Not even exaggerating – it was like a slightly off-beat metronome was overpowering what I was playing.

Getting the Sound…

I plugged my Alesis Photon x25 into my Windows 7 laptop and then started Sonar 8.  I’m immediately greeted with the message that either the Photon is not supported or in use.  I’m going to assume it’s in use by Windows and just move on … click “Use Anyway”

Create a new project … delete all the audio tracks … add a MIDI track … hit a key.  Whoa!  Hmmm … no sound.  Oh!  Forgot to add a synth (I came across this when doing “Tutorial 1” in the Sonar help file … yeah … I read it.  I read the Readme too).  So I add a synth.  Now I hit a key and … still nothing.  The signal indicator is peaking so I know I’m getting the input from the keyboard to the DAW.  Time to try some random things and then hit the tubes looking for an answer.

Let me save you the trouble:

http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/FAQ/MIDI2Audio.aspx

Read the whole thing.  It was section three I cared about.  Specifically to check “All Synth Audio Outputs: Stereo” and to map the outputs to the synth.

But still no sound – oh crap – it’s playing through the Photon and not my sound card!  Awesome!  I plugged in a set of head phones and I’m off.  This is great.

But it sounds horrible …

clicks and pops like mad.

Again … let me save you the trouble:

http://www.cakewalk.com/support/FAQ/SR_FAQ.aspx#9

Adjusting my buffer to “Safe” made it better so I knew I was on the right track – but changing my driver from WDM to MME was the key (ASIO didn’t work – no sound … I’ll look into that some other time).  Once I was switch to MME I was able to drop my latency back to 10ms.  At 10ms I get an occasional pop.  At 30ms almost none.  At 90 – I’ve yet to hear any.  Beauty!

Now to find some free VST synths because the ones in the Trial are … just horrible.  It’s like they are punishing you for using the trial.  Give me a drum kit or piano please!  Some congas and a shaker … anything.  Jeez.

(they are probably there and I just don’t know how to use them yet … but the forums I read all said things like “the trial has crap sounds … get free VSTs”).

But why?

Creating a home studio is as much about software as hardware – and testing what DAW I like requires two things:

1. A DAW
2. An input device to do something useful in said DAW

This unit comes with Cubase LE and Sonar 8 Producer is available for a 30 day trial … so there I go.  I have the software and a crazy cheap way to test it out.  And when I’ve made up my mind I’ve also got a nice little MIDI controller.

That’s how I rationalized it to myself.  Did it work for you too?

My contented feeling was short lived though.  After picking it up I went out to dinner with a few of my kids and got to spend a few hours fretting over whether or not this device would be compatible with Windows 7.  The M-Audio KeyRig isn’t (more) – would this device be?  It’s not the newest unit on the block – discontinued in fact.

But I plugged it in and …

Now … I haven’t done anything beyond this.  So does it work?  I’m installing Cubase LE now …

Hmmm.

Well.  Plan has hit a kink.  The previous owner claimed he never registered Cubase but apparently he took the registration code.  So I have 30 days to decide if I want to keep this or not.  Let’s see how Sonar likes it… (next time).

One of these things is not like the other.  Know which one?  The one that’s actually a card.  The other are boxes.

I’m going to start referring to printers as “printer card”.  That’ll show’em.

Moving on…

Let me get you up to speed.  I have more time than money ($1000) and I want to put together an inexpensive home recording studio.

The first decision I made after several days of researching: I’m not using a digital-recorder-mixer combination plate.  At first I thought I was.  I had even figured out which one – the Zoom HD8CD.

This seemed ideal on the surface.  Buy one thing and just be done with it – even a CD burner.  It can communicate with a DAW to do further processing and mixing on the computer.  What’s not to like?

Well … it comes down to several factors.  Things like only being able to record 2 tracks at once … and those tracks are 44/1Khz 24 bit (mixed down to 16 bit mono).  Very limited EQ means I’ll spend a lot of time in the DAW anyway.  Questionable preamps (the only question is “how bad are they?”).  I don’t need a CD writer but I’m still paying for it (instead of paying for something I do need).

So at the end of the day I get a highly convenient device (a card?) of that leaves me disappointed on pretty much every front but which does get the job done.  Sure – I could spend more and get a better device but the price jump between “crappy” and “nice” is well outside of my budget.

So what are my options?  Well – there is a PCI card or an external device connected by USB or FireWire.

I’m using a laptop so PCI is out (and even if it were an option I wouldn’t necessary want it).  And since I’m using a lower-end laptop I don’t want to use USB since it puts more pressure on the CPU and has lower real-world transfer rates compared to FireWire.  I want to get everything I can out of what I have.

There.  I just saved you three days of reading and thinking.

You want an external device audio input device connected to your computer via FireWire.

That’s what I want and that’s what you want.

Next time I’ll look at some of the options I’m considering.

What I have

1. A 6’x10’ space to work with.
2. A laptop computer (Acer Extensa 5620Z – jealous much?)
3. $1000 (my wife may disagree with this assertion but she is out of town)

What I want

1. To be able to capture my guitars (electric and acoustic) and vocals
2. A MIDI input keyboard
3. Gear that is not crap and can grow into better things

Something like this

That’s one hell of an expensive question mark.

So over the next few posts (or weeks … who knows) I’ll be going over what I’m thinking about, what I decide, and why I changed my mind just minutes after making a decision after days of thinking.