 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Propellerhead's Reason
Reason is a music studio software developed by the Swedish company Propellerheads. It is basically a virtual sequencer, mixer, synthesizer and sampler. You can view the back of all the racks and connect them in any working permutation like in real life.
You can also add many "onboard" effects and filter any of the racks through other rack effects. It has a built-in MIDI sequencer which means that you don't have to fiddle round with your mouse, but rather you can control everything from your MIDI controller or keyboard.
Some, if not most, MIDI controllers/keyboards also have an option to connect to a music studio software via USB (in addition to MIDI Out) and this is supported by Reason. One important thing that most newcomers to Reason do not realise is that this software does not record audio, but they often get confused with the "Record" button that always appears at the bottom.
This button is actually to record the instructions you give each thing in the music studio. For example, once you hit record, you can turn up the volume of a certain sound or you can mute a sound during a certain part. When you stop recording and hit play, these instructions will be performed at the same time you did them during the recording process. This process of recording instructions is called automation in Reason.
Another very cool and handy feature is that Reason can be used and synchronised with other music studio applications such as ProTools.
Digidesign's ProTools
|
|
ProTools is an industry standard music studio application used by all the big-name (and small-name) producers and audio engineers, such as Flood, Nick Davis, Peter Gabriel, Ken Thomas, and the list goes on and on. As with Reason, ProTools works with both PCs and Macs, but the difference is that ProTools is basically a virtual multitrack recorder and mixer.
It handles sample rates at up to 192 kHz and 16- or 24-bits, and it also features automation, as Reason does. One of its special features is that it can record in surround sound. You can edit your audio files right on the virtual multitrack, as each line on the graphic of the recorded audio performs a particular function. For example, if you move the middle line down, the volume of the audio file will move down; the speed that the volume turns down will be dictated by how slanted or steep your line is.
|
|
The catch ProTools has is that it only works with its own audio interface hardware and a few limited ones outside the Digidesign name brand. A long time ago, its hardware usually went around $1000 USD, but the price has gone down dramatically and they began to incorporate more affordable audio interfaces, such as Mbox and Mbox 2. This was due to an increasing popularity of home recording in the last decade or so. Thus, ProTools started creating different systems, which are basically softwares that work with their respective hardware. They created three lines: HD, LE and M-Powered.
HD is their high-definition system that professionals use, LE is basically a light version of that which is used to do some serious home recording, and, lastly, M-Powered is for casual to serious home recording that includes most things an LE does. However, all systems are very powerful but obviously the prices of an M-Powered software and hardware are much more affordable. The company M-Audio is in charge of selling M-Powered audio interfaces, which means that they are compatible with its respective ProTools software.
The LE and M-Power versions use USB and FireWire technology, with the only difference that the former uses Mbox 2 as an audio interface. Mbox 2 is basically a fancy external audio interface with microphone preamps, which means that they serve to "boost" the level and gain of the microphone. In addition to using USB and FireWire, M-Power uses PCI interfaces that are sold by M-Audio, as was previously mentioned.
Native Instrument's Kontakt
This software is a virtual sampler that lets you use other virtual instruments. A sampler enables you to load a recorded sound byte or any other sound and manipulate it by changing its frequency, gain, velocity, oscillation, octave and many other things. It also runs on both Windows and Mac, like ProTools and Reason. The unique thing about Kontakt is that it gives you full control of all modules (or "channels", as we have already discussed). That is to say, you can assign each MIDI channel a voice or module and have full control of it, which is something most mainstream sampling softwares lack these days, surprisingly. This reduces the amount of memory that is used for each channel and spreads them out, giving you a better performance speeds.
The cool thing about Kontakt is that it also has its own scripting language called KSP. With this you can build your own "virtual instruments" and use them as plugins with the software.
Steinberg's Virtual Studio Technology
However, Steinberg is really the one that has mastered the "virtual instrument" idea, introducing their Virtual Studio Technology (VST) instruments. VST instruments are standalone applications that can be used in any software that supports VST, such as Kontakt, ProTools and Reason.
VST instruments are seemingly endless possibilities to incorporate virtual sounds of any kind. People are constatly making VST instruments that seek to sound as real as possible or as creative as possible. If you want a bass sound and your music software does not provide a real sounding one, you will most likely seek out a bass VST instrument which will give you a real sounding bass.
With this, you can play and control it via your MIDI keyboard or controller and tweak it or modify its sound any way that your music software permits. VST instruments are valuable in that they can be used with many standard music studio applications and many other smaller pieces of software. Hence, if your software has a weak sample of a certain instrument or if it does not have one at all, you can look for a VST instrument and load it on your application.
Adobe Audition
This is a very small mulitrack recording software which is intended for very simple home recording. It may be synchronised with Reason and VST instruments, which can be controlled via a MIDI keyboard or controller. As ProTools, it features non-destructive mixing and editting modes, which means that you can disable editing them when in the mixing screen, and it also contains a destructive mode, which can be used in the mixing screen and when in specific WAV windows.
It is preferred amongst many beginners or casual musicians that do home recording, as it is very straightforward to use: you connect your microphone to your audio card one way or another (meaning that you can include a mixing console in between or not), and just hit record and you're on your way to recording music. It also includes many effects such as reverb, delay, distortion, hum remover, flanger, and normalise, to name a few, that you can use in real-time or that you can add after you've recorded your sound file.
|
|
Report
|
|
 |
 |
|