New to Music Production. Buying a DAW but need help!

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plugjakal
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Joined: Tue Nov 25, 2008 9:28 pm

New to Music Production. Buying a DAW but need help!

Post by plugjakal » Tue Nov 25, 2008 9:38 pm

I am a huge reggae and dub fan and want to get into production. I have found a cheap DAW that i am considering buying but want to know if it has the correct things i need. It seems to have basics for begginerrs but not sure if its good for dub music. I am more into the new stuff- roots dance, steppers, up tempo dub etc but want to experiement with other genres/styles too. I do intend to add to this gradually but is this a good starting point? Maybe its better i buy a cheap pc-world computer and build myself? Will this pc have the plug ins for delays and echos etc? PLEASE HELP! thanks. plug
the link of the DAW is below..

http://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and ... mputer/8UT

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Neil C
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Post by Neil C » Thu Nov 27, 2008 1:15 am

Hello,

DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) originally was used to mean the computer hardware setup and music software together.
Nowadays DAW has come to usually mean just the music recording/sequencing software - like Cubase, Logic, Sonar, ProTools etc.

The package you link to comes with cut down versions of Cubase, Sonar and Ableton Live - all of which dub can fully be done on. You may find the cut down versions have restrictions that may make you want to get a fuller version - but they will provide a very usfeul impression of those 3 popular DAWS and you'll find out which you like the best and go further with. The software may do all you want at the moment - give them a go and see how you get on, you can upgrade later if you feel you need to.

The computer is kind of a step down on the current wave of machines but should do you OK (it has almost twice the power of my old PC which I did plenty of dub on). There's plenty of people making full reggae/dub productions on the equivalent. You could do with putting another gb of RAM in it if you can - also you need to check if it has PCIe slots (if you plan on having it for a while) and what amount of PCI/PCIe slots it has.
There's not a lot about the PC that makes it magically more suitable for music than many standard ones - but it will have been put together so it isn't too noisy and you get the software bundle and it's all ready to go. If you're really confident with putting your own computer together that would probably be the way to go.

All those DAWs on the machine will have delay and other plug ins - and moreover there are loads of good free plug ins on the internet that you can use with the DAWs - not least on this site thanks to Interruptor.

In short, you can make reggae/dub on that computer and software.

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