I noticed that every post I make recently is either about technology or stuff related to the internet. What about my other categories? Exactly!

So in the interest of posting on a different categories and utilize those category icons I’ve prepared in the past, I will post something in the “music” section.

Anyways, my friend is submitting a demo tape (song) for some singing group – and has asked me to do the vocal track for it. Happened a while ago and it was quite an experience.

I dare not post more “incriminating” information; considering the people that may read this, baka magka-bukuhan, which is the last thing I want to happen. It ain’t my song to begin with, so I don’t want to be the one spoiling anything (if there’s anything to spoil, that is).

We recorded in the studio of our group’s usual sound engineer. I had fun not only recording, but actually watching him do the whole “sound engineering/production procedure.” I do my own sound production/engineering for my songs, and watching someone with years of experience was really a treat. I got to ask a ton of questions with regards to the technical aspects of recording/mixing/mastering – I really enjoyed every minute of it.

He uses Cubase whereas I use Sonar. But I’ve been planning to switch [to Cubase] since I now use both PC and Mac – and Sonar doesn’t have a Mac version. Taking from what I’ve seen, I expect it to be quite a learning curve, but nothing I can’t handle… as compared to Logic Audio which I practically gave up on due to sheer frustration.

If you want to go cross-platform, there are only two decent choices anyways, so that makes your options severely limited on the onset. Either Cubase or ProTools – that’s pretty much it… anything else isn’t really worth considering.

I’d choose ProTools if I could, but apparently you can’t run any version of it without specific hardware built for it (i.e. the controller cards) And those controller cards I hear cost 1.5k USD a piece – so it doesn’t matter how resourceful you are with regards to the software, if it won’t run [without the hardware] in the first place.

His PC was HALF the speed of mine, and had 1/4 of the RAM I had. But there it was, happily processing without problems. Then I realized he doesn’t use virtual instruments in recording – that made a world of difference in processing power/ram required.

I have the habit of doing everything realtime until till the end. That means if I could avoid bouncing to tracks, I will. I just keep on stacking virtual instruments and effects. And stack all my other mixing/mastering plugins while I’m at it. It’s a bad habit I’ll try to break in my future work.

It’s a bummer that wasn’t able to ask for pointers with general EQ and spatial virtualization of elements (that’s read as how the different sounds are “positioned” in your mind when you hear them)… I guess I’ll have to ask him the next time we meet ;)