Help Learning using DAWs

Starkman

New member
Hello all,

I enjoy composing jazz and orchestral pieces using Musescore, but Musescore is a notation program that doesn't have good sound (it was designed for ease in notation, not producing great sound).

I knew there'd come a day when I'd have to work with a DAW, but I know absolutely nothing about them. so I went into research mode and studied my behind off for several days to both learn about DAWs and to get an idea what would work for me; I need to get the audio (or audio files or MIDI or what have you) into a DAW and and tweak the sound until it sounds decent and reasonably realistic—for my own personal enjoyment, nothing for professional use.

So I downloaded Tracktion 6 (which is free) and went through some tutorial videos just to get a feel for the whole thing. I have Cakewalk as well, which is what I'll probably end up using after all is said and done. So here's my question to you all.

Where would you go online (or elsewhere) without having to spend a fortune in order to learn how to use a DAW (Cakewalk in this case) quickly and fairly thoroughly? What Youtubes or training would be a good place to invest some time (and money) in order to move crash-course into this, I guess you could call it, so that I don't waste a lot of time trying to find training material amidst all the stuff that's out there (one can waste a ridiculous amount of time just trying to find the right stuff).

NOTE: I'm not a very geeky, technical person, so please keep that in mind.

Any input would be great.

Thanks very much.
 
just search on specific topics for cakewalk.

Here's how to record midi in cakewalk - YouTube
Here's how to record analog ("audio") in cakewalk - YouTube
...just know that you can not really edit analog ("audio") recordings. You can mix and master them, but you can't change the tone and notation after it's recorded. Midi is much more open for editing sounds, notes, tones, etc both before and after recording.

Here's another good one on midi in sonar cakewalk - YouTube


I make free lessons myself but they're mostly for FL Studio and some random audio stuff. Hope those links help you though.
 
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When I'm learning new software, I pick a highly recommended general tutorial first and quickly run through it. Once I've learned the basics, I'm free to work on what I want until I see a problem (then I would just look up a specific tutorial for that problem).
 
Not sure if I can use this, volture. I mean, for jazz and orchestral?
If there's something there specifcally, though, that you know about that would be of benefit, I am all ears.
 
Cakewalk is a pretty damn good program and comes with some amazing synth plug-ins so you should be just fine there.

It looks like in the Gibson to BandLab transition, the forum is still there: SONAR | Cakewalk Forums Lots of good information.

I'm going to back up what was said earlier, do a basic introduction tutorial as well as those YT videos posted. Those will be so helpful for you.

What I would offer on top of that is how to think of remembering the difference between MIDI tracks and Audio tracks when you see them all together in one horizontal view and things get complicated. Just remember, a MIDI track is just notes - no stereo / L/R / issues. You need to run those notes INTO a synth to generate the sound. So the output of a MID track of notes NEEDS to go to a VST/AU MIDI Instrument. After the sound comes out of the instrument generating the sounds, then you get to process it like audio.

Audio, on the other hand, can be handled as 2 mono tracks or 1 stereo track in the DAW. If you're not recording any audio from an interface, this might not matter for you but it's important to remember that you can do both and sometimes mixing a blend of both types of tracks gets confusing for some starting out. If you're just using MIDI to create Audio, then ignore this.

Good luck. Which version of Cakewalk SONAR do you have? I'm assuming you have SONAR.....
 
Thanks for the input, Storm.

Yeah, I've heard Cakewalks is excellent. And yes, the forum is still there, but they're not accepting any new accounts, which sucks. Sooner or later they'll create a new forum under Bandlab.

I've done the research and have a slew of sites for videos, tutorials and what have you for both Reaper and Cakewalk, so I'm set to go there. At the moment, I've started Kenny Gioia's Reaper 5 series (30 vids) - I decided to go with Reaper first and work with Cakewalk down the road. (Oh, and Cakewalk doesn't have any 3rd-party plugins included under Bandlab; they had to be gotten rid of when Bandlab took over Cakewalk to avoid having to pay royalties and what have you).

My concern about Cakewalk at the moment is that eventually Bandlab is going to have to have a way to make money. This can mean several things that can happen, which can make it more costly down the road to invest my time now into Cakewalk, at least as my main DAW. It's the uncertainty in all of this, Storm, that has ultimately sent me to Reaper. (Besides, Reaper's a beast! You can't beat it!). I'm still quite attracted to Cakewalk but am simply unsettled with the recent takeover. (AFWIW, I'm also attracted to Tracktion Waveform, but that's out of the game right now.)

I spent some time going over information about MIDI, audio and other related factors relative to working with a DAW, so what you said about distinguishing between MIDI and audio made sense. Now what I didn't see in my research was "o the output of a MID track of notes NEEDS to go to a VST/AU MIDI Instrument. After the sound comes out of the instrument generating the sounds, then you get to process it like audio." This throws me a bit.

If I play a file and there's a MIDI horizontal line, and I hear it, you're saying (if I understand correctly) that I still can't edit it (or, rather, tweak it) until I run it first through a VST/AU MIDI instrument? If this is the case, I'll watch for this while watching vids, because at the moment all of that is still foreign to me. I am, however, not going to be doing any direct recording. I'm simply going to be taking the sound from what I've written in Musescore (and maybe Sibelius one day, when I'm rich and famous) and tweak it in a DAW.

Otherwise, I feel like, yeah, I can now grasp the essence of a DAW. The rest, I suppose, is practice. We'll see!

Hey, thanks again!
 
Reaper is a good call. You're right. It is a beast. It will definitely do everything you need! I hadn't thought about the 3rd party issues for Cakewalk. Yeah that would make it less appealing. For reference, I used SONAR as a Rewire host for Reason for so long. Once Reason got full audio, I jumped 100% and my SONAR sits lonely.

So when you play MIDI in your DAW you get sound? It's probably playing the default samples from the sound card's MIDI library. If that works, great. The sounds of the GM (General MIDI) library will sound ok. You'd have a piano, bass, drum (CH 10), strings, violins, etc. My comment would make no sense in that regard. HOWEVER, if you wanted to elevate to samples from a higher quality sample library you'd have to send the MIDI notes to that synth or sampler instrument. So, disregard if you're happy with the sounds you got.

If you're curious, here's a link to some of the most popular free instruments on KVR
KVR: Free instrument VST Plugins, VST3 Plugins, Audio Units Plugins (AU), AAX Plugins and Rack Extension Plugins for Windows and Mac OS X
- you can send MIDI notes to these 'instruments' and they will completely change your sound.

Have fun with your production!!
 
No, you are dead on with regard to the need I'll have to run what comes out of Musecore (in MIDI) into a synth and use some better sounds. That's going to be a must if I want something that sounds remotely better and real (that, I hope, is when my Garritan Personal Orchestra 4 will come into play).

Wow! Thanks for the link, too. I do appreciate it.

And as for luck, yeah, I'm going to need it. A lot of it!

Thanks again.
 
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