Starting out in recording - Is Audacity recommended?

firepaulmusic

Audacity gets good reviews on line and looks intuitive to use. Would those with more experience still recommend this as a starting point before I go too far down the road with it?

Danny1969

Reaper would be a better bet .... it's pretty easy to learn and more than good enough. You can evaluate it for as long as you like ..... I've been evaluating it since @Grunfeld ; told me about it ... about 15 years ago

firepaulmusic

Danny1969 said:

Reaper would be a better bet .... it's pretty easy to learn and more than good enough. You can evaluate it for as long as you like ..... I've been evaluating it since @Grunfeld ; told me about it ... about 15 years ago

Thanks, why would you recommend Reaper over Audacity?

dogload

Audacity is too limited and I have found it to be a bit of a pain. As far as I remember there is very little flexibility and control over what you are recording. It is useful as a sort of 'audio notepad' and if there is nothing else available, but as a serious recording tool I would go for Reaper.

Reaper has many of the features available in fully-fledged pro systems at an affordable price!

firepaulmusic

dogload said:

Audacity is too limited and I have found it to be a bit of a pain. As far as I remember there is very little flexibility and control over what you are recording. It is useful as a sort of 'audio notepad' and if there is nothing else available, but as a serious recording tool I would go for Reaper.

Reaper has many of the features available in fully-fledged pro systems at an affordable price!

That’s good enough for me, thanks for the advice!

dogload

firepaulmusic said:

dogload said:

Audacity is too limited and I have found it to be a bit of a pain. As far as I remember there is very little flexibility and control over what you are recording. It is useful as a sort of 'audio notepad' and if there is nothing else available, but as a serious recording tool I would go for Reaper.

Reaper has many of the features available in fully-fledged pro systems at an affordable price!

That’s good enough for me, thanks for the advice!

Don't be deterred by the initial learning curve though

LightB4sound

Audacity is primarily an audio editor which can do mulitrack recording. It's a neat little program and has many uses, even add mentioned as a little notepad. Having said that albums have been made on it!

I'd probably go with Reaper though as a fully fledged DAW with everything you need and a workflow more in line with other daws. If you are on PC then you might want to also look at Sonar (Bandlab as it now is) which is free. On Mac, don't overlook garageband. Good luck

Keefy

+1 for Reaper

Freebird

Once you have spent the time learning Audacity you will find that it's not quite good enough, and then you will have to spend more time learning another DAW such as Reaper.

thecolourbox

I always use Audacity to record because I find getting Cubase (my main daw) or Reaper (which I'm "evaluating") to work with any of my interface devices is a total pain in the arse. Record easily into that, mix, arrange, as effects etc in a DAW

Freebird

thecolourbox said:

I always use Audacity to record because I find getting Cubase (my main daw) or Reaper (which I'm "evaluating") to work with any of my interface devices is a total pain in the arse. Record easily into that, mix, arrange, as effects etc in a DAW

You need to look into that, as I'm recording flawlessly within seconds with any of my preconfigured templates.

Freebird

Reaper download page:

https://www.reaper.fm/download.php

Snap

Freebird said:

thecolourbox said:

I always use Audacity to record because I find getting Cubase (my main daw) or Reaper (which I'm "evaluating") to work with any of my interface devices is a total pain in the arse. Record easily into that, mix, arrange, as effects etc in a DAW

You need to look into that, as I'm recording flawlessly within seconds with any of my preconfigured templates.

Yeah, ditto, shouldn't be a problem. 

p90fool

If you need to buy an audio interface check those out first. A lot of them come bundled with a cutdown version of Cubase for example, which means you only have to spend time learning one platform instead of switching to it later as you start to take it more seriously. 

Jalapeno

Reaper, Garageband (on Mac only), or Tracktion/Waveform are my low cost/free recommendations.

Audacity is a great editor, and a functional single track recorder, but I found it a bit of a faff for multi-tack recording.

pintspiller

Audacity I use as a standalone primarily for taking MP3 I am learning for the band and changing the key of the song to what the vocalists prefer.

In the past I custom-made Windows sounds from ripped CDs, my fave being the Smells Like Teen Spirit bass riff when emptying the bin etc.

firepaulmusic

p90fool said:

If you need to buy an audio interface check those out first. A lot of them come bundled with a cutdown version of Cubase for example, which means you only have to spend time learning one platform instead of switching to it later as you start to take it more seriously. 

I should add that I’m intending to use my XR18 as the audio interface, so hopefully all I need to buy is a decent microphone

firepaulmusic

Thanks for all the advice, much appreciated..

firepaulmusic

I’m trying to use Reaper with my Line 6 interface (UX2). I can get it to record but there is around half a second of latency, any ideas? I thought maybe a better interface may be the answer?

Freebird

firepaulmusic said:

I’m trying to use Reaper with my Line 6 interface (UX2). I can get it to record but there is around half a second of latency, any ideas? I thought maybe a better interface may be the answer?

You should be able to adjust it in the driver software. 

Preferences > Device > ASIO Configuration (or click in the top right corner)

Jalapeno

Latency between playback of recorded signal as you play ?

 That's normal - there's usually a playback option if you are monitoring through the same interface.