what should I use a computer software or a stand alone sequencer??

[vlad509sympatico.ca]

Alright guys I need your help!!!

 

I use a Roland XP-60. I do remixes of R&B songs into a Kompa music

 

Kopmpa is dance music from Haiti (Caribbean), it sounds like slow meringue or slow Calypso type depending on how you play it.

 

in there I use alot of a Cymbal comp. bass frum, conga drums, cow bell, bass, guitar, piano, sax and other brass sounds, these days some synth sounds like "saw mass". these are just the basic sounds.

 

now I started to go to a studio with a guy that uses Emagic. Now what we do is that I do the sequences on my keyboard, and then I Lay each sound that I have on each track on the XP-60 1 by 1 on each track on Emagic and then we do the mixing and all.......

 

 

should I continue with this or get a sequencer like the Roland MC80 and lay everything in there and then get it burned into a CD???

would I be able to have the voice of the singer on 1 track of the sequencer, weather it's a MC80 or another.???

 

 

or Should I continue to go to a studio and use the recording engineer that uses Emagic to do everything. (eventually I would do the Emagic by myself)

 

 

thanks

 

Vlad

[Steve44]

You should definitely not stick to an all sequencing environment. First of all, the MC-80 won't give you anything you don't already have in the XP-60. Second, it will help to give your tracks more space if you use effects processing outside of the Roland world and tweak the parts as audio tracks. Midi is great up to a point, but if you're mostly using one synthesizer you've got a lot of massaging to do before it sounds like a complete mix. Also, once you get stuff onto the computer, you can play around with the percussion loops and possibly add samples from a loop CD that may spice up the arrangement a bit.

 

When you described how you get your tracks into Logic, I was unclear as to whether you meant the audio tracks or what. You can put your sequences into Logic by a much easier way: save your sequence as a standard midi file, and then just load the SMF into Logic. But audio wise, yeah, you should do it track by track (or part by part.. you may be able to do it more than one part at a time if the XP has multiple outputs, but that would require some internal routing in the synth).

 

If you have a computer and you're planning to work with this guy often, you can get a copy of Micrologic AV (the entry level version of Logic Audio) for something like 70 bucks. If you want to transfer the audio yourself, you'll need to buy some decent A/D converters for your computer, to get a decent quality.

 

 

Another option is to get a Hard Disk recorder that has built in effects and can write to a CD. The best value unit for this right now is the new Korg D-1200 which has 12 tracks and 8 effects processors with tons of options. It's only $900, and can record straight to CD.

[vlad509sympatico.ca]

thanks for the reply!!!

 

well All this is new to me I read some stuff about it.

 

the reason is that I saw a band performing live witht Mc50 (older sequencer) it's just that I thought that maybe 16 tracks is sometime not enough, and I was concern about drum rolls, but I think they have a Midi connection to the R8m (drum machine) I couldn't see very well (I can't just go on stage just like that....) I have a separate drum roll sequence and I just lay it on a track on Emagic and place it on the correct beat.

 

and that band are 3 musicians, Bass, Guitar and a Keyboard player.... Obviously there is so much sounds coming out of their speakers that you know they use a Sequencer.....

 

 

I just tought that by having a stand alone sequencer I can basiclly record almost all in real time from my XP-60, turning on and off tracks at time time that I want them to be, including the voice (for the remixing) on the Sequencer itself even stop the song at one point load up another sequence as a part 2 of the song and continue to lay it and then just go to a studio and put it all on a CD.....

 

like I said this is all new to me. I just can't go to a store and play around with a sequencer......

 

Vlad