What device / Daw / vsts and extras do you use

Creed_Clicks

I'm using softube amp room at the moment, as I just wanted something with a few amps and pedals. I use pedals into the audio interface, and will reamp if needs be in the future. Nothing like cranking a real amp, solid state or valve, but as I spend most of the time now using headphones, I will go between VSTs and maybe a HX Stomp or similar in the future.

Zonular

Ah sure my ears have given in so I'm getting away from amps, decent tone at low volumes is the way forward 

Neilybob

Guitar>Orange Jim Root Terror head>Two Notes Capture>Scarlett interface>Win10 laptop running Reaper with Two Notes wall of sound plug in plus a few other free ones off of Reverb.com

Creed_Clicks

@Neilybob are you using Two Notes just for the cabs? Looks interesting

Neilybob

Creed_Clicks said:

@Neilybob are you using Two Notes just for the cabs? Looks interesting

Yes. I got the Two Notes software when I purchased my Capture (2nd hand) and I picked up an cabinet pack on one of the sales the Two Notes do and I haven't looked back. It's beautifully brilliant for recording my parts for the band. 

Creed_Clicks

Neilybob said:

Creed_Clicks said:

@Neilybob are you using Two Notes just for the cabs? Looks interesting

Yes. I got the Two Notes software when I purchased my Capture (2nd hand) and I picked up an cabinet pack on one of the sales the Two Notes do and I haven't looked back. It's beautifully brilliant for recording my parts for the band. 

That's an interesting set up. I was also looking at the IK Multimedia z tone DI box for guitars.

Fez

PC running reaper Native instruments kore 6 interface Ezdrummer and the vst's that come with Computer music magazine. Amplitube for guitar sounds.

Zonular

So I bought a basic ipad this week and I'm using a dongle with a old rocksmith cable......Jesus this is mind blowing, the amount that's available is mind boggling 

Basher

Computer: 11-year-old PC that's starting to struggle with everything, not just audio.

Interface: Komplete Audio 6 - equally old but still does what I need. The NI upgrades have been worth having

Reaper DAW - Still on Version 4 but desperately need to update as I've just upgraded to...

Native Instruments Komplete 13 - only a couple of days in with this having upgraded from Komplete 9 in the usual NI summer sale. Probably an unwise expenditure as I still can't use VST3s until I upgrade Reaper so things like the Super8 synth are not accessible. Also Guitar Rig 6 doesn't seem that impressive but it's early days.

Nektar Impact LX49+ Midi Keyboard controller. Cheap and cheerful replacement for my Novation Impulse 61 that, while having a nice feel, has been unreliable. Since Windows 10-ish, it won't stay connected for USB midi (although the USB power remains). Was offered a replacement main PCB at £60-odd but didn't want to risk it.
What's nice is that the new, smaller, keyboard sits happily on the desk, unlike the Novation. This means I use it a lot more and it's a lot easier to use. The tradeoff, for me, has been minimal as I'm unlikely to be playing any Rachmaninoff, Bobby Crush or similarly florid piano styles.

Assorted other vsts such as Amplitube and loads of the usual free stuff one picks up along the way. Synth1 remains an old-school favourite.


A big lesson has been that your system is only as good as it's weakest link and last year my ageing PC's second hard drive (the one with all the music stuff on it) failed suddenly and catastrophically so I lost a decade of assorted songs and noodles.
To be fair, my loss is probably music's gain but it still hurts to the extent where I'm reluctant to put too much effort into anything musical anymore. I've still not found a way of reliably backing up such large volumes of data (my external USB SSD also seems to have failed) so the same thing will probably happen again unless I do some research. 

I've not really got the funds for a new machine and I shudder to think what it'll cost when this one finally dies. It's a SCAN "bare bones" audio PC that's been good but I probably won't be able to get an audio specific PC this time. Honestly thought mechanical drives would be a thing of the past by now but that seems not to be the case.

Anyway, sorry for the long post but it's been a worthwhile "state of the nation" exercise for me. 

PolarityMan

Danny1969 said:

I've recently set up 3 different people with complete DAW systems on a budget. None of the systems cost more than £100 2nd hand. Basically I trawl Ebay for firewire Mbox 2 interfaces which you can can get for as little as £20. These allow you to run Protools LE8 which gives you absolutely everything you need to create music, inc drums, software synth, guitar amp sims and great editing. All you then need is an old iMac or Macbook Pro which you can get for around £50 for the Imac or £75 ish for the Macbook. 
There's no drivers or anything else to worry about. You install the software and it all just works right off the bat with no latency. The last guy, a 62 year old teacher mate of mine was recording music within 15 minutes of me installing it in his man cave. 

Does pro tools 8LE even exist? 9.0 is 12 years old. 

 I'd def run reaper on a budget setup. Actually I'd run reaper on any setup but ESPECIALLY on a budget setup. Only downside is lack of included VSTs but there are great free ones around and tbh the value you get from just a good drum library and amp sim imo easily justifies the cost. 

Danny1969

PolarityMan said:

Danny1969 said:

I've recently set up 3 different people with complete DAW systems on a budget. None of the systems cost more than £100 2nd hand. Basically I trawl Ebay for firewire Mbox 2 interfaces which you can can get for as little as £20. These allow you to run Protools LE8 which gives you absolutely everything you need to create music, inc drums, software synth, guitar amp sims and great editing. All you then need is an old iMac or Macbook Pro which you can get for around £50 for the Imac or £75 ish for the Macbook. 
There's no drivers or anything else to worry about. You install the software and it all just works right off the bat with no latency. The last guy, a 62 year old teacher mate of mine was recording music within 15 minutes of me installing it in his man cave. 

Does pro tools 8LE even exist? 9.0 is 12 years old. 

 I'd def run reaper on a budget setup. Actually I'd run reaper on any setup but ESPECIALLY on a budget setup. Only downside is lack of included VSTs but there are great free ones around and tbh the value you get from just a good drum library and amp sim imo easily justifies the cost. 

Well the thing with PT8 is it won't run without a Digidesign interface but once you connect one it just works straight away with mega low latency. There's no drivers to configure and it comes with Xpand 2 virtual synth, the fantastic mini grand piano, drum machines, sampler and some really good plugins. I did a whole album with PT8LE on a 2007 iMac last year and never felt I needed any more power or any plugins that weren't included with 8LE .... I've actually got an HD2 system in the shed running PT10 but the 8LE is fine. 

The reason I started hooking people up with old machines and old software is I wanted to show that for the most part, people  spend way too much spec'ing home recording machines and this has led to a mindset where people don't think they can afford a machine capable of recording and mixing  32 tracks. I know if I provide an old Mac, an Mbox and PT8 they will have everything they need and it will work as intended. 

I've been a Reaper user since around 2006 or so when @Grunfeld told the old Guitarist forum about it and have used it for loads of projects but for newbies, PT is a better bet, being a closed system there's no agg with drivers and the audio routing is like an analog desk, not send  / receive channels etc. Plus a decent interface is only £25.00
 

PolarityMan

Danny1969 said:

PolarityMan said:

Danny1969 said:

I've recently set up 3 different people with complete DAW systems on a budget. None of the systems cost more than £100 2nd hand. Basically I trawl Ebay for firewire Mbox 2 interfaces which you can can get for as little as £20. These allow you to run Protools LE8 which gives you absolutely everything you need to create music, inc drums, software synth, guitar amp sims and great editing. All you then need is an old iMac or Macbook Pro which you can get for around £50 for the Imac or £75 ish for the Macbook. 
There's no drivers or anything else to worry about. You install the software and it all just works right off the bat with no latency. The last guy, a 62 year old teacher mate of mine was recording music within 15 minutes of me installing it in his man cave. 

Does pro tools 8LE even exist? 9.0 is 12 years old. 

 I'd def run reaper on a budget setup. Actually I'd run reaper on any setup but ESPECIALLY on a budget setup. Only downside is lack of included VSTs but there are great free ones around and tbh the value you get from just a good drum library and amp sim imo easily justifies the cost. 

Well the thing with PT8 is it won't run without a Digidesign interface but once you connect one it just works straight away with mega low latency. There's no drivers to configure and it comes with Xpand 2 virtual synth, the fantastic mini grand piano, drum machines, sampler and some really good plugins. I did a whole album with PT8LE on a 2007 iMac last year and never felt I needed any more power or any plugins that weren't included with 8LE .... I've actually got an HD2 system in the shed running PT10 but the 8LE is fine. 

The reason I started hooking people up with old machines and old software is I wanted to show that for the most part, people  spend way too much spec'ing home recording machines and this has led to a mindset where people don't think they can afford a machine capable of recording and mixing  32 tracks. I know if I provide an old Mac, an Mbox and PT8 they will have everything they need and it will work as intended. 

I've been a Reaper user since around 2006 or so when @Grunfeld told the old Guitarist forum about it and have used it for loads of projects but for newbies, PT is a better bet, being a closed system there's no agg with drivers and the audio routing is like an analog desk, not send  / receive channels etc. Plus a decent interface is only £25.00
 

I'm not so sure, mostly as you're not going to find as many tutorials / youtube vids etc on how to do things out there on such an ancient version of pro tools. Plus the midi editor is totally balls in older PT versions.