What am I missing out on using Mu.Lab?

[cdysthe]

Hi,

I have been playing keyboards in bands "forever" but do not know much about
mixing and tracking. Since I now have a family I need to do most of my music
activities at home so I decided I would record some of the songs I have stored
up over the years. What I have is a powerful PC, a M-Audio Midi controller
keyboard and some M-Audio speakers. I also have a relatively cheap Turtle Beach
sound card installed. I started out trying out Sonar 7. Impressive, but I found
I needed a 600 page book from Barnes & Noble to get started. I managed to create
a recording after days of reading and playing around. Then someone told me I
should try Reaper. Well, it's simpler, but still has a lot of stuff I need to
learn. I was thinking there must be a simpler solution so I poked around the
Internet and came across Mu.Lab. No one had mentioned it to me and there aren't
many who has been able to tell me much about it. Well, I downloaded it and after
an hour I had a song ready except for vocals. Wow!

I then pointed some of my expert friends to the MuTools site. They came back
with "too simple", "you can't do much" and "you need to aim higher". When I asked
why I didn't really get good answers. So now I ask here: If I choose Mu.Tools
what am I missing out on? I mean, we are talking putting midi/audio data down
on tracks, store the results, and mix it so it sounds good. What more is there?
Mu.Tools support VST Plug-ins, so I can use the couple of softsynths I have
purchased. Let me put the question this way: If I want to create songs using
mainly softsynths and a midi controller on my computer and end up with something
which has "MySpace quality" do I need more than Mu.Lab? If I do, what is it
that I will be missing? I just too much of a noob in this area to find out
what it is.

I do not want answers like "Cubase is cool" and "Sonar is the hottest right now".
I want to know what I loose by choosing something as simple to use as Mu.Lab.

[DaveL60]

Excellent question. If you purchase any of the higher-end packages, you frequently get a lot of bundled instruments and effects that aren't included with MU.LAB. No big deal there, as MU.LAB does have an integrated synth and there are freeware instruments and effects galore to get you rolling. You may find some more sophisticated editing / arrangement / routing / processing features in those packages, but all of that would (maybe) be in the helpful convenience category, not the essential tool category.

MU.LAB provides solid MIDI and audio editing capabilities, but doesn't provide things like a specialized drum grid to simplify the creation and editing of drum tracks.

If you read the [urlhttp://www.natalieweese.com/?Production_Blog]production blog[/url] at Natalie Weese's website, you'll see that her producer feels MU.LAB is an entirely sufficient tool for the recording and creation of her new CD, so there's one professional opinion that you wouldn't be missing anything important. I submit that your expert friends can't determine the depth of the package just looking at the website; their opinions would count more if they played with it for a day or two and then said "well, it's missing ..." It's true that MU.LAB is early in it's development cycle and there are plenty of things the developer plans to add (check out the thread here with the poll about people's most desired next features to get an idea). It's also true that Jo, the developer, has a long history of producing quality software and of being closely involved with his users and responsive to their wants, needs, and concerns.

I'm of the opinion that people should use tools that work for them. So if an hour of playing had you going "wow", you're probably in a good place. You may or may not move on to other tools as you gain experience, but given your description of your situation, my recommendation would be to stick wit MU.LAB for 6 months or so and see how productive you feel. If it's working for you, great. If not, you'll have learned enough to find or seek help finding a tool that would suit your better.

So, use it, ask questions, and get help here, and have fun.

DaveL

[cdysthe]

Well, getting a response like yours makes it much easier to make a decision!

I feel kind of relieved understanding that it isn't me going for the easy way out liking Mu. But it seems like the way using Mu is easier than a lot of the other things I have looked at.

Again, thank you for taking time pointing me in the right direction. Now to the fun part: Making music! (After having paid for program. 39 Euro? I have paid more for a text editor. It's a steal.)

[MachFront]

A big +1 to DaveL60's post!

As far as your friends' 'expert opinions' go, I completely agree with Dave and I'll add that I put it to you that they may be some of those folks that think that lower price = lower quality, which is really no longer necessarily the case in the world of music software. This is evidenced by the many outstanding freeware soft synths and effects and the other low cost hosts.

As far as what you're 'missing', again I agree w/ Dave and on top of that, you'll have to be the final judge after spending some time with it. Also, considering the pace of music tech advancement, with something as "small" as MU.LAB, we already have more capabilities at our disposal than did studio musicians just 15 or 20 years ago. Did thier music suffer for having even less options than MU.LAB has now?
*pauses to listen to some Gary Numan and Tangerine Dream*
Nope. Not at all.

Besides, what you do with the tools is far more important than the tools themselves.

Welcome and enjoy your stay!

[muzycian]

It's not because MU.LAB looks 'simple' that it is 'simple'.

At the contrary: one of the biggest goals of MU.LAB is to offer a simply easy user interface, but meanwhile offering deep and wide functionality under the hoods.

Most of the 'big' packages just simply (;)) throw all functionality to your head, and most people then say: Wow.

But once you really want to make music, that positive impression becomes negative.

Be sure that we have been working very hard on MU.LAB's 'simplicity' !

And although MU.LAB still is a very young application, it already has an extended function palette.

Not to mention the fantastic plans on the dev table.

It can only get even better

[MachFront]

I'll drink to that!

[cdysthe]

It's not because MU.LAB looks 'simple' that it is 'simple'.

At the contrary: one of the biggest goals of MU.LAB is to offer a simply easy user interface, but meanwhile offering deep and wide functionality under the hoods.

Most of the 'big' packages just simply (;)) throw all functionality to your head, and most people then say: Wow.

But once you really want to make music, that positive impression becomes negative.

Be sure that we have been working very hard on MU.LAB's 'simplicity' !

And although MU.LAB still is a very young application, it already has an extended function palette.

Not to mention the fantastic plans on the dev table.

It can only get even better

I've now gotten two songs down with MuLab in less time I spent learning how to set up a track in Sonar 7. And that is was MuLab seems to be about: An open window to music creation. No cluttered user interface and terms I understand: Track, Part, Sequence, Composition etc. I think exeperienced music techies gets put off by the simple interface and doesn't even look under the hood.

I have one complaint: I do not really like the default skin that much and I can't seem to find other skins. Actually, I would like to see a simple look like the one Reaper has. The default skin is well made, but not something that I would like to use.

Other than that. It's blatantly clear that this is the tool for me. I had one of my producer friends look at it one more time. He didn't blow it off the second time and told me on the phone: "I wonder how they put all that in there. Impressive!". I asked him if he would use it. He said: "My musician clients would think I was playing around if they saw me on MuLab, and maybe even think they could do it themselves. Bad for business!" Interesting comment.

Now off to purchase the full version!

[theorize]

If you don't like the default skin hang in there, i'm getting ready to start one now. If the skinning engine is ergonomic i'll be cranking 'em out once i get a few down.

Just remember, it doesn't matter what other computer musicians think of any piece of software if you have evaluated it and find that it suits your needs AND TASTE(the biggy). There's not really much need for someone to have cubase if they're going to just record and mix audio, you could do that with Audacity. I know it's kind of cliche at this point but it's something newcomers will always struggle with.

but yeah i'd better get started with started on those skins...

[MachFront]

Awesome. I'm looking forward to your skin(s), theorize. I've seen a few of your XT2 skins and they look great!

As an aside slightly related to that, I was wondering the other day if anyone had done a KVR-themed skin for anything, and if not, why? It's a great and eye-pleasing (at least, to me) selection of colors.

[GermanFafian]

Muzys had a cool skin/color combination named loox survival or something like that.
Muzys was the first program I fell in love with, but by the time I found it. It was already gone and could never buy it so I moved on to find other hosts

[muzycian]

MU.LAB uses a very open skin system.

And it's quite well documented here:

http://www.mutools.com/mulab/docs/skin_sdk.html

And if you would have questions about skin development, feel free to email me.

[eduardo_b]

I think you have found the right software to do what you want to do, which is more than some can say despite having spent considerably more money on feature-laden hosts. The problem with large numbers of features is that many (if not most) of them will never be needed by the majority of users, yet their presence results in a much larger, more complicated program that costs significantly more to buy because coding and support costs go up with complexity. The answer to your question is that you're not missing anything unless you find there are tasks you can't do -- which may well never happen.

[theorize]

well thanks for the compliment on the xt skins, i've got another one i'll probably post up tonight, and i'll try to get a KVR skin going that's a good idea... theming xt2 is sooo easy right now (not sure when bitmaps get worked in, but i look for it to be pretty streightfoward) i can do one in a couple of hrs top to bottom trying out tons of different combinations (of course i notice stuff later on that could be better, but there's always updates)... i pretty much know the xt looks setup like the back of my hand. i'm also working on one that's been really hard to get right, but it's going to be sweet when it's done (not going to pick it up for a while though).

thanks for the link i'm going to have a look there and maybe get a jumpstart on a first skin, i've got a few ideas i'd like to realize. from what i can tell the skinning engine is UBER-FLEXIBLE so once i get the hang of it it's gonna be on, i just wish i had my normal 2d graphics soft with me on the road, it's gread for interfaces, it's got pseudo-3d layer fx that blow bevel&emboss out of the water. were talking bump-mapping and all! which will be cool for some leather and cherry ideas i've got, and I want to try and do some sort of reptile skin thing on that tip as well.

[cdysthe]

Thank you all for your responses. Actually, I've been so busy tracking I've haven't been in here for a couple of days. Now that alone shows I made the right decision: I'm makin' music!

On the skin issue I have simple taste. I would at least want one that matches the default Windows Vista look. Other than that I just want skins that doesn't cloud a beatutifully simple UI.

[MachFront]

Thank you all for your responses. Actually, I've been so busy tracking I've haven't been in here for a couple of days. Now that alone shows I made the right decision: I'm makin' music!

On the skin issue I have simple taste. I would at least want one that matches the default Windows Vista look. Other than that I just want skins that doesn't cloud a beatutifully simple UI.

Good for you!
Actually makin' music... that's more than a lot of us can say that spend too much time here at KVR.

As far as skins go, yes I prefer simple ones myself. I actually like the default skin a lot. The only things I dislike are the green scroll bars and the composition area is too bright for my taste. If those two things were more muted in blues or greys I'd be 100% happy with the default. Still a great skin, though.

I wonder why it is we put so much stake in the look of something that's intangible, really? Hmm.