New Home Studio Set Up help with software please!

Sammy

Okay just bought a Focusrite Scarlett Studio 2i2 3rd Gen bundle, plus have JBL 1 Series 104's coming this week.

So for now want advice on the easiest DAW to use. Loaded up the free Abelite 10 which came with the bundle found it quite hard to use with no real quick advice for basic recording etc in the manual and have been advised it can be a bit daunting for novice users. So was going to go with Audacity, as it appears to be the easiest from reviews but has limitations, but speaking with someone from Focusrite support on another issue, he recommended Reaper which he said was reasonably easy to pick up and also had great learning videos step by step from basic recordings with much more to it than Audacity.

I am mainly recording Guitar and vocals to hopefully do some videos and also to record our band when we rehearse round my house just using a couple of mics &/or individually later on when a bit more experienced to put onto CD.

Will mainly be using my Lenovo ideapad 320s with windows 10 but will also use my main computer but with windows 7.

So which would be easier and better for me between Audacity & Reaper to use, also bearing in mind would like to put some onto video, when I have mastered the recording part! As hoping to get the Logic C920 HD Pro Webcam when the silly prices at present come down.

  

spark240

I’m using Studio One but doing a bit more stuff than you are planning I reckon...lots of folks use Reaper....I’m sure the guys will chip in soon

rico

I’d recommend Reaper. It’s free to ‘evaluate’ indefinitely but also incredible value if you wanted to pay for it. 

It’s not as glitzy as logic etc but it’s incredibly powerful albeit with a basic GUI. With a few minutes of learning, you will be able to start recording. 

Open reaper, set the Scarlett up in audio preferences, set up a new track and tell it what input of the Scarlett you want to record, adjust the gain knob until it just flashes orange on the Scarlett, arm the track and hit record!

Let me know if you have any queries - there is a wealth of info about reaper out there but sometimes it’s more satisfying to work out yourself. I am not an expert. 

chotu495

I’ve gone down the Ableton 10 route, and know what you mean about it being a bit of a head-scratcher to begin with.

I’ve heard lots of good things about Reaper. Rico’s comments above are pretty much how you would get Ableton to work as well 

Reaper will get you up and running for less outlay. Massive rabbit-hole. Good luck 

bloodandtears

cakewalk by bandlabs.. free and easy

TheBigDipper

Got a iPad? Got an iPhone? I'd recommend Garageband every time. Free, straightforward and you don't have to dive too deep to get really decent results. You'll need an Apple Camera Kit to provide the USB connection into your Focusrite. But you'd need one anyway if you're looking to connect a camera, or USB drives, etc. 

Google "Dan Baker" and take a look at his YouTube channel if you want to be inspired. 

I do "band in a room" recordings using Garageband on my phone. The limitation on decent results is not the device, the software or the audio interface. It's where I put the mics and how well the band plays! Both are still a work-in-progress....  :-) The DAW doesn't matter. Just pick one and get started.

Focusrite still seems to have its free stereo recording app on the App Store, too (Tape) and its video recording app (Impact). 

But if you're restricted to a Windows computer, then I'd avoid Audacity because the workflow is weird. 

Musicwolf

rico said:

Open reaper, set the Scarlett up in audio preferences, set up a new track and tell it what input of the Scarlett you want to record, adjust the gain knob until it just flashes orange on the Scarlett, arm the track and hit record!

I agree that Reaper is a good choice if your AI doesn't already come bundled with a DAW of some kind.

Just a comment re setting the gain.  If you are recording at 24 bit (and with modern computers there really isn't any reason to go lower) then you have oodles* of headroom.  This means that you don't need to set the gain too high.  I'm from a generation that cut its teeth with magnetic tape and then, due to the inherent noise associated with tape, we had to run everything ‘hot’ to get the best possible signal to noise ratio.  If we pushed things too far tape was quite forgiving and we got, quite musical, compression and distortion effects.

With digital you do not have these same noise issues and, if you clip, it sounds f***ing horrible.   When recording make sure that you are giving yourself enough headroom to avoid clipping.  It took me a while to mentally adjust and I still see lots of people, many of whom are too young to have ever used tape, pushing things into the red.  I also come across plenty of projects where all the channels are set with no gain trim, strong signals and, as a result, the master fader is at about -15dB (I received a project like that just this week).

*oodles is of course an imperial measure.  I believe that the equivalent SI unit is ‘shitloads’

Snap

bloodandtears said:

cakewalk by bandlabs.. free and easy

I always suggest this vs Reaper. IMO it's a more feature laden product, but I'm biased cos I've used it for so long. Vs Reaper I found it much more intuitive

rico

@Musicwolf makes a good point re bundled software however the included DAW options in the Scarlett bundle are the diet versions and these could be outgrown over time.

I'm of the opinion that its best to choose a DAW and stick with it. 

Musicwolf

rico said:

I'm of the opinion that its best to choose a DAW and stick with it. 

+1   The limiting factor, especially for the home user, is always going to be the skill of the operator.  I've been using Cubase since it was Cubase VST (that's 23 years) and I'm still learning.  I also have Reaper on a laptop for location stuff but all that I've learned to do with it is set it up and record multiple tracks.  I know from others that it is very capable but it makes no sense for me to learn more than I need (I transfer the tracks to Cubase for processing) and no sense to switch to using Reaper all of the time simply because it would take me so long to become anywhere near as proficient as I am with Cubase.

Sammy

Thanks to you all for your help on this, think I will now download Reaper and have a good go at this, as at least there are some good videos to assist from the start.

I am of the old school where you would just get a printed manual, not many of you probably remember those, except Musicwolf and they would guide you from the beginning, how to do things, like my old Sony MD8, which were easy to follow plus you could easily refer back to anything, if you needed help or to check something. Rather than these now online manuals with 350 pages of gobbledegook, which you have to spend hours trawling through on the computer to find the things you actually require, if you can then understand it!  That's probably why there are so many videos out there explaining how to use them.

I can't understand why any of these DAW software suppliers can't just do a simple easy online manual for the general basics of using it, which you could print out if you wanted for easy referal to when using the software and then do a further more in depth manual for everything else. Very simple to do and would also help them to sell more software to newbies like me!

oaf

Sammy said:

Thanks to you all for your help on this, think I will now download Reaper and have a good go at this, as at least there are some good videos to assist from the start.

I can't understand why any of these DAW software suppliers can't just do a simple easy online manual for the general basics of using it, which you could print out if you wanted for easy referal to when using the software and then do a further more in depth manual for everything else. Very simple to do and would also help them to sell more software to newbies like me!

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

^download PDF for free, or buy a hardcopy from https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/geoffrey-francis/the-reaper-user-guide/paperback/product-1z99ykjz.html with promo code ITSHERE giving you 20% off for the next few days.

siremoon

Sammy said:

Thanks to you all for your help on this, think I will now download Reaper and have a good go at this, as at least there are some good videos to assist from the start.

I am of the old school where you would just get a printed manual, not many of you probably remember those, except Musicwolf and they would guide you from the beginning, how to do things, like my old Sony MD8, which were easy to follow plus you could easily refer back to anything, if you needed help or to check something. Rather than these now online manuals with 350 pages of gobbledegook, which you have to spend hours trawling through on the computer to find the things you actually require, if you can then understand it!  That's probably why there are so many videos out there explaining how to use them.

I can't understand why any of these DAW software suppliers can't just do a simple easy online manual for the general basics of using it, which you could print out if you wanted for easy referal to when using the software and then do a further more in depth manual for everything else. Very simple to do and would also help them to sell more software to newbies like me!

All DAWs have an initial learning curve to get started but if there's a DAW out there that has more comprehensive documentation, tutorials and support than Reaper then I haven't found it plus it is inexpensive to buy and available with all features on indefinite free trial.

JAYJO

If you go on the Reaper Forum there is a member called nicholas (Geoffrey Francis). He has published a book called  Home recording for beginners. Its not expensive and may be what you need. Worth having a look at the thread and the links to Reaper manuals .I bought a copy a while back and the book itself is good quality. By Geoffrey Francis
Ive just had a look at the price of this manual and its about 10 times more than what i paid. The cheapest on ebay £50+ . lol  Its not that good. Check out the thread anyway.
Update.. Publishers went into administration so book no longer available new. Explains the ridiculous prices for used. The pdf posted above is imo your best bet for now. 

Sammy

Thanks have now downloaded Reaper and using the videos to go through the basics much easier than the manual as you flip back and forth between setting up reaper and the video, okay so far!

Now Have another problem just got my new studio JBL1 104  speakers today and waiting for balanced leads to arrive, so used unbalanced ones to try out from the Focus and the volume is really low, had to turn everything up to get anything near a reasonable volume using the mic, tried playing some spotify and still low. Plugged the speakers direct into my laptop using the  cables supplied to headphone socket on the laptop and no problem with volume so doesn`t seem anything wrong with JBL's! So is it to do with using unbalanced cables and when I get the balanced ones all should be okay!

duotone

If you do go the Reaper route, then I would recommend these starter videos. They helped me a lot when I began using Reaper.

https://youtu.be/JwDcTPn2dvc

Sammy

duotone said:

If you do go the Reaper route, then I would recommend these starter videos. They helped me a lot when I began using Reaper.

https://youtu.be/JwDcTPn2dvc

Thanks Duotone, haven't come across this one before and have started watching on Youtube, which is now an updated video.

One question, if you can answer please, he has suggested using sample rate 48000 instead of 44100! Other videos and reviews all seem to advise to leave at 44100 unless you are more proffesional etc, as 48000 can run into problems, also that many Pros still use 44100?

andy_k

Re-speakers, I'm not familiar with yours particularly, but I do assume they are powered monitors?, if so they should have a volume control. I am using ILouds, connected to my gen 1 Scarlett, no problems with volume, you need to get used to using a constant zero setting for recording and mixing, anything else is just confusion.
Re-sample rate, 48k is used to give more headroom when recording and mixing, the CD standard is 44k-16 bit, so that is what most people work towards, in the final mix. Using 48k just gives more high end fidelity to work with plugins, some people can't hear the difference, and we are all used to hearing streaming and mp3 now, most pro studios are using much higher sample rates, but the trade off is higher rates equal larger file sizes, and processing. 
The more you use Reaper, the more you will appreciate how good it is, try getting PT to work on any consumer grade stuff and you would see, I have tried Ableton, but think it is more suited to loop and keyboard production, relying on libraries of sounds, at least that's how it seemed to me, Reaper is more set up for working on a per track basis, much more like traditional recording.
good luck anyway.

octatonic

andy_k said:

Re-sample rate, 48k is used to give more headroom when recording and mixing,

Sorry but this isn't true.
Headroom is down to bit depth.
Higher sample rate doesn't give you more headroom, it gives you greater resolution.
There is virtual zero difference in terms of sound between 44.1 and 48k though, if all other factors are equal.

Historically, the reason most people tended to record at 48k is because 48k was the sample rate that was compatible with video.
Without going down a rabbit hole I would suggest recording at a sample rate you intend to stick with.
For instance if you have a huge sample library that is brought over from CD (so 44.1) then track at 44.1.
If you have already tracked at 48k then keep doing that.

Tracking at 48k and downsampling to 44.1 is not something I would recommend and I definitely would not want to go up from 44.1 to a higher sample rate.
FWIW I've always tracked at 44.1 until recently- I had zero complaints over the years about this.

There is an argument for tracking at higher sample rates- now I have a beast of a Mac Pro I tend to track at 96k.
My opinion, which is not backed up by any sort of empirical evidence, is plugins sound smoother at a higher sample rate, but most people don't have the sort of resources in their computer that will allow for a huge session.

McSwaggerty

^  Oct's the Man. 

Musicwolf

The theory is that the highest audio frequency that you can reconstruct from a digital source is half the sample rate (Nyquist Sampling Theorem).  This means 44.1kHz is still capable of reproduction up to 24kHz.  There are other arguments as to why you can hear benefits beyond this but my 56 year old ears are well past the point of being able to tell.

As octagonal has said, pick your sample rate and stick to it.

Use 24 bit to give you plenty of headroom and don’t record too ‘hot’, there’s absolutely no need (recording with the signals just below peak is a legacy of tape).