john

rattle .. pram?

avatar even...

What's your sound card problem? Have you tried changing the pci slot it is inserted in?

Hey My guess because they charged musos they lost members to free hosting sites, while at the same time they didn't pull in enough download traffic to make it worthwhile for themselves or the artists. The fact that the site was completely pitched to artists rather than listeners meant they didn't have enough listeners to fund a download site. The site stagnated and eventually lost it's search position with the likes of Google. Having looked in on the boards from time to time, it's also possible the owner has moved on to new things and lost focus on Ampcast. Cheers John

Hey Didier Interesting. Sad too, though not a great surprize it has to be said. Where do you think it leaves a site like Songstuff? We kind of sit in the commercial vacuum. By not having music hosting we can't make money from downloads for the site, or directly for artists. I hope we do help artists sell by improving visibility, but that is indirect. This is why one of my aims for 2006 is to establish improved links with the music industry, to consolidate the help we can give artists. At the same time I want to improve the music.songstuff.com domain to be more targeted at listeners. As we've been looking at hosting and providing a proper OMD targeted at listeners, there may be a completely listener targeted sister site to feature Songstuff artists. This would allow Songstuff itself to remain completely focused on the artist end of things. Whachafink? Cheers John

A fair amount of kit! Looks pretty nice too. I can't advise on current laptops at the mo, sorry. I'm a little out of date. I'll have a look about though and report back...

It's still open, just transposed Ok, and a bit shorter.

Why do you hate them Hari? For me it's simply a matter of expediency.

Eh? You shouted before James!

A good capo makes a lot of difference. Don't lose this one!

Hey Did I miss some posts or something? Where did all the insults come from? Starting your reply with shouting MORON to someone isn't the most friendly way to reply to someone. From what I see here it's completely uncalled for H. When you are learning something, do you like being called STUPID? James is asking some questions about something he doesn't know. A place we've all been. He's prepared to do the work to learn, but doesn't want to open a hole and chuck his money in while he learns. To get back to your question James: I'll have a look about. You don't say if you are a piano player. If not the subtleties of a top notch keyboard surface would be lost on (touch sensitivity, piano action) you if all you want to do is enter notes into a midi track on cubase. Likewise, if you don't mind that you can only hear what you are playing when your PC is on, you only need a controller keyboard. By sacrificing the keyboards ability to produce it's own sounds you will get a better actual keyboard. It's a bit of a trade off. If you are not a keyboard player, but intend gradually improving, and have no need of a keyboard for gigs, you might be as well getting a controller keyboard like these: http://www.dv247.com/invt/26150 http://www.evolution.co.uk/products/evo_mk461c.htm I hope this helps! Cheers John

John, you do realise you have to wear the outfit and make up? and then post a photo!

Hey Marc I hurt my back in September. I spend most of my time on the floor at the mo, and my studio is in the attic. That said my wife cleared the pizza boxes 2 weeks ago so I can get in easier. I was planning on getting started recording and getting one of my friends to operate the gear for me, so it's not a major issue, assuming I can climb the stairs! For dependability, if nothing else, you might be better going with Nightwolf. either way just let me know and it's cool. Cheers John

I know this doesn't answer the question but I thought it would be useful to you: ftp://steinberg.de/Download/General_Docum..._Comparison.pdf As far as I remember Cubase VST was one of their "studio in a box" products. They introduced a plug-in interface called InWire or something like that, the idea being to set a standard for plug ins across a variety of non Steinberg products. From what I've read Houston is designed to work with the VST engine, which I believe is in all their recent software products. They probably introduced InWire at version 5.0 of the engine Don't quote me, but my guess would be that they are both compatible. Cheers John

Sorry James, I don't know off hand (I use Cakewalk Sonar).

Hey Marc If you're stuck, and I mean stuck I'll give it a go. It wouldn't be problem normally, but getting into my studio is a bit of problem at the moment. Cheers John

As long as your audio card has audio IO yes you could do this. Most cheap soundcards don't offer you much in the way of audio quality, or a variety of sampling rates in the convesrion from analog to digital. You would also need to check how you get midi IO if you go with the fitted soundcard.

Hey Rudi I found several sites listing Thomanns gear showed thet the Harley Bentons were out of stock, but when I went to Thomanns UK they showed as in stock. I ordered an got one no problem. No one likes a smug bastard...

Hey Nigel The proof is in the pudding. It only to took you a year and a half to find this and respond! Cheers John

You can get sounds from a variety of sources including external midi sound sources such as keyboards, synths, drum machines and samplers, from your soundcard (if it has a built in synth, I don't think the M14 has this) or from software synths and software samplers. There are lots of options in all three areas. I have external midi sources, my sound card can act as a synth, and I use software progs, though not many. Hari or Atom2 could probably advise you better on the software synth options. I guess the main thing for you to understand (if you don't already) is that midi is control information only. i.e. what note to play, how long, when it starts and how loud etc. It needs something to actually generate the sound. If you rely on a lot of external sound sources you will either need a lot of audio IO on your sound card, or sound card break out box (a box that stands outside your computer. The M14 is an external box, with no reliance on a souncard on the PC, and is in effect a break out box of sorts.), or you will need an external mixer to mix a variety of external modules into say a stereo input pair for importing into your PC. As you are learning about all this a decent but not to expensive system that gives you the flexibility to try out all or most of these options. As ever with options there are pros and cons: External, you may have to worry about latency, especially as the M14 is USB based (a communications system not exactly known for low latency for midi implementations. You will need to provide a solution for gettin the sound generated by these modules into your system, and you obviously will use up more space in your studio for more external hardware. Internal software synths etc generally consume your PC resources, which you probably want to keep for running as many audio tracks in cubase as you can. For example, running a soft synth will use your PC CPU, RAM and hard drive. If you rely on soft synths on their own, you are likely to use more than one. Of course they will be running at the same time as Cubase, and possibly an external sound editor like wave lab or soundforge. All this uses a lot of valuable resources (you can see why I recommended extra RAM!) If you have a decent music shop near you, why not drop in and get them to demo a few systems or software progs? Bear in mind they are likely to steer you towards what they have in stock, or on special offer. This is great when you know what you want, but look at a few. Try a few different shops. See if you can try demo versions of the software you are recommended or that you think looks good on your existing PC... you get the picture. I hope this helps! Cheers John

S'ok James. Everyone starts somewhere. You need an external midi interface if you have external midi triggers (keyboards, midi drums, guitar or mixer etc.) or have external midi modules (synths/keyboards, samplers, midi controlled mixers, midi controlled effects etc.). You need a decent method of audio input and output. The M14 does both audio and midi (4 audio I/O design, 16-channel MIDI I/O) and it plugs into your usb port.

Hey James Have you picked one yet? Cheers John

Hey I have to agree. Mark is a pretty talented songwriter. He was a late starter, but the boy's done good. I saw an interview with him recently and he certainly lists some pretty muso like influences, and he expressed a genuine sensitivity and respect for music and songwriting. Cheers John

Hey James Ok you should check a few things: 1: Get as much RAM as you can, and I wouldn't recommend less than 1 GB. Check prices for your RAM at www.crucial.com, it might be cheaper than buying it as an upgrade to a new laptop package. 2: Make sure your hard disk is a ~7200rpm drive. Try and also budget for an external USB drive ~ 200GB. This will serve as additional storage so you don't fill up your laptop and ultimately slow it down. 3: Try and get an M class processor. Although the clock speeds appear slower than a celeron they are low power multi-core devices that have a high data through put and masses of internal cache. 4: An external mouse may be useful, but the keyboard is an un-needed cost. 5: Will Music creator allow you an upgrade path to full Sonar? I'm not sure. 6: Try and get a laptop with a large screen that supports high resolutions. This will allow you to get more information on the screen at the same time, reducing time wasted to scrolling and changing windows. Lastly, when you get it maximise the RAM available to your music. When you add new software and it prompts you if you want a quick launch bar or similar, answer no. These are the little icons, which represent services, on the right hand side of your windows tool bar. Although you don't use them all the time they use up quite a lot of RAM cumulatively. I hope this helps! Cheers John