Quote of the day: "Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics--a rational ethics--as a precondition of rebirth." --Ayn Rand
[1-18-2002]
One year later...
First of all, I'm still playing every day! I believe
this is the first time in 20+ years that I've played consistently for a
whole year. As far as the DAW goes, I waited for a year to buy any
new equipment because I wanted to make sure I was going to keep playing.
For Christmas 2001 I bought myself a
Zoom PS02 Palmtop Studio.
This little gem incorporates a drum/bass rhythm section, a guitar effects
box, and a 3-track audio recorder in a unit that fits in the palm of your
hand (3.58" H x 3.26 W x 1.32 D)! The recording format is 16-bit @ 31.25kHz,
which is below the CD-quality format of 16-bit 44.1kHz, but the quality is
actually quite good. Although it is possible to produce complete songs
with the PS02, I decided to use the PS02 mainly as a capture device--doing
the mixing on my PC. So my next step was to get a decent sound card. I
had been looking at pro-quality recording cards for several months but
there always seemed to be a problem--my PC wasn't supported, I couldn't
find out if it was PCI bus mastering, etc. Also, most recording cards are
used for recording only--they can't be used with PC games and most of them
don't have MIDI sound generation capability. So because I already
have the PS02 as my recording device, I decided to get a "jack of all trades"
sound card since all it had to do was mix prerecorded audio and play MIDI
files. I eventually chose the
Soundblaster
Audigy Platinum because it has a lot of features (including the Audigy
Drive with loads of connection possibilities including a headphone jack with
volume control) and a great software bundle (including a version of
Steinberg Cubase VST designed
especially for the Audigy--so you know it will work!). The Audigy card
also has ASIO drivers which permit low-latency recording--giving me
ability to record using the Audigy if I want to (at 16-bit 48kHz). So
for about $500 I have a decent setup that will let me record some songs.
Here is my first attempt at recording--it's really just a test of the
functionality of my setup:
Hopefully I'll be able to put some more original compositions online in the near future!