Audio, Video, and Graphics discussion
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@TommyM I was checking out some of your videos, and I see you like controversy. I get in to some of it, but not too deep.
What software do you use for each Audio, video, and graphics?
Right now I'm just getting back into video so I bought a cheap program called power director ultra 16. It's pretty decent for the price.
For graphics I use photoshop 7, and for audio I use my zoom R8 8 track, and if I want to get real picky use my cubase software, or abbleton live.
Peace, Tony
What software do you use for each Audio, video, and graphics?
Right now I'm just getting back into video so I bought a cheap program called power director ultra 16. It's pretty decent for the price.
For graphics I use photoshop 7, and for audio I use my zoom R8 8 track, and if I want to get real picky use my cubase software, or abbleton live.
Peace, Tony
Comments
Anyhow, technical and setup-wise here's what I'm running...
Audio: Cubase 5 and Ableton Live 9 for recording, arranging and mixing. I run the Waves suite for pretty much all of my effects and processing. Input is via a Novation X-Station 25 MIDI controller/synth which also has a basic pre-amp in it for running my Behringer C1 condenser mic.
Graphics/Art: Photoshop CS6, occasionally Illustrator if I need to do vector art or whatever but usually just PS and the built-in effects.
Video: After Effects CS6. It's meant for post-production and motion graphics, but I end up using it as a non-linear editor too as it's what I learned on from the start. I sometimes use Vegas if I need to do more musical/beat-aligned/remix stuff, or occasionally Premiere Pro but I'm not particularly good with it.
I'd started out with Audacity (a free programme) and a £1 microphone from a supermarket, but I was determined to learn how to make decent material myself and produce it at a level I would listen to myself. Still VERY much a learner, so any advice would be appreciated!
I love the fact that you've trained through the sorta peak period of this stuff, especially with graphics and video. That 35 year period (I'm 37) has seen so many amazing advancements and aesthetic changes, as well as artistic and technical evolutions that nobody could have imagined. To hear how you'd approach things from a more analog perspective would be incredibly helpful as much of todays modern post-production seems to seek to imitate that old-school warmth. The same goes in music production; there was the whole "loudness war" of the 90's and 00's, but there's always been that push towards the analog warmth and hand-on, tactile approach from before.
All the best,
- Tommy
I started out as a camera operator (shot two national commercials), went on to editing where I learned alpha channels, and creating layover graphics with them (real high tech stuff at the time), then took my graphics knowledge, and started designing, and creating holographic patterns which led to making graphics for Smart busses, after that I retired from the advertising industry.
For graphics I LOVE my Photoshop 7. I never cared for Adobe's CS versions of their software, but I'm really surprised at how cheap you can get version 7 now. Back in the day it was around $900. I still do my own lay over graphics, and titles with it. It offers more flexibility than using other software's templates.
Musically, I've been playing since I was 12 (54 now). I started in my first rock band at the age of 16 with a group of 20 something guys. As the years, and bands went by I got into recording to make up for the down time that I had between bands. I got good enough at it that I would take two Teac 4 track reel to reels, and a mixing board to bands rehearsal spots to record them them because I was cheaper than any studio around. As technology changed I couldn't keep up with any of it financially, and nobody wanted analog recording anymore so I was done with my mobile studio adventure. So I just play now and again with my band, and write, and record my own music/videos.
Both Cubase, and Abbleton are good editors. I got Cubase with my Zoom R8, and my abbleton 8 came with my Alesis midi controller. I mainly just work with my Zoom R8 for writing, creating, and practicing.
In a nutshell, thats pretty much me. Anything creative.
Peace, Tony
I am actually going to try another whack at connecting my Zoom R8 (as an interface) into Cubase 8... this time on a Windows 7 platform, as I came to find out the Windows 10 and DAWs/Interfaces are not good bedfellows.
@videoace was a big help guiding me along and talking me off the ledge from time to time :-p
@TommyM, I listened to some of your music on YouTube and really liked the vocal tones! I resonated with that other post, about the guy with the baritone voice that was on the verge of quitting. What you said about having damaged your voice in your younger years hit home with me, as I did as well. And the KTVA approach literally fixed the damage and gained me quite a few notes in the 5th octave.
Cheers to you both!
There's a massive thing right now for the whole 80's and early 90's aesthetic, whether it's the softened distortion of an old VCR or the inimitable sound of a reel-to-reel so maybe it's worth offering out a real-time conversion service to amateurs online? For example, offering to take their mp3's or videos and run them through classic analog gear for that amazing compression and unique flavour it provides. You could run the audio through your outboard and into Cubase without any hassle, just using the basic inputs and making sure the output's balanced to modern levels. Export a new mp3 and voila, even charging say £30 all in for maybe 20 minutes work. Sure, it's niche but you'd maybe make a few bucks from audiophiles and afficionados.
No idea why I felt the need to suggest a business to you, but it seems your skills and your hardware are going to waste!
In all honesty, and I may well be inviting trouble and criticism here, all of the high-end software I used is cracked, i.e. pirated. The cost of good software that's easy to learn and provides the sort of quality I need is insane, but I'd honestly pay for it all if I could afford it. Due to this and me having some sort of conscience, I offer my limited services to other small content creators like me, free of charge on places like YouTube as I know most people in that position aren't able to produce higher quality materials by themselves.
Great to hear more about your background, mate! Thanks for sharing!
- Tommy
I always like to point out how low my speaking voice compared to what I can do vocally to people who're struggling with that. I think we both know what it's like to be equally blessed and cursed with a deep voice, but how the natural tendencies can be overcome with good training and practice.
[Edited to add] By the way, re. DAW in Windows 10: I've had constant problems with audio glitches and timing problems which, as I've found, are actually due to some sort of driver issue involved in your wireless and ethernet devices. One workaround, which is a pain in the hole, is to go into your device manager and disable both your wifi and ethernet when using your DAW. That does seem to work but it also means you can't go online, so if you needed, for example, a drum sample then you'd need to enable them again, wait for it to connect then get your sample, download it then do it all again in reverse etc etc etc...
I want to go back to an earlier version but I've got so much crap on here and don't have time to reinstall everything right now. I'm aiming to upgrade my whole setup this year though so hopefully things will be more stable by then.
I'll keep the network device issues in mind though!
If I was a younger man I might have thought about another business, but all of those skills will be put to use once I get my voice going. I'm going to try to sell some records before I die. That's my last big goal. I'm going to see if it's possible with today's technology to write, record, produce, promote, and sell my records without a company to back me.
I know many many people who also use pirated software. I even have some. I'ts older software though for 3D animation. The programs cost way more than my budget could ever afford, and we all have that one hacker friend.....................
Peace
@Furious_Phil
Windows 7 should be no problem for you. That's what I run mine on when I use it.
I also wanted to mention something else about the zoom you may find useful if you just want to import the separate tracks into cubase instead of using the R8 as an interface. That way you can use the effects, mixer, and add VST instruments to the mix.
The R8 records, and saves every take whether you record over that take or not. For example: You record a guitar on track one, it had a good feel, but you want to do a better one so you start the track over, and record the new guitar. So you do 7 tries, all were good, but then you wish you would have kept the first one. With the R8, you did save it. You pull the SD chip out, pop it into your computer, and when you open the folder for that song, all 7 takes will be there. (you can choose the individual takes within the R8 itself also)
If you get it going, I'm sure we will have a lot of these discussions.
Peace