Apr 02, 2006 04:49 pm Welcome to HRC sambeau.
I'll start with the easy one first. Ripping a CD can easily be done right in Windows with its Medai Player. It will now rip to mp3, WMA and wave. So I wouldnt look much further then taht for special ripping software.
Onto the software. Yes, you definately get what you pay for when it comes to DAW software. I'll jump right into the ProTools thing first off. Yes they do make a lite version of PT for the home recordist. It is however a double edged sword with that. You can only use a few select audio interfaces with it. It will not run on just any audio interface. Secondly, they use a proprietary type DSP pluggin architecture. Those are the effects and things you will need. What that means is you can only use thier products, no freeware or third party pluggins. And they are not cheap or even low priced, everything is on the higher end of the scale. Lastly the lite version of PT is also limited in the track count, or total number of tracks you can record.
On the more open side of things you have the top two for PC being Sonar 5 PE and Cubase SX3. These two are the most open as far as using third party pluggins for effects and even software synths. Only limiting factor here is that Cubase does not support DX or Direct X if you will. That is a Windows based format for pluggins and software synths. It allows for complete inegration of the automation parameters of DSP effects and synths. VST is catching up but not yet there.
Cakewalk, who offers Sonar 5 PE and many liter versions of recording software however support both VST and DX formats so youhave a much wider variety of pluggins and sostware synths to choose from. Thousands of which are freeware. It alos intagrates the use of both DXi and VSTi which are the software versions of synths, both new and modeled after older analog type hardware synthisizers. It is probably the most user friendly and well updated DAW software out there right now. Their top offering Sonar 5 PE comes with some very high end pluggins and software instruments. So you will be able to run right out of the box. It is now capable of importing various bit dpeth wave files and running them all at the same time without any problems. This in my eyes is a real benifit as there are times you may be using a Lo Fi sample at 8 bit and the rest of the audio is at 16 or 24 bit.
These software solutions also offer you the use of any audio interface hardware available today. They both are capable of running ASIO II which allows for extremely low latency and steady running audio when recording many tracks in a project.
I have used every software DAW out there at one time or another and have stayed with Cakewalk through the years for its reliability and straight forward user interface. I am currently running Sonar 5 PE as well as their Project 5 version 2 which is a very capable program on its own, but is directed more at using loops and software synths.
By all means if you have any related questions feel free to ask them and we will try and give you a timely answer.
Noize
