audio software

Actually it's all moot because my microphone is a dire
$10 model that mostly produces hiss and pops. But I've managed
to produce some nice sounding if humble tracks. They're all
so quite though - how do I increase the volume without
causing distortion?

Oh and don't forget the option of turning down the loud tracks and raising the overall level. Turning things down is always preferable to turning one thing up. You just end up constantly pushing the odd track here, the odd track there up a bit until everything's up full and you've got no room to move.

Alternatively you may have a microphone input on a home stereo, or even on a camcorder. Simply plug the microphone in, select the relevant input, and connect a lead from the 'record out' audio sockets (these would commonly be connected to a tape recorder or a minidisc) into your soundcard. This will probably not give you as great quality as a dedicated unit however.

1. When I import a midi or wav file, it speeds it up at least 1 half step.

2. When I open a track in the external editor and convert from mono to stereo, than save, cubase will no longer play the track. I can open it in the internal editor and play it, but it won't play in the arrangement.

Anyone know how to fix these?

If you convert a track to mono you have to select the track as "mono". Theres a button to press on the far left next to "record" and "monitor" which will make it a mono track. It should be lit up yellow and look like a pair of breasts if stereo, if you press it once it will become a circle. Hope thats as clear as mud. It's very hard to explain these things without the software in front of both of us. I'm on ICQ if you want a hands on tutorial, just drop me an email to arrange it.

https://dsparchive.neocities.org

i recently catalogued a trove of legacy DSP software

Very cool! Looking forward to digging through this.

granulab was always useful.
worth hunting down "moonfish" freeware drum machine & TS404 synth / sequencer too.

been writing a bit this week. i'm chronicling my adventures with alternative & legacy software here:
https://medium.com/@elinsound/music-on-the-computer-on-homogeneity-61655d8decd6

cool archive, thank you for doing that!

I've gotten Sonicworx, Thonk, Soundhack working under Sheepsaver, and still use Sound Forge under UTM. I love messing around with this old stuff. No less relevant than old pedals or whatever!

I enjoyed that piece very much, maelin

Yeah, very cool, thanks!

I enjoyed that as well, please keep posting your adventures!

a second installment, this time on an artefact of experimental music history, in co-operation with Editions Mego:

https://medium.com/@dsparchive/appatch-andi-pieper-1999-14fcf3f5016b

thank you for these articles. I find them very inspiring (even though the software itself seems pretty intimidating to me).

After dropping hundreds on Logic Pro and some popular soft synths in the past few years, I'm finally admitting to myself that this setup doesn't inspire me at all. I haven't been able to put a finger on why it isn't clicking for me, but some of the things said in the first article has gotten me closer to understanding it. I guess it's more important to ask why what does click for me does, so I can keep pursuing that. The most productive I've been in years has been sitting in my bed, playing with my iPad and using apps like Gauss, Drambo, and Spacecraft to destroy audio samples with resonators, granular stretching, and so on. I like music that almost sounds live and formless. The DAW is too structured to inspire me, and I've never really gotten to the point with the soft synths where I don't sound like I'm just making amateurish versions of the built-in presets.

maybe obvious but have you tried Ableton? That might be too techno still, but I found it to be so different-feeling from Logic that I struggled to really get it, still don't. Everyone else does though.

I've never clicked with Ableton either, and I feel like a weirdo in that I still see a tape recorder-style DAW with plugins as an infinite playground of creativity. I think all I'm really missing from Ableton at this point are routing and LFO possibilities, which I would love, but there are so many things you can do within and between plugins these days, plus bouncing and resampling...idk, it's enough for me without being too much. I've also given up on incorporating a tablet or ipad, getting samples between it and the computer just slowed me down too much.

Actually I do feel left out of Max for Live - not that I would get very far making my own devices, but it seems like there are some amazing instruments that others make that you can just use...

I have struggled with Albeton too, probably for the exact same reasons as Jordan, I'm just too embedded in the tape-mimicking framework of ProTools.

I have not had time to subscribe to the (cheap) Patreon for Blockhead - it works like I expected DAWs to work when I didn’t know anything about them, ie you put a sound on the timeline and then edit/warp it (mostly) manually on the timeline.

not sure this is the best video about it, just grabbed the first YouTube link for reference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5fWPBOdrY8

Reading the first of your posts on my lunchbreak, maelin. Thanks for sharing, this is super cool. Downloaded and played around with Argeïphontes Lyre. Love how even the directory structure feels like an art object.