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I also use EZDrummer and Izotope Ozone4 plugins for drums and mastering software. All this is done into a gateway quad-core desktop computer with (I suppose) ample HD space and RAM. Oh yeah, the OS is Windows Vista.



This is good, you already know a lot about digital audio recording. If you have 4 gigs of ram or can upgrade to that much I would go to Win 7/64. I never used Vista because I kept reading about folks who had problems with it so I went from XP to Win 7. Win 7 is by far the best OS MS has come up with. And you might as well future proof yourself and go with 64 bit. All these programs run fine on it but you'll probably have to upgrade EZD and Ozone too.

A couple of thoughts to add to what everybody else has said. If you're used to using EZD to create drum grooves as opposed to just using it as a sound module then that is a problem with Real Band. It has a flaw in the VSTi implementation. That's no problem though because it's easy to create a groove in Cubase and migrate that track into RB if you need to, or as a lot of folks do, they do the basic song creation in Biab or RB and then use the very cool Drag and Drop process to move the whole song into Cubase for final mixing/processing. You can use EZD to create an exact part there. That may not be a problem anyway because Biab itself is a pretty good midi drum machine and the Real Drum tracks are really good too.

The other thing is if you want to use Biab for covers. Biab is brilliant at creating some really nice groove backing tracks but it's very tricky (but not impossible) to create certain song specific licks for covers.

The third thing is the quality of the synths you use for midi parts. You'll most likely want to use both the Real Tracks and midi parts together. That's the only way to get those specific licks and drum fills or punches. You need a good high quality synth for that. EZD is fine for drums but you'll also need something equally as good for instrument parts. A basic $50 synth won't cut it. Just from reading your posts, I get the feeling you're like a lot of us here in that you know what "good" sounds like and you won't be happy with a el cheapo synth. In addition to the stuff listed in my sig I use a Kurzweil PC3 that sounds awesome. The best synth I've ever owned and I've had a bunch of them.

Yeah, you better keep your lady happy with lots of stuff because once you get into this you won't come up for air for days. I'm sure she appreciates your music so keep her in the loop and play some of this for her. She'll probably be impressed.

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.