I found the best software I have ever tried the other day and it's called Reaper.
http://www.cockos.com/reaper/
It is was originally based on Sony's Acid but like it's mentor program- but better, it grew into a full fledged DAW with extensive MIDI capabilities and constant updates. The best thing is the 30 day trial period expiration does not cripple the software at all, just throws up a nag screen like half the donationware I use.
I have been using Voyetra's Record Producer since it was called Digital Orchestrator. Voyetra's MIDI Orchestrator and their multimedia rack came preinstalled with an old 486DX computer that I had in the early 1990's and I, for some reason, dug that modular virtual stereo system and integrated mixer so much I bought the upgrade to Digital Orchestrator and then when moving up to XP a few years back, I bought the final version called Record Producer.
Here is the last song with vocals that will be mixed on the old software:
http://www.archive.org/details/last_amen
Now, as you can hear, the mixes I achieved with the old setup are hit or miss and are not consistant, listen to the change at the end... ugggh. What the fuck happened to the guitar? Who knows? Who cares? The different drum loops were recorded, mixed and mastered so differently they won't lay down in the mix together no matter what I do. Every run of EQ or compression with Voyetra is permanent so things get irreversably ugly quick and sometimes I come back the next day and think, "why did I mess with this and not save the original track?".
Voyetra software has it's own destructive DSP effects that for the most part suck, except it's compressor which has spoiled me and caused me to have dificulty working with compressors and limiters because they don't have the 3 simple compression presets (light, medium and hard) that make individual tracks jump out for me with a mouseclick in Record Producer. Mastering is another story and the gates, limiting and compression seem to only distort and destroy a full mix.
In a similar and frustrating way, I sat with the "Amen" mixdown running through Wavosaur running the Stardust Mastering VST and wound up with tons of spikes that look like an LP recording. I have tried to use the non-realtime compression in Cool Edit but the to be honest the graphical control interface is perplexing (and I ain't dumb) and the presets suck so I wind up with squashed almost silent flatline of dynamicless noise or a clipped bloated monstrosity of digital retardation.
I had no problem getting nice results with an old ART dual channel compressor on a 4-track effect send, so what is the deal? I don't get it honestly, am I that deaf and stubborn? I hope not. I took out a dozen or more books from the library on mixing and mastering so we'll see. One thing I learned is that without upgrading software, I could never achieve anything close to a professional mix with my mouse and some old software. Pluggin in a compressor with GUI that looks like an old rack unit is something I would have chalked off as trivial or even elitist snobbery before, but I am hoping it will allow me to get tracks sounding sweeter and mixes sounding better.
I found a shareware sampler long ago called Mellowsoftron and it seemed so promising that I paid for it before the limitations made themselves obvious. First of all it had no render feature so I could not play my Alesis as a MIDI controller along with a track and easily record the sampler because it was sent to the main mix on the PC mixer, where the other tracks were playing, and it would be mixed along with them. The only solution to this was pan the sampler far left (limiting me to mono, which now I realize wasn't really a problem in itself) and pan the tracks far right. I am learning that my initial hunch about recording mono tracks was correct and most pros don't want a stereo track because it's harder to mix in a spread and most stereo tracks are a mono track and another with delay, pitch or phase effects anyway, mix your instruments in mono whenever possible and apply stereo effects during the mix silly.
You also had to reset the folders for the source files of the samples in Mellosoftron, use only 16bit samples (you could use any sample rate at least, unlike Voyetra which limits you to 16bit 11/22/44k WAV only) and mess with a weird control and routing GUI. The thing I miss the most about it (though I never got to use it) was the ability to move 16 different instruments around in the stereo field and hypothetically run a 16 channel MIDI sequence through. The only other way to get the sampler to "tape" without bleedthrough of drum tracks was to compose sampler tracks in MIDI only, mute everything else and record the mix. The looping tools and graphics were horrid as well and as you might guess I rarely had much actual session time with it and it just sat there most the time.
Reaper has a built in simple sample player but I have already found the best free sampler VST I have ever used, it's called Paax. Now first of all it's free, like 90% of my software, so the documentation is a bit sparse and the GUI is not perfectly clear but once you figure out what is what, it is priceless. I sat down in one night and created a full bank of 128 voices and played and recorded tracks for hours. That is more than I had previously accomplished with Mellowsoftron in 10 years. I had only created a few instruments and since you had to repoint to the source folder every time you loaded one I rarely got to play the instrument more than once. Plus all sound files had to be in one folder in order to hear anything which would defeat the maniacal folder scheme I devised last century to organize and keep my 70+ gigabyte sound library of samples. The only problem I had running Paax was with MiniHost which gave me a non crashing error everytime I changed patches and the horrid full on crashes I assumed just happened with VST's a few times a day. I was wrong...
Reaper not only allows me to host mutliple instances of Paax on different tracks (fixing the pseudo issue of mutli-channel MIDI tracks), but there are no errors when switching patches with the mouse or the keyboard program select button on my keyboard. Not only that, but CPU usage is ridiculously low and hangups and crashes are a thing of the recent past. I cannot believe my cheap PC and my laptop can run multiple stereo tracks now with an EQ, compressor and their own reverb or delay without any glitches or hang ups. This was the issue with VST's that caused me to delay exploring them in the first place. What the hell was I thinking? I could have done this a year or more ago... of course the MIDI capabilites on Reaper were lacking a bit then so maybe not. The newest release of Reaper has addressed some of the shortcomings and for crying out loud, it's almost free, the registration is only $50 for noncommercial. Hell, I paid that for Cool Edit 96 and Mellosoftron without hesitation.
So now instead of my desktop PC setup including Record Producer for MIDI programming and lousy audio mixing, Wavosaur for destructive VST effect processing (on one exported audio track at time that had to sit in the mix with permanent untweakable effects on it) and MiniHost for MIDI VSTi's and MIDI compatible effects (Madshifta for instance is an effect but is pointless without the MIDI input), I can now run one low memory eating application, plug in a sampler or soundmodule or MIDI out, grab the mouse and write a drum track or play some riffs on the keyboard, throw a compressor in the chain and render the track in one program in a few minutes. Uhhh, you might say it's like getting a sports car on Christmas morning after taking intersecting bus rides to work everyday all your life.
Ironically when I installed Reaper on my PC it changed all the icons for the master files for Record Producer to Reaper project file icons! At first I was thinking, "Wow imagine if this program could translate those master track files and I could just open them with Reaper?", it didn't work.. damn. The irony was not subtle at all though, it was as if Erny was right there pointing out the meaning of life in a cassette insert at 3AM.
Here are two tracks that are made up of less than CD quality samples so there was no point in exporting from Record Producer to Reaper on these:
http://www.archive.org/details/biblical
There is very little about these songs that is true CD quality so like the warning on the CD's remasterd from analog, the mixdown reveals limitations of the source material. Either the main focal point or major parts of the rythym section are based on lower fidelity sounds so these songs might benefit from some sonic treatment to the drum samples and a few of the sounds I added in, but the lofi tracks would sound even worse so I figured screw it.
As for the rest of the unfiished songs, I am tempted to break down the tracks that contain isolated individual drum hits and export WAV files for each so I can mix them in Reaper the way the pros do: Kick drum on track 1 with it's own EQ, Snare on track 2 with it's compressor and EQ, maybe a splash of reverb, track 3 for the hats panned and primed for optimum sound, all laid out in splendid vertical mixer channels with meters and knobs and sliders, oh my.
Some songs in progress have hand placed drum hits on a grid, some were derived from MIDI sequences and mixed to stereo (two mono tracks in Voyetranese) or composed with the dreaded loops I felt obligated to use for some reason, probably the same reason I lambasted them and refused to use them for years, like VST's and antidepressants. I might do submixes for time's sake but I will lose the ability to tweak the hat track by itself like a true audiophile nerd spoiled on 48 track mixing consoles in a lavish studio with leather couches and free drugs.
Now on the laptop things were different. I originally had found Kristal, a great freeware audio-only DAW (no MIDI? who doesn't use MIDI? ) that had that sweet vertical mixer channel that Voyetra only put in their shit-show as a MIDI tool (pretty pointless to push sliders and look at VU meters on a track with no sound... it was a note-on density meter... how stupid). Anyway, Kristal could host a few VST's, had a modest track limit and was free. I could work around the track limit by submixes, I could keep Quartz Audio (free version) to compose the MIDI stuff and use MiniHost to play VSTi's. Or I could delete it's ass and never look back, shit I will probably pay for the Reaper license as soon as I can, this program is so frigging good.
Within minutes I was able to create a cool groove with some mouseclicks (like Record Producer let's me do) but I threw in a virtual vintage drum machine freeware VST and threw some simulated NY mix buss compression and some EQ and rendered a drum track in a few minutes. This would have meant routing MIDI from Voyetra through a virtual loopback hub to MiniHost, rendering to WAV file, loading Wavosaur and processing the WAV, importing back to Record Producer and lining things up as best I can. What a pain in the ass!
Next I threw Ugo's Rez (awesome) in for a synth track, threw some stereo delay on it and played the qwerty virtual MIDI keyboard after hitting record for a few minutes and wham, killer synth track. Now I did have to route 1 track to another and make sure I have my routing logical but it's all in one screen and there no more ASIO crashes, port conflicts or battling CPU hogs competing for processing power. Next I throw the dreaded Stardust Mastering VST on the main track (or "mix bus" as the elitist engineers call it) and I am mastering and mixing (and tracking) at the same time. Wholly sheep shit for sure.
Now if I can get these ears to work and stop rushing through sessions chaotically at random trying to shit out dozens of mediocre mixes and a few floundering failures for an occasional rare sparkling gem, things will be sound much better going forward.
Stay tuned.
More old shitcore noise to come from the old masters, mostly instrumental experimentation with no appeal or value other than teaching me what can and cannot be done in the future and how or how not to do it. I figure all these crappy attempts and utter failures that most musicians, producers or engineers would normally leave on their cutting room floors, can be learning tools, inspiration and humble reminders of how arrogance and procrastination mixed with nostalgia and subjectivism can paint a picture of reality for you that does not match someone else's perception, i.e. make you think your music sounds great when it sounds like shit.
Is there a spellchecker on this thing?