(i hope this fits in the "Gear Talk" category :P )

hey guys, i was browsing around today, looking for some vst plugins, and i came across a program that looks pretty promising.  i thought you guys (and girls )may be interested.

i've been using adacity recently, but vst plugins can be a little buggy on it.  you don't have live manipulation either.  in some cases, you can circumvent demo/trial periods, but sometimes it at the cost of the plugin not really doing its job.

so this is what i found.  it's a free audio editor that supports all the vst plugins i've found so far.  it's called KRISTAL Audio Engine.  they say that if you want to produce commercially, you need to buy a license for the program, which looks like it's running at 24.90 EUR right now.

they're currently producing a version 2 right now, which will enable you to insert more tracks and such to the somewhat-limited number that is available now, but if nothing else, it makes a great program to do track editing with.  there's 16 tracks you can have audio running on.  there's visual mixer bars for each track, and a master.  you can have vst effects running on individual tracks, and one on the master as well.

it may sound like just the basics compared to big commercial programs, but for someone who doesn't have $999.00 USD to shell out for a massive program, it's a pretty nice deal, i think.

the interface takes some getting used to, but keep tinkering with it, as i am doing the same.  but have fun, tell me what you think! 

http://www.kreatives.org/kristal

don't be confused by the "We grant a trial period of 30 days. Please try before you buy!" quote.  that's making reference to the grace time between when you decide to go ahead and purchase the license to when you're locked in and can't refund.

things i forgot to say:

i'd recommend having a fairly large screen resolution on the computer you play with, otherwise the display may be a bit cramped

there's not really any undo/redo functions, but there's a history that you go back in, so it just about makes up for it.

also, i figured i should mention this if any of you try to create a "mixdown" (an audio export).  you have to set left/right boundaries on the audio so that it knows how much to mixdown.  to do this, set the "locators" by holding control and then left or right click on the ruler at the top of the "waver" tracks to set the corresponding boundary.  you'll see what i mean.  it just took me about 30 minutes to figure it out :P  just thought i'd save another person a headache!

here's a decent vst plugin site, though you'll run into a lot of demos and trials.

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/win95/PLUGINS_VST/

later guys

uhhh, yeah that's the way it is on most mixdowns i've ever run across... nothing new there.

as for the choice of VST/VSTi host program... i highly recommend either Cubase or Sonar for beginners. Both manufacturers DO sell versions which are much cheaper than $999, but which essentially have most of the functionality which you need to get your work done. Those $999 versions often have lots of extra stuff regular personal artists might not really need. I think that there's a $100 version of Cubase, dunno... go check it out.

That's my opinion, ultimately... don't pay $25 for lousy shareware... buy the real thing, they do have "consumer" level versions, and to my knowlege, they don't suck either

oh and yeah, to my knowlege, this fits fine in the gear category

oh, i know it's nothing unique, but it's certainly better than Windows Sound Recorder.

i agree that if you're going to spend money, buy the real thing if you're serious.

use Linux. it's fast free opensource stable well supported and... oh yeah did i mention it's free?

there are numerous free and opensource utilites for recording, namely Ardour

http://ardour.org

and afaik Ardour is only available for linux right now. Get yourself an M-Audio card or an RME card (those are the only two worth your time that work with linux) or my suggested Chaintech AV-710 and rock out with Ardour. If you want sequencing capabilities and such, check out Rosegarden and MuSE. Both excellent peices of software. Yeah yeah, it doesn't use VST plugins, but honestly you don't need them. LADSPA has about 100 plugins currently developed, so just about all the major needed effects like distortion reverb and compression should be available.

ok that's my opinion... if you want free... go free... Linux, it's free i won't turn this into a linux evangelization thread because there are already plenty of Linux evangelizers so if you want to know the merits of Linux just go check the general net, i'm sure you'll find lots of information. I'd recommend a good newbie distro like Fedora. aight, good luck.

oh and btw... ardour freaking rulez! i've used it and it's amazing... easily rivals those $1000 "professional" programs.

oh yeah, and as for those of you who ARE using a VST host... check out KVR audio they've got a much wider selection of plugins. everything from pay-to-play to demoware to shareware to freeware, and in fact, they do have LOTS of free plugins.

http://www.kvraudio.com/

http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php

Ardour looks quite good, but it appears to be lacking a good MIDI editor. I suppose that it can be synchronised with another MIDI sequencer / editor program though.

I like the idea of LINUX for audio in principle. I tried configuring a Slackware installation for audio processing once and I found it a nightmare. But then I'm not a proficent LINUX user.

Entheon - would you recommend a particular distro for audio?

...I ask because for example Fedora and distros similar can install loads of services which only end up taking up space or resources.

i've since found kvr after posting this, and it seems a bit more robust.  you can find a very large number of identical vst effects on the site i linked to, but KVR is easier to search through to find specific kinds of plugins.


that's the problem with trying to just "switch over" to using linux for this sort of thing.  90% of anybody you come across out here won't know the first thing about an operating system.  i know that you can find online help to guide you through stuff like that, but the fact still remains that most people don't even know that there's anything beyond Windows or IE or the like.  consequently, there's no way they're going to just "learn" linux, regardless of their determination in most cases.

though i would still be interested to hear the answer:

Entheon - would you recommend a particular distro for audio?

b/c, i'm simple not a complete wizz in the whole thing either & so depsite how much i think i know, i'm not a linux user and so i don't know all that much about it.

yes, i would recommend a distro for newbie musicians: Fedora.

it's a good newbie distro... and btw Windows also installs a bitchload of "services" too which slows down your computer and which i always go in and turn off. There is a GREAT support channel on the Freenode IRC network called #fedora where you can find all the answers to your questions. Also if you're worried about your computer being slow from all those "services" on Linux the most likely cause of that slow down is NOT those services in fact but a couple other things namely the kernel and your graphical environment. There are lightweight and super wicked fast graphical environments for Linux and if you custom compile your Kernel your machine will be much faster in the end as well. Combining this with turning off unwanted services is what will really give you a speed boost.

OOhhh, slackware... very bad newbie distro... yikes... i've used basically every major distro available (i'm a venerable linux geek) which ranges from the following:

Fedora, ArchLinux, Slackware, Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo, FreeBSD, Solaris, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Crux and i've even installed my own Linux From Scratch system. And for the purists, yes the *BSD variants are not linux distros. I'd probably be shot for including them in such a list

Fedora is by far the easiest and best newbie distro available. You WILL need to do some good learnin before Linux and installing Linux makes sense to you. Oh and i suggest only downloading the first install CD and then doing a net-install via FTP. (me contemplates writing a Linux for noob musicians thread lol... depends on the demand... anyone care?) The main and only real thing you'll need to deal with on Fedora is partitioning your hard drive. This probably means you'll have to erase your entire drive first, so get ready to backup your files, then erase the sucker and partition as wanted. The best idea would be to have a whole computer or just buy a separate drive just for Linux.

Ardour does not in fact have a MIDI sequencer... yet... but if you check the site it IS one of the major features soon to be implemented. And yeah MIDI sequencing can be very useful, but for the average musician's demo purposes... one single overhead mic, a guitar and a voice SHOULD be enough for you to get some gigs if need be. Or ditto if you have a band. However, if you need or want MIDI sequencing then that's where other programs such as Rosegarden and MuSE come in... they are built specifically for this purpose. Timidity is also a nice tiny little freeware MIDI synth/sequencer.

There are a gazillion Linux programs for multimedia and particularly music. Check out CCRMA... http://ccrma.stanford.edu/  The Stanford University Center for Computer Research in Music. They've got a giant stock pile of linux music programs and their repository should work with Fedora.

Well, I'm not too sure that here is the correct place for it, but I would be interested to know how to make Fedora lean and mean for use as an audio workstation:

Services to disable: how to
Kernel customisation & rebuild: The idiots guide

I remember using RedHat Shrike a while back. I finally got it all working how I wanted. Then I decided to delve into the murky depths of kernel configuration and customisation. I rebuilt myself a new kernel, booted it, and low an behold nothing worked anymore - I managed to screw it.

To be honest, I don't envisage myself using linux as an audio workstation in the near future for a few reasons, but I wouldn't rule it out as an option later on.

I think that a lot of the linux documentation is tough on new users. Have you worked with AudioSlack?

oh yeah, linux documentation can suck donkey daipers sometimes... but that's the great thing about having the freenode network... the folks on IRC will invariably tell you to read the manual many times... but those times when you just don't understand the manual and you've tried to read it, often they will come to the rescue.

good to know what you're interested in hearing about linux. I'll probaly need to get at least a few more people to voice up on this before i turn it into a priority but I will keep it on the back burner, simmering, waiting to be served.

I think this would be the pefect place for it. Plenty of people here I think could use a free Audio Workstation and plenty of people here could also use a quick start idiots guide on how to get it running.

There is only one thing I will add and that's

Hard Drive for your Linux: howto

and I think that'll essentially cover most of what should probably be needed by any moderately inclined newbie. IMHO If you can check your e-mail and you've got the time and don't got the money, Linux is worth it.

The best part is, you don't have to give up windows while you make the transition.

I haven't been recording for long but not having the capability to fork out tons of cash means that Kristal works incredibly well for someone like me.  I haven't added any plug ins to it yet and it still does the trick.  For a while the singer in my band brought over an old mac that he didn't need with "garage band" on it.  I never really used the program cos whenever we recorded to that computer he did the work cos i truly hate macs, but from what i saw it seemed like a pretty good program.  Anyone else have any experiences with it?

you mean, experiences with Kristal, or with Garageband?    i'm not sure which you were asking about when reading the post!  i've personally never used garageband, so i'm not sure about it.  kristal is wonderful for someone who doesn't have money to throw around though.  i haven't been using it very primarily recently though. i've been playing with (and exploiting!!) the Adobe Audition 1.5 trial.  it's a truely wonderful program, but i'm afraid i can't recommend it to someone who doesn't have money to work with

Sorry about that, I meant experiences with garage band.  I am in japan and it is a Mac community out here (don't know why, i hate teh buggers operating systems) but their media programs seem to be their strenght.  I work with movies as well and from what I have seen the base programs provided for that are also superior, so from what I saw on garageband (being on the media side of things) i would imagine its quite impressive.  But yeah, my qeustion was about garageband.