DAW/VST on a budget?

[ronyd]

Any suggestions on what I should purchase for a DAW/VST without breaking the bank? I have macosx snow leopard, 2GB memory. Can;t upgrade with the mac. So Garage Band is probably not an option for a DAW.

I could buy another used mac which is still up there in price.

Maybe a PC is better choice and cheaper?

[scottyp]

Reaper is free and a pretty light weight DAW. I have been using it for a few years on both my PC and mac. It will work on 2gb. as far as VST I don't know what would be the cheapest. Most of them will work for you but you won't be able to run ALL of the effects in real time as they use up a good amount of memory. I love BFD3. but its not the cheapest.

[ronyd]

Reaper is free and a pretty light weight DAW. I have been using it for a few years on both my PC and mac. It will work on 2gb. as far as VST I don't know what would be the cheapest. Most of them will work for you but you won't be able to run ALL of the effects in real time as they use up a good amount of memory. I love BFD3. but its not the cheapest.

what about dealing with zero latency. what device should be used?

[hairmetal-81]

what about dealing with zero latency. what device should be used?

A good audio-interface with good, stable, quality drivers.

[zgeggy2k]

Reaper is free and a pretty light weight DAW. I have been using it for a few years on both my PC and mac.

Reaper is NOT free. After 60 days you are supposed to delete it if you feel it's not worth the price. It's fairly cheap, and they are nice enough to provide a free eval that is not crippled and no DRM. Seems like a good deal to me. More info at http://www.reaper.fm/purchase.php

-- Greg

[zgeggy2k]

Any suggestions on what I should purchase for a DAW/VST without breaking the bank? I have macosx snow leopard, 2GB memory. Can;t upgrade with the mac. So Garage Band is probably not an option for a DAW.

I could buy another used mac which is still up there in price.

Maybe a PC is better choice and cheaper?

Are you sure you need a DAW or do you just want to play with VST and assume you need a DAW? Some VST (Toontrack's I think) have their own player (Toontrack Solo) so you don't need a DAW if all you want to do is play with VST sounds.

For your config, you could use Addictive Drums and Garage Band. It worked for me, and AD is quite light.

-- Greg

[Kenster]

How much usage are you planning for your DAW? Simple recording of noodling? Making a pro album? Building a pro level recording studio? Knowing what your planned usage is will help other members recommend a more or less powerful solution for you. I'm using a WinXP laptop that's at least 6 yrs old with a PCMCIA audio card that cost me $200 (Indigo) and Sonor Cakewalk 6. It was cheap for me because I "acquired" a free copy of Cakewalk. You can PM me for more details if need be. The only limit with my setup is I can only record one "channel" (in the DAW) at a time. If I used a usb to midi I could get an interface to do say 2 or 4 at a time, but then I'd probably run into latency issues depending on the interface I used. I'm getting ready to buy most likely a Presonus 4x4 to use with my new Win8 laptop and retire the older laptop.

K ;-)

[ronyd]

How much usage are you planning for your DAW? Simple recording of noodling? Making a pro album? Building a pro level recording studio? Knowing what your planned usage is will help other members recommend a more or less powerful solution for you. I'm using a WinXP laptop that's at least 6 yrs old with a PCMCIA audio card that cost me $200 (Indigo) and Sonor Cakewalk 6. It was cheap for me because I "acquired" a free copy of Cakewalk. You can PM me for more details if need be. The only limit with my setup is I can only record one "channel" (in the DAW) at a time. If I used a usb to midi I could get an interface to do say 2 or 4 at a time, but then I'd probably run into latency issues depending on the interface I used. I'm getting ready to buy most likely a Presonus 4x4 to use with my new Win8 laptop and retire the older laptop.

K ;-)

All I want to do is utilize better sounds, and experiment with this stuff to get my feet wet. The TD3 really is marginal. As you say "noodling" only.

zeggy2K, I assummed you needed both DAW and VST? Was also thinking AD and Garage Band (if I can purchase a version of iLife that runs with osx 10.6.8. Another thread seems to like Steve Slate better. How did you accomplish dealing with zero latency?

[Kenster]

I want to make sure we are talking about two separate issues right? A DAW is for recording, etc....a VST is to get pre-recorded/sampled drum sounds, triggered from your module. You want BOTH?

K ;-)

[hairmetal-81]

I'd like to recommend to you Sennheiser's DrumMic'a - a FREE sample library/VST-plugin that you can dabble with to 'get your feet wet', without shelling out hundreds of bucks on software.


http://www.vdrums.com/forum/forum/ad...rom-sennheiser

HTH

[ronyd]

I want to make sure we are talking about two separate issues right? A DAW is for recording, etc....a VST is to get pre-recorded/sampled drum sounds, triggered from your module. You want BOTH?

K ;-)

here we go. now you know I'm a newbie at this. Recording would be nice, but really just want VST for drum sounds for now.

HM thankx for that info also. hmmm, my macos is 10.6.8, so might be out of luck for the freebie. May be another machine though.

[airflamesred]

+1 on the hairmetal suggestion.

[perceval]

I really like DrumMic'a but it has to be used with Kontakt, so that means more power needed to run the whole thing. It may work on the old mac, or not. BTW, it would help to know which Mac it is.

The TD3 will need a cable MIDI-to-USB. there are cheap ones at $5, but they sometimes do not work. A Roland or Yamaha cable, about $30, will work. Period.

AD has a standalone app, so will EZDrummer2. Using those, you will not need a DAW.

For Mac, you could use VSTLord instead of a DAW. It is an app to play VSTs without a big DAW. It is free.
There's also Bidule, doing the same thing and adding extra functions. It is a paid app, but it can be free, you just renew the beta app every couple of months.

AD has a new demo out. May want to give that one a try.

If you can't resolve latency issues with your present Mac, an audio interface may be needed. Expect to pay $150 and up for a decent one.

[jpsquared482]

If you are only interested in playing and not recording, I recommend you look into EZdrummer 2 which won't require a DAW at all, or you can use ToonTrack Solo which is a free download.

You should look into your computer's compatibility with whatever option you are leaning towards.

[zgeggy2k]

So you found out you don't really need a DAW (for now ) - just go for Addictive Drums or EZDrummer. If you go for the latter you may have options to "crossgrade" (ie upgrade at discount) to Superior if/when you feel like it.
As for zero latency - the secret to it is held by the unicorn. More seriously, there is no such thing as zero latency, but obviously the lower the better. You can tune your software/hardware stack to get lower latencies, but I wouldn't start tuning quite yet: get it working first, then start tuning.

-- Greg