Cubase Advice

[Daniel]

Hello everyone I am a singer/songwriter stepping into the recording world. . I just want to throw my ideas out here and get some suggestions from you guys that will hopefully get me going in the right direction. I am currently recording tracks on a Boss BR-532 and dumping them into cubase LE through a laptops built in soundcard. (no midi at this time)

Here are the specs on my Acer laptop:

Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor
1 Gig Ram
Windows Vista Home Premium
120 gig hard drive
No Firewire (limited to usb interface)

Running Cubase LE4
Plan on making the jump to Cubase 4 because of the drum editor and midi capabilities..

I will be recording one input at a time. (would like to stay mobile)
Leaning towared M-Audio USB audio/midi interface.

Here are a few questions I have:
Is my computer capable of running Cubase 4 Efficiently? Steinberg's website says it is, but are any of you using Vista? They seem to be claiming there are no issues running Cubase 4 on Vista. I haven't had much trouble running LE4 on Vista.

Is anyone using the M-Audio USB interface?

Thanks,
Daniel

[DerlinStiles]

I think you'll be fine- it should essentially run the same as LE4, there just will be more tools at your disposal. Its running vst's (effects and instruments) and doing more than 1-2 tracks at high bit/sampling rates that will show you the limitations of your system. If you want to increase performance a little, get another gig of RAM. I can record 2 tracks of 24/44.1 with good (low) latency on my P4 2.8 (single-proc.) w/ 1.5G of RAM.
FYI, I upgraded to SE3 from LE for the same reason- for the drum sequencer- and it meets all my needs. I think it only cost $35-40, so check it out on the steinberg site and maybe you can save some cash- not sure if they still offer that. But also, I already had a steinberg key from wavelabe studio 4 so make sure you factor in that cost if you need to. I think Cubase is a good choice if you have Vista because steinberg tends to stay on top of compatibility issues better than many companies.
I think M-Audio is a good choice too- their drivers and driver support are good- they keep them up to date. I used to have a Firewire 410 and it installed and worked without issue better than the several interfaces I've had since. And you'll be fine with USB, especially if your doing only 1 or 2 tracks at a time.
And get the M-Audio (or other interface) soon- I had a BR-532 as well and it sounded ok (great for elec. guitar sounds!), but it was a pain in the butt to use! No USB cable! AHH!

[Daniel]

Thanks for the reply DerlinStiles. I was hoping I was on the right track with all this.

How do you like the drum editor??? From what I've read it takes a lot of practice getting them to sound real.

[DerlinStiles]

well, the short answer is "yes"- IMO it's very hard to get the drums to sound real. You can play with nuances in timing, but I mostly just mess with the dynamic levels to achieve a little bit of realism. Like when there are 8th notes on the hihat, make the notes on the beat louder. You can subtly vary snare hits, etc. The drum editor isn't all that much- just a modified version of the midi key editor that you already have with LE. Its just easier to work with- it shows you the drum names instead of piano notes on the left and and you don't have to specify the note length. I think when i upgraded to SE3 it came with a vst drum plug in that has 1 or 2 drum sets. they did the job, but I remember not liking them too much. I output the midi to a fairly respectable drum machine (DR-670) which I have tweaked to my taste, and it sounds a lot better, but I still wouldn't ever use it on a final cut of one of my songs. I really just create the drum lines to help me track and to flesh out ideas (if its a serious project, at the end I'll record real drums to replace the midi drums). Also, outputing to the drum machine is better because it saves the PC from having to process all the drum sounds while tracking. But that said, i'm sure there are vst drum plug ins that are probably pretty good and that make the drum lines sound natural and realistic. But again, be aware of the extra processing power those take- the better they are, the more processing they're likely to need. There are things you can do to manage that though- for instance, you create the midi drum line, play it through a vst drum plug in and write the audio to a track, then disable the midi track. that way when you go to record guitar along with the drum line, the pc is simply playing an audio track instead of processing all the drum samples.
Well that certainly was a long-winded answer to a simple question. I hope I've helped some.

[scribe]

hey there,
heres a little trick that I use to make midi drums sound a bit more real. Its a bit radical but what the hell!! You will need a few things. A monitor speaker, a real snare drum. Solo your snare, place your monitor face down on the top skin of the snare. Stick a mic underneath the snare. Record it. Sometimes I will put the kick and/ or toms. You will get the rattle from the snare which sounds kinda nice mixed in with a programmed kit. Play with the tension of the snare too.

Cheers.

[Daniel]

Thanks for all the input guys.

Hey Derlin, are you using SE3 with Vista or XP?

[DerlinStiles]

I am using SE3 with XP. Steinberg says "No known problems so far" for SE3 on this "Support for PCs using Microsoft Windows Vista" support page that I found:
http://knowledgebase.steinberg.com/173_1.html
Of course SE is a "Product without further planned updates" so there isn't a guarantee that it would work flawlessly on vista, but I doubt you'd have problems. I bet if you did the upgrade and did have any problems you could call back and they would probably let you do the Cubase 4 upgrade for the difference- that's a guess, but you could probably just call and ask. The guy at Steinberg who i talked to was very helpful when I did my upgrade.

PS. Hey Scribe, I like you're drum tracking technique- I definitely have to try that!