Really productive session on my laptop this evening

thecolourbox

After having my laptop on for 2 hours, I've had a really productive session trying to produce some drum loops I've had in my head for a while to export to improvise along to for some new music I want to make.

So productive, that i've managed 1 whole bar of drums.........although the system cacked out and I even lost that.

First off, eLicenser wasn't letting me load Cubase so I had to uninstall it, re install it, and re enter all my activation codes.

Next up, it took five minutes to load Cubase.

Next, the stupid Groove plug in thing keep not responding if I changed the drum kit more than a couple of times.

Then after i'd thrown the computer across the room I managed to get one bar done, only for it to bloody crash again

Arghhhhhh!!!! Why is it like this every bloody time I try and be creative?

digitalscream

This may not cheer you up, but...Reaper, dude. Reaper and BFD3, to be specific.

Solid as a rock, even under Linux (which neither of them officially support).

thecolourbox

Oh I couldn't use Reaper, I couldn't work anything on it and frankly I didn't have time to read the manual unfortunately. I strongly suspect the problem lies with my being utterly thick to be honest

digitalscream

Really? I found it to be the most intuitive of all the DAWs out there. I was utterly lost and frustrated with Pro Tools, and everything seems to be needlessly abstracted in Logic, meaning everything's just harder work than it needs to be. I spent hours with both of those and couldn't get anything done at all (couldn't even get Pro Tools to record a damn guitar line on its own, using the Eleven Rack which was designed for it!). Within 5 minutes of installing Reaper, I was recording a song.

Then again, I suspect that Reaper's interface works best for those with an engineer- or programmer-type brain.

thecolourbox

Yeah I was lost in it for ages as I've only ever used Cubase since I learnt on it at School. I don't really have any knowledge of actual stuff, I just know how to do things in Cubase that do the job, so trying to work out the equivalent in a system that looks quite different (and if I recall correctly, very grey looking which hurt my eyes after about 10 minutes).

I think the current Cubase issues (well, I've always had the same issues but still) are more based on my computer set up but I'm totally not worth investing in a separate machine to run only that unfortunately

Shark_Eyes

Just to chime in with digitalscream. I've only ever used Cubase and found Reaper super easy to use, I find it tricky to get my midi keyboard up and running with it (but I'm a midi luddite).

Not used it for drum loops, but for everything else, it's easy and really stable, I used to use it on my 800mhz AMD computer with no issues!

Also any issues you may have are usually answered by a quick search on the reaper forums.

thecolourbox

As I say, it's cos i'm thick clearly

stratman3142

thecolourbox said:

Oh I couldn't use Reaper, I couldn't work anything on it and frankly I didn't have time to read the manual unfortunately. I strongly suspect the problem lies with my being utterly thick to be honest

I've only skimmed a few bits of the Reaper manual. I can't compare it with other DAWS because I've never used any other DAW. It seems fairly intuitive to me. If you've got any questions I'm happy to help, but I only use Reaper in a very basic way.

Apart from my very early days of using it (back around 2007) Reaper has always been super stable for me across a range of computers.

digitalscream

I don't think we're going to convince him, guys

I wasn't coming at it from a usability perspective, though - mainly stability. I've only had Reaper crash twice in the whole time I've been using it, and both times was because of a dodgy plugin.

thecolourbox

Sorry Digital is right, this is a pointless post born only out of frustration and one which, however well answered, is ultimately a waste of time. Sorry fellas

digitalscream

thecolourbox said:

Sorry Digital is right, this is a pointless post born only out of frustration and one which, however well answered, is ultimately a waste of time. Sorry fellas

You've pretty much described every post on this forum, ever. Ergo, no apology required

PolarityMan

digitalscream said:

This may not cheer you up, but...Reaper, dude. Reaper and BFD3, to be specific.

Solid as a rock, even under Linux (which neither of them officially support).

I find bfd3 a little crashy. Not terrible but definitely doesn't seem as solid as bfd2

Drew_TNBD

PolarityMan said:

digitalscream said:

This may not cheer you up, but...Reaper, dude. Reaper and BFD3, to be specific.

Solid as a rock, even under Linux (which neither of them officially support).

I find bfd3 a little crashy. Not terrible but definitely doesn't seem as solid as bfd2

Dems fightin' words! Let me know if I can help.

@thecolourbox - if you had BFD3, you wouldn't even need a DAW to export drum loops. You could do it all entirely in BFD3 standalone.

Fretwired

@thecolourbox ; .. what version of Cubase and OS are you using?

thecolourbox

Cheers @Drew_TNBD but I don't tend to use acoustic drums in any case, as they'd take too much learning to get them sounding "right" -  have ezdrummer somewhere but ended up deciding acoustic drums were not really the sound for me. I like using quite robotic sounding electric drums

thecolourbox

@Fretwired it's Cubase Elements 8 on Windows 10

Fretwired

thecolourbox said:

@Fretwired it's Cubase Elements 8 on Windows 10

OK - recent Windows 10 updates removed permissions from the e-Licencer software. It happened to me yesterday. If it happens again just drag the eLicencer program to the desktop and right-click and select properties>compatibility and run as administrator. It should be OK now as you reinstalled it.

Drew_TNBD

thecolourbox said:

Cheers @Drew_TNBD but I don't tend to use acoustic drums in any case, as they'd take too much learning to get them sounding "right" -  have ezdrummer somewhere but ended up deciding acoustic drums were not really the sound for me. I like using quite robotic sounding electric drums

Bfd isn't just for acoustic drums dude ;-)

thecolourbox

Fretwired said:

thecolourbox said:

@Fretwired it's Cubase Elements 8 on Windows 10

OK - recent Windows 10 updates removed permissions from the e-Licencer software. It happened to me yesterday. If it happens again just drag the eLicencer program to the desktop and right-click and select properties>compatibility and run as administrator. It should be OK now as you reinstalled it.

Another "upgrade" I presume thanks for the info

Mr Drew, didn't know that but still not an investment I can make, I took to using my korg drum machine today instead

crunchman

thecolourbox said:

and if I recall correctly, very grey looking which hurt my eyes after about 10 minutes

I've not bothered playing with it, but I'm pretty sure you can change the look of Reaper.