Finally, laptop here, but what software?

*Tripper*

Well my MacBookPro arrivied yesterday and I was certain that I was going to go and ge Ableton Live 6, but now I have some queries!

I have about €500 to spend.

I want to be able to mix songs together and create my own tunes. Something along th lines of daft punk. Is creating songs through loops and some real instruments(guitar and vocals) possible in ableton?

I have been recomended to buy mbox2, which comes with a sound card, is this what I need?

Lastly has anyone here used http://www.playback-europe.com/digidesign-mbox_2-8647.html ? Its 125 cheaper the in dublin!


Sorry for all the questions I dunno what to choose!

Also any recomendations would be great!

Cheers,

*tripper*

John_Mc

Abelton sounds like what you're looking for anyway.

Not sure about the rest

Luke! Broughan

yo,if youve got 500 eur to spend id ableton live it(i think its only 200 or so,im not sure really) ...i dont know much about it to be honest(and in fairness youll want a good powerfull laptop/desktop.) but i heard its pretty intuitive.


You mentioned you wanted to make daft punk kinda stuff....well,in my opinion if you want to go down that line and take it out on a serious level id purchase a "KORG ELECTRIBE Groovebox"(the blue one,not the red one!!):) ....think that could be around your price range.

Im buying a korg electribe soon.
I also have virtual DJ for my laptop,its mixing software and you get an mp3 controller with it.140EUR....fraction of the price.you can record your mixes and pretty much remix two tracks because the software automatically beatmatches the two tracks and they will NEVER go out of time.i remix,then burn my mix and pop it into my OLD OLD OLD Numark cdmix1:D

Zascar

Here is a lit of the main players in the DJ Software game. Most of them have trials so give them all a go and see what you like best.

Ableton is good for live production etc but I think if you are looking to actually make tunes (like Daft Punk style stuff) you need something more specific like Fruity Loops, Reason, and Cubase and stuff like that. Here is a giant list of all those types of software.

Make sure to check out ReBirth too.

Hope that helps.

electro.ie

Hey,

Ableton Live all the way, by far the best program for production and live performance, believe me Ive used almost every software sequencer there is

Started on Reason, pretty cool and grand for beginning but lack of VST capability and direct audio recording is a bit of a bummer. In saying that now some people love it and truth be told I occasionally rewire reason into live (the synths in reason are really quick and easy to use)

note: Claude Von Stroke uses only Reason. FACT
Howlett Sequenced always outnumbered... in Reason, Used the Dr. Rex for loop manipulation also, he thought the bass lines were a bit weak onboard.

Cubase: Moved from Reason to Cubase, fruity loops was somewhere in between but when I got my hands on it it was at version 1 or 2, complete ****e at the time so I aint gonna give my 2 cents on it, doesn't seem fair

Cubase is pretty cool, not mad on the gui of it. Steep enough learning curve when compared with Ableton/Reason. Bit of a monster for processing power. I ran the same combination of instruments and fx thru Live and Cubase and Live handled much better. Really just moved to Cubase for VST support, Ableton hadn't really declared itself as a production suite, was more a Dj/Live performance Program at this time. However I use Cubase nowadays exclusively for mastering. I still think its layout and ability to process mastering effects rather than just apply them to a channel far better. Nice to be able to see the waveforms change as you work, something live cant do.

Then onto Ableton Live:
What a program... Make all my stuff on it. So easy and intuitive, buy a legit copy also, tis so worth it, no bugs or crashes. Real simple to get going on and when you get deeper into it some of the results are fantastic. Pretty much all Music production programs will do the same things for you, VST support, MIDI, audio recording etc. It's just this program cuts to the chase, no bull, just results. Some of the onboard midi/audio fx are unbelievable. Can see myself happy here for a while. A hell of a lot of producers are using live. Coldcut did there most recent album on it.

I produce some music with a friend who uses Logic but truth be told he takes the controls so to speak when Im around there, he swears by it and some of the results from it are excellent, but he's mac based.

The Mbox is for Use with Protools, great if you're planning on recording live instruments but for Daft-Punk'esque stuff Id avoid it.

If you wanna make Daft Punk style tracks you're gonna want a fair share of Vocoders and Antares Auto-tune, Software wise there's Orange Vocoder, Vokator, Akai DC vocoder. Oh and Reason has an onboard vocoder too. In my experience they all fall short compared to hardware. I've a microkorg and the vocoder on that is far stronger.

Wouldn't really go buying Electribes or any hardware apart from a midi keyboard at this stage and a set of monitor speakers, again depends on how far you want to take it. I'll leave the hardware discussion be for the mo, the software will have enough to get you going grand for the time being!

Anyway hope this helps.
Djamel