Songwriting Software Express, Issue # 43

August, 2006 Issue

To help your songwriting with a focus on the benefits of innovative software, tools, resources and programs for your songwriting craft and career.

Did You Miss The Summer Special?

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Windows and Mac compatible.

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First up: Editor's Note from the laptop of Robert Curtis,
your songwriter in residence at Songwriting Software Plus.

1. Home Studio Serenade
2. This Month's Notable Quote
3. Songwriting Software Plus Software Superstars

This issue will revisit home studio setups for the space and budget challenged. A prior article has been revised and updated with some new gear that has since come to market in the last year.

In any case if you're looking to start or just upgrade your own workspace/studiospace today's article may well get you off and running or at least should help you upgrade your current set up.

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Today you can record fairly sophisticated demos right in your own home, even in a bedroom, without having to spend a fortune. For this issue we'll once again take a look at the areas needing to be addressed to set up a decent, space conscious, home studio.

Essentially there are five items that need to be addressed to get up and running - furniture for your equipment and seating for you, computer hardware, software, a microphone and speakers.

Your bedroom for starters, a spare closet, an extra room in your house or if you're lucky you've got a freestanding building like a garage or guest house that you can dedicate to your writing and recording.

Remember though, wherever you decide to set up, indoor or out, computer and recording equipment prefer a cool and dry environment to operate optimally.

It can be as simple as a sturdy flat board placed across two filing cabinets to any number of the prefabricated computer workstations. The Creation Station's is a medium sized unit, pictured, and is suited for typical recording equipment and computers and the desk surface height is set for the average midi type piano based keyboard for ease of use.

The Creation Station model shown is widely available and can still be found online and from pretty much any major music equipment store like GuitarCenter or SamAsh for about $200 US.

Or if you have a bigger budget check out a system like the Omnirax Presto unit shown below. Omnirax offers many types of units for various needs albeit at a higher price tag than the Creation Station for example..

And remember to get a good chair and make sure it has height adjustment so you more readily and comfortably adapt to the height of your midi keyboard and or controller.

Once you're set with some sort of workstation you're now ready to set up your computer. Desktop systems are the best as you get more for your money and their cabinetry continues to get more compact.

Laptops can work but you're typically going to have to spend a lot more to get close to what a desktop system will offer you for far less money. This applies to to PCs and Macs. Yes newer laptops now have the dual core Intel chips but you still get more bang for your buck with a desktop.

If you do go the laptop route then note that with either a PC or Mac laptop to get optimum sound consider something like the Tascam US-122 to process your music. You'll notice the difference in sound quality (improved) and latency (shortened) over the standard sound card in your laptop.

By the way you can hook up the Tascam US-122 to a desktop system as well for better sound processing and go back an forth between that and your laptop if you have both.

If you're strictly desktop oriented and want a better sound card located internally then check out and compare with the EMU 0404 (pictured below).

Overall the point here is that if you have to make a choice then desktops will give you a lot more and are much more easily and cheaply upgraded if need be.

For lyric writing get your money's worth in Cadillac performance for less than $50 US with Lyricist.

Lyricist is a great core program for lyric construction with a thesaurus and rhyming dictionary built in and offers you a very intuitive system of creating lead sheets (chord based) for your songs.

For creating music if you can only come up with a chord progression and stop there then PG Music's Band-In-A-Box (less than $100 US) can create a whole band arrangement in any number of styles to arrange your song.

If you're more musically savvy then use a sequencing program to create a groove with their built in drum kits, record you keyboard and or guitar and vocals and you're set with a suitable demo.

And with the advent of loops (prerecorded sound samples of various instruments and effects) you can now compose fairly contemporary sounding demos containing multiple instruments quite easily. Programs in this category include such titles at Fruity Loops and Acid.

Of course there continue to be the high end recording software programs: for Windows higher-end versions of Cubase and Cakewalk and for Macs you're typically looking at programs like Logic and Cubase again and Digital Performer. And there is always the oft touted ProTools but it's quite expensive and some cheaper programs from Cakewalk are giving ProTools a good challenge.

As technology improves better quality items tend to get more affordable and such is the case with a highly regarded stand based mic from Audio-Technica - the AT2020 (shown at right). It has gotten rave reviews and comes in retail at just under $100 US.

Or consider a headset microphone that makes moving around easy and the mic is positioned and ready whenever you need to do your next vocal take.

The AKG C 420 mic, pictured, has condenser functionality and even wireless capability. You can even set it on your workstation surface and record a live guitar or other instrument. Just adjust its flexible boom outward.

You can get this microphone for under $200 online and at major music stores like SamAsh or GuitarCenter.

Now to really save on space, have complete portability and minimize bother to your neighbors simply get a nice set of headphones.

Check out the AKG K101 headphones, pictured, for purchase or as a good model from which to compare other models.

They're light weight but strongly featured and have high user satisfaction. They'll be more comfortable too over the earpieces of your headset microphone :-)

But if you prefer standard monitors then check out the Tascam VL-X5 monitor system. They've gotten rave reviews and give you very high quality for under $300 US.

If you're starting from scratch then print this out and head off to the music store or start filling your shopping cart online :-)

Lyricist - the premiere indispensable and affordable lyric and lead sheet music writing program.

MasterWriter - the most comprehensive program for writing lyrics with a recorder for melodies and preprogrammed grooves.

Used by hit songwriters Gwen Stefani, Rob Thomas, Jimmy Webb, Kenny Loggins, Trent Reznor, Clint Black, Jeffrey Steele, and many more. Windows and Mac compatible.

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