Home Studio Tips

I have a brand new copy of Magix Music Maker 16 that I'm giving away. Yep, you heard me right...giving away!! Fully legal, in the box, with serial number and everything.

All you have to do is meet the following criteria:

• You must be a member of Home Studio Tips
• You must have at least 100 Home Studio Tips points
• You have to agree to write a review of Magix Music Maker 16 on Home Studio Tips within a week after you have received it

That's it...first person to contact me that meets the above criteria, get's it.

Good luck!!

ps. to check your points, login to Home Studio Tips, Click on My Account at the top and scroll down to the bottom fo the page.

Earning points is easy. You get 10 points for a blog post, 5 points for a video, 5 points for a news link, 5 points for a comment, 5 points for an image, 5 points for an event, 5 points for a poll, and 10 points when you get someone else to join the site.

That is the million dollar question, which contains many variables. What software are you running, what operating system, do you record full bands, orchestras, etc.

Setting up a digital audio workstation can seem very daunting, challenging and expensive. You may be able to get by with that old Compaq 1.4, 512 RAM and 40 gig hard drive. But if you start loading a ton of loops and samples, VST instruments, etc. that hard drive is going to be full in no time.

My philosophy is bigger is always better. In my opinion, your most important piece of hardware in your studio is your computer. You may want to splurge and spend some extra money up front. It all comes down to processor, memory and hard drive, everything else is just not that important, with the exception of soundcard/interface. Quiet fans and drives is also an important consideration, but that's another story.

In a perfect world I would find something with multiple processors, getting the fastest processors you can afford. Memory is the same way, get the most that you can afford. If your computer can handle 8 gigs, get 8 gigs. Hard drive is the same, get something with 2 500 gig drives or better yet 2 1 terabyte drives.

When shopping for your digital audio workstation think about the future. Get something that you can upgrade. For instance, don't buy a pc that can only handle 1 gig of RAM. That thing will be outdated next week. If you can only afford 2 gigs of RAM right now, that's fine but make sure your computer can handle at least 8 gigs in the future when it comes time to upgrade.

Recording music takes a lot of horsepower and space. Make sure you get something that can handle it, and make sure it is expandable.

This is just a little friendly fore-warning. I urge every member of Home Studio Tips to get their points up. I am going to be announcing something next week that will be based on Home Studio Tips user points. You should also upload a profile picture while your at it.

Someone is going to be very happy! I may or may not be GIVING SOMETHING AWAY.

Stay tuned, big announcement coming next week.

You get 10 points for a blog post, 5 points for a video, 5 points for a news link, 5 points for a comment, 5 points for an image, 5 points for an event, 5 points for a poll, and 10 points when you get someone else to join the site.

In the past I have been using a Boss Dr 770 for all of my drum parts. The kick and the snare are great but everything else sounds pretty bad. So, lately I've been toying with getting one of these sweet drum programs, but I can't decide if I should go with EZdrummer or Addictive Drums. I've tried the demos of both and they both seem like they'd do the trick.

Has anyone tried both of these or use one of them regularly that could give me some input on which direction I should go? I record many genres of music such as acoustic, rock, hard rock, funk, metal and even techno.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

Recently, I needed to add more memory to my DAW. I hate adding memory because I always seem to somehow get the wrong stuff and it's a pain in the butt. I recently found this tool over at Crucial it scans your machine and tells you what kind of memory you need, how much your computer can handle and the best memory configuration for your machine. Awesome!

Whether or not you buy the memory from Crucial is up to you, but at least you can be confident you are getting exactly what you need and getting the max amount into your DAW. Check it out!