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Subject: Beginner needs advice

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Original Message 1/3 07-Oct-01 @ 08:07 PM - Beginner needs advice

splat

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Hi I'm a complete beginner at midi music (and in fact at music!)

I'm looking to have a set up where I can compose music. Also without spending a small fortune.

My beginners set up I have is :
reasonably ok PC (pentium II, 128mb ram, plenty of disk space)
pair of desk top speakers
an old sound blaster 16 sound card
an old version of cakewalk home studio (ver 5.0)
A Yamaha PSR-195 , (about the basic entry level keyboard with midi interface)
A quality midi cable (bought direct from Yamaha)

So far I can sucessfully: load & playback the demo songs (output via the Yamaha)

I have 2 set up problems:

1) with audio record from a micrphone I get a wave like pattern in the right hand side og the track section ( I think this means the sound has been recoded). But I cant hear any sound on play back

2) I tried recording input from the Yamaha keyboard. SOMETHING does happen - notes get entered on the staff - but its erratic - I might do ten notes and only three get recorded.

My settings are as follows:
input ports :
Roland MPU401

output ports :
Roland MPU401 (the default)
also available
c-media softmedia synthesis
yamaha opl2/opl3 synthesis

I can confirn the midi cable is connected input to Yamaha output & vice versa
Ive also noticed that , to record from the Yam. keyboard the setting "metronome / recording/ needs to be checked" , otherwise it doesnt work
Plenty of free hard disk space
Ive also had a dabble with cool edit pro sodtware - records OK from Yamaha input , except volumes too low.

My questions are:

a) any technical fixes for the above two problems with Cakewalk and

b) should I spend on a newer sound card? (in which case any suggestions?)

thanks in advance

Splat

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Message 2/3 08-Oct-01 @ 05:06 PM - RE: Beginner needs advice

Brett B

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Version 5.0 man. Ok to learn midi on , but don't bother with audio on a 266. Your best bet is to buy a new pc with a 24bit card that supports WDM for use in Sonar. If you are a registered owner of that 5.0 you can buy the upgrade for $150. And 1.4 ghz pc's are only $500. 5.0 is laid out in a way that is not nearly as logical as Sonar. You must select the input for each track. left Audio in, right audio in, or midi. to playback audio you must select the sondcard driver in the output section of each track. Mixing in 5.0 is not really possible, and was limited in 6.0 as well. If your computer is only recording some notes it may be because it is hanging up . Set the clock to internal, audio and see if it fixes the problem. But really, it's 2001. Don't live in a cave. Join the rest of us the modern world as soon as possible. The new Sonar platform is everything you need to write, record , mix and mangle you sounds into amazing music. 5.0 is just a midi editor and audio clip recorder and player. And the quality of it is pretty useless. Buy a frontier design card and a fast pc with sonar running on Windows 2000. All those head aches will go and you will learn so much faster.

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Message 3/3 08-Oct-01 @ 11:52 PM - RE: Beginner needs advice

splat

Posts: 6

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A whole new PC + card + OS + software - gulp! better start saving for Christmas.

Thanks for the advice Brett B.

Splat

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