Which sequencer?

ElRazur

ElRazur

ElRazur

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Im looking to go back into music making. What sequncing would be the easiest and simplest to use? Im after something without too much learning curve but would also produce good result - Good demos and recordings.

Also would anyone advice on the use of Akai mpc. Is it a good or bad idea. I have noticed that loads of US studios (hiphop) tend to use them a lot whereas over here, we stick to making back tracks on pc...Could anyone advice whether it is better to get both i.e PC and Akai mpc or just do it all on pc? Thanks.
 
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ElRazur said:
Im looking to go back into music making. What sequncing would be the easiest and simplest to use?
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Well, it depends on what sorta music you wanna make, and what system yer using? Pc, mac or protools? I use a PC myself, but I quite like macs also.
ElRazur said:
Im after something without too much learning curve but would also produce good result - Good demos and recordings.
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Again it depends on what sort of music you wanna make. Protools is better for guitar based bands, it works like a souped up 8 track which is good if you want to spend more time playing than tweaking plug-ins.

For dance music producers, protools is pretty useless... Fruityloops is easy, Ableton is easy-ish, Logic Pro is amazing but not easy, then you've god oddballs like Renoise (Venetian snares uses this). I'd start with fruity if yer taking a stab at dance/electronic.
ElRazur said:
Also would anyone advice on the use of Akai mpc. Is it a good or bad idea.
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MPC's are good for creating drum loops - Kayne West is a big fan of it :D- anything more than drum loops tho and you're gonna want a real sequencer. It's become a bit of a cult bit of gear, a bit like the 303/808/909.
ElRazur said:
I have noticed that loads of US studios (hiphop) tend to use them a lot whereas over here, we stick to making back tracks on pc...Could anyone advice whether it is better to get both i.e PC and Akai mpc or just do it all on pc? Thanks.
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I'd do it all on the PC. The more gear hooked up the better.

Start with good studio monitors, headphones can also be useful.

Get a midi controller with knobs/sliders/both do you can control parameters, as using a mouse to do this sucks.

If you play any other instruments (keys/guitar) try and hook it up to yer PC (MIDI/line in) and get playing!

Finally, use your ears. It sounds silly, but it's very easy to get caught up effects and plug ins.

Once you've bounced out a track, listen to it on as many soundsystems as possible. It may sound amazing on yer speakers, yet crap in a club.
 
Don't forget good ol cubase! That and propellerhead's reason... years of fun!
If you do choose to do it on your PC, get yourself a decent soundcard, a good controller keyboard is a must, it doesn't need to be a proper workstation with a billion presets as you can play the vst instuments.
You need a low latency soundcard for this otherwise when you hit a key it can take half a second for the sound to play.
I've heard fruityloops is pretty good, but after statring out on cubasis many years ago i couldn't really get my head round it!
As for hardware kit, i once spent a heap of cash on an Akai s3000, but i never use it anymore as i can do everything on my pc.

There are plenty of freeware plugins out there too.

Good luck and enjoy being creative! ;)
 
Ahh, I forgot about reason! If you've used real rackmounted gear before, reason is a godsend. Even if you haven't it's great fun.

I really need to re-install that as I have a bucketload of refills to try out. :)

The only thing I'm not too keen on is it's built in sequencer, bit rewire is nice.

Also, have a play with Reaktor if you can. It's got some crazy synths. :cool:
 
Thanks guys. Im into hiphop predominantly and looking to do Afro hiphop (African hiphop - a combination of african sounds with fusion of hiphop).

I originally built a proper music pc with a decent soundcard - cant remember the name...247 or something like that. It has a very low latency as far as i can remember.

I used reason and cubase all along but due to me using cracked wares, i do get funny result at times. The thing am after is some sort of sequencer that is just dead easy to use. A producer down the road from me use a software seqencing programm that was originally on PC and Mac but iirc, apple bought the rights and it now only on mac. Anyway, it is something dead easy like that am after. Some one suggested cubase se but i dont know how good this things are. :)
 
ElRazur said:
The thing am after is some sort of sequencer that is just dead easy to use.
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As MikeHunt79 posted, Fruityloops would fit the bill (http://www.fruityloops.com/documents/146.html) - try the demo. Very easy to get into, and has a lot more going for it once you get into the finer aspects of sequencing. In its basic form, it has a step-sequencer like most old drum-machines with which you create loops. And then you can sequence the loops together in blocks using the pattern-sequencer.

Later on you can hook it into a proper sequencer like Cubase, and use it for beats/loops while using Cubase to sequence/mix vocals and live instruments (fruityloops can do this too). Cubase has a fairly steep learning curve, and demands a good setup and patience, but very rewarding.

A producer down the road from me use a software seqencing programm that was originally on PC and Mac but iirc, apple bought the rights and it now only on mac.
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That's Logic (http://www.apple.com/logicpro/), and it is a very good program - equivalent to Cubase.
 
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How much to spend?
There's different levels of cubase available for different prices. One of those might fit your needs.

Also, that cakewalk Sonar is supposed to be good as well, for cheaper. Apparantly Sonar is the winner in the states where it trounces sales of cubase.
 
cubase sx and reason are the main 2 apps i use, reason for its ease of use and stylized gui, and cubase for its infinite plugins and ability to record in, oh and the spectrasonics vst's are superb.

i have them rewired.
 
Amiga 500 with Octamed 3 and a Technosound sampler. Hey it worked then :D

Alright then, 2 Atari ST's hooked up together. You want stereo, you got it ;)
 
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