get software that runs with XP in the future, if everything becomes Vista-compatible.

Dee Smile

georgeinar · Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:55 pm Post subject:

Dee, I'm not an advocate of any computer stuff per se, but I just wanted to say I bought a new computer with Vista, and everything I had originally that ran on XP is running on Vista with not problems, and now I have a much faster computer with 2 gig of memory. That's a lot now days. Just my 2 cents.
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)

Dee · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:29 am Post subject:

mmmm....more food for thought, George!
May I ask what your processor speed is and what size hard drive you have?

Someone has suggested I forget Windows and use Linux....uses very little memory apparently.

georgeinar · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:32 am Post subject:

I don't know the speed, it's pretty fast, but the hard drive is 400 gig.
_________________
George Nelson is 2loose
http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/2loose for my cds
http://www.soundclick.com/2loose or follow my tweets = 2loose_buzzgoth (twitter name)

Diego · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:59 am Post subject:

Hi!

I'm jumping into the discussion to tell you my two cents about win computers...
I don't even try to talk about Mac, because it always seems I'm on just one side...I work as a Java/Oracle programmer, and have experienced bad problems with Vista.
Consider that Microsoft announced some months ago that XP would never be supported nor developed; after Vista become a great "flop", they announced that XP would be developed, supported and sold again!

I'm sure that all software for the next 5 or more years will be fully compatible with XP; the problem, I guess, will be in the hardware (newer 64-bit processors, newer S-ATA drives, newer motherboard chipset, and so on).

BTW, I would go for XP, expecially for demanding applications like DAW softwares.

Regards
_________________
Diego http://www.myspace.com/diegoinmusic

Korg M3 with EXB Radias & EXB-256 onboard
MOTU Traveler - iBook G4