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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Dec 2003
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Mario Paint > Sound Forge > Acid > Pro Tools > Logic
Currently I only use Logic (though I use a zillion others for testing with BIAB) Assuming Mario Paint isn’t a joke, is that something for writing music for games? I had to google this: https://arcadespot.com/game/mario-paint/I'm glad that it is real and not him watching me paint my new shed 
Tips on how to fall asleep in a living room chair:
1- Be old
2- Sit in a chair
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: May 2020
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Assuming Mario Paint isn’t a joke, is that something for writing music for games? It's a game that lets you write music:
I work here
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Jan 2020
Posts: 3,645
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my music app lunacy...lol
Atari st > reaps v1 plus powertracks > reaps v2 plus bb and rb...
plus along the way useing various commercial studios large and small.
lots of fun.
om
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs(90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Mar 2025
Posts: 1,157
Expert
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Joined: Mar 2025
Posts: 1,157 |
Software from oldest to youngest:
- PowerTracks - 2 years?
- Sonar LE (I think it came free with something) - 1 year
- Reaper - 5 years
- Cakewalk by Bandlab - 5 years
I won't mention hardware because changes were made irrespective of the DAW I was using.
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 21,088
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Off topic, sorry. Do I recognize the Sturt's Desert Pea flower? If so, v.nice 
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Mar 2025
Posts: 1,157
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Expert
Joined: Mar 2025
Posts: 1,157 |
Off topic, sorry. Do I recognize the Sturt's Desert Pea flower? If so, v.nice Yes - state floral emblem of Sth Aust. I took this pic while walking during COVID.
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 10,857
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OP
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 10,857 |
I was actually headed in the hardware direction in the initial post.
Talking about software:
Cakewalk 8 Pro Deluxe : on the Win 95 machine
Music Creator 4 (MC4) ( by cakewalk ) On the laptop
Music Creator 5 (won from CW)
Music Creator 6
Sonar Essential On the custom machine
Sonar by Bandlab : current on the Dell
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: May 2020
Posts: 2,766
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I was actually headed in the hardware direction in the initial post. Then in my case - too many. Apart from the aforementioned Super Nintendo, first DAW I used was ACID on a Win98 machine - Pentium 150mhz with 32mb ram. Since then - I can't even count. I currently have 8 machines that regularly get used for audio work.
I work here
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,790
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Started with Clarion 4 track cassette player
old win 98 with Cakewalk home studio 2
followed with Cake music creator 1, and 2 and Sonic foundry Acid pro 1, 2, and 3
New computer with the above and Powertracks (forgot the version)
Hand built computer with Powertracks cakewalk music creator 3 thru 5
Sonar essential, band in a box and N - tracks studio Added Multitracks studio 2 thru 4 pro
New laptop and studio one 2 and Reaper 2
New Desktop with Band in a box, Studio one 4 and 5 and Real band. Cakewalk by bandlab.
Mac mini with Mixbus, reaper 5 and 6, Logic.
New win 11 laptop with Realband, Reaper 7 Mixbus 9, BiaB
My My how fickle i am about software.
HP Win 11 12 gig ram, Mac mini Sonoma with 16 gig of ram, BiaB/RB 2026, Reaper 7, Harrison Mixbus 11 , Presonus Audiobox USB96
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 10,857
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OP
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 10,857 |
Started with Clarion 4 track cassette player
old win 98 with Cakewalk home studio 2
followed with Cake music creator 1, and 2 and Sonic foundry Acid pro 1, 2, and 3
New computer with the above and Powertracks (forgot the version)
Hand built computer with Powertracks cakewalk music creator 3 thru 5
Sonar essential, band in a box and N - tracks studio Added Multitracks studio 2 thru 4 pro
New laptop and studio one 2 and Reaper 2
New Desktop with Band in a box, Studio one 4 and 5 and Real band. Cakewalk by bandlab.
Mac mini with Mixbus, reaper 5 and 6, Logic.
New win 11 laptop with Realband, Reaper 7 Mixbus 9, BiaB
My My how fickle i am about software. I actually started with a Teac 4 track reel to reel. It was a real pain to record on. The brake wasn't adjusted right and it would destroy the tape on stopping from either a FF or rewind. I sold that to a guy who ran an 8-track tape copy operation.... bootlegging the popular 8-tracks. It was confiscated from him when the feds busted his operation, confiscated all his gear, and put him in federal prison for 10 years or so. He was transporting and selling across state lines so that was another charge. Some time later, when a house band I was in was in the process of self destructing, I bought a Roland TR-808 (IIRC) and a Tascam Porta-One. That was a pretty cool tape machine using 4 tracks on cassette. Still kinda hard to do edits and punches, and of course, limited to 4 tracks without bouncing. It was after this, and after seeing a friend of mine who was running a very early version of Cakewalk DOS midi, that I started looking at the digital realm and computers.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 22,598
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Joined: May 2000
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I assume we all had a Porta-One (or similar) at one point in our travels. Nice for it's time.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,562
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,562 |
I also had a Teac 4-track with 15” reels. I still have it but I haven’t dared to try any of the old tapes, and I’m sure the rollers would have flat spots. It had an outrigger sound-on-sound attachment with push buttons to route signals to combine a signal with a prior recording, so you could do multitrack recording up to a point when the sound quality would degrade.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Apr 2017
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I also had a Teac 4-track with 15” reels. I still have it but I haven’t dared to try any of the old tapes, and I’m sure the rollers would have flat spots. It had an outrigger sound-on-sound attachment with push buttons to route signals to combine a signal with a prior recording, so you could do multitrack recording up to a point when the sound quality would degrade. I hear you. I have multiple analog decks in my basement. The thought of ever using them again… well, first, what’s the condition of the belts, heads and electronics? Do I need to get new calibration tapes from MRL? My friend, Bill Hare (Pentatonix, London Symphony etc.) turned me onto Thin Brown Line Studios last week. I’m going to send them a few reels and see how it turns out.
BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia/Tahoe, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, Logic, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro/Notion6/Overture5
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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I guess I'm the odd one (again) because I've only been using Cubase (since Cubase SX3 circa 2006).
I also have a license for Reaper because I want to support the developer, but I don't use it.
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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I guess I'm the odd one (again) because I've only been using Cubase (since Cubase SX3 circa 2006).
I also have a license for Reaper because I want to support the developer, but I don't use it. Well... some of us have been doing this since long before digital was a thing. In my case, Dad worked at AMPEX from the mid '60s–mid '70s — I got to tag along, hang out & learn. I was able to borrow equipment, too, When digital came along, there were many hardware and software "solutions" out there. It took a long time till anything was reliable enough to trust. Not going to describe my first DAW setup other than to say that I was running an AMPEX or TASCAM half-track, TASCAM 4 or 8 track analog backup simultaneously for a couple of years until I became confident that I could fly without a net around 2001 or so.
BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia/Tahoe, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, Logic, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro/Notion6/Overture5
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Mar 2025
Posts: 2
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Newbie
Joined: Mar 2025
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Like many of the contemporary musicians I started to create my first beats with Fruity Loops, back in 2002 .... Then I moved to Cubase . And finally I tried Samplitude which I use to this day. But I realized that the DAW is not so important for me but the lack of real hardware synths . I never liked the plugins sound ...The hardware has significantly changed the sound of the beats I make.
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 22,598
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We had a Fostex 8 track reel to reel with a 2 track master beside it that synced.
We gave a lot of money to that Ampex company ..
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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We gave a lot of money to that Ampex company .. Didn't we all? I worked in a studio that had a 24-track Studer - and it mostly collected dust, as most people didn't want to spend that kind of money!
I work here
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 1,123
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Two.
2013 - 2016 Gateway Laptop w/Intel Core i3, Windows 7, Cakewalk Sonar X1 thru X2/X3/Platinum (I think). Still use the laptop occasionally.
2017 - Present Home-Built Tower w/AMD FX-8350, Windows 10, Cakewalk Sonar Platinum, PreSonus Studio One Pro 4
Lately I've been remixing the few songs I have on SoundCloud and distributing them to all the streaming platforms. I still have everything on external disks going back to 2013, which was about the time you turned me on to BIAB, Herb.
For some songs I've been able to work in Sonar Platinum and export a mix - I was afraid to do that for a long while, thought the program might crash - but so far so good.
My DAW/PC is connected to the internet, not compatible with Windows 11, so I'll have to do something eventually, or not, but I did sign up for the Extended Security Updates thru Oct 2026.
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Mario Paint > Sound Forge > Acid > Pro Tools > Logic
Currently I only use Logic (though I use a zillion others for testing with BIAB) Assuming Mario Paint isn’t a joke, is that something for writing music for games? Yes, Mario Paint included simple Art and Composition tools—state of the art 8 bit IIRC.
BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia/Tahoe, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, Logic, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro/Notion6/Overture5
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Mac Videos
With the release of Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac, we’re rolling out a collection of brand-new videos on our YouTube channel. We’ll keep this forum post updated so you can easily find all the latest videos in one convenient spot.
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Check out this forum post for "One Stop Shopping" of our Band-in-a-Box® 2026 Mac Videos!
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Along with version 2026, we've released an incredible lineup of new content! There's 202 new RealTracks, brand-new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two new RealDrums Stems sets, XPro Styles PAK 10, Xtra Styles PAK 21, and much more!
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