KVR Audio

EdgarRothermich · Post by **EdgarRothermich** » Wed Aug 12, 2015 7:51 pm

SyntheticAurality wrote: Love Logic, screw Apple. No personal offense intended towards you!!

No problem.
Apple makes it hard sometimes to love them

Keith99 · Post by **Keith99** » Wed Aug 12, 2015 7:54 pm

Just don't use Cubase for film in Windows 10...

SuitcaseOfLizards · Post by **SuitcaseOfLizards** » Wed Aug 12, 2015 8:05 pm

Well, I'm going to demo DP and Cubase, while I reinstall SONAR X3 and give that a go.

I hate to switch DAWs, but it might be time to up my game.. my first album sold not half bad and I just signed to a Net label.. time to nut up or shut up...

Thanks to everyone for your input - it's greatly appreciated!

LawrenceF · Post by **LawrenceF** » Wed Aug 12, 2015 8:46 pm

Since nobody else mentioned it, Mixcraft appears to handle video pretty well for something that doesn't cost a small fortune. No idea how the workflow is for midi production though, I only really demoed the audio and video bits a little.

Might be worth a look though, especially if you're on a budget.

And, of course, Reaper is almost free and seems to do video pretty well. Studio One otoh may be more finicky about formats, it seems to handle Quicktime really well here and some other formats not quite as well.

short_hopper · Post by **short_hopper** » Thu Aug 13, 2015 2:47 am

As much as I love Mixcraft (been using it since 2008), I don't think it is the best solution for scoring. It only supports AVI and WMV video files, so, more than likely, you will have the added nuisance of having to convert your videos before loading them.

For small hobbyist projects it works just fine for doing sound syncing and scoring, but for the aspiring professional it would be cumbersome to have to convert nearly every video file before you can begin to work on it.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Thu Aug 13, 2015 8:56 am

whyterabbyt wrote:
SyntheticAurality wrote:Ive tried Reaper off and on, I could never get the hang of it.. and I gave it a solid month of work. I guess it's just not for me, which is too bad, it's a great DAW.
You could try seeing if it would work as a Rewire slave for the video side only, and continue working in Tracktion for everything audio?

FWIW, Ive now tested this and it appears to work.

LawrenceF · Post by **LawrenceF** » Thu Aug 13, 2015 10:15 pm

My current DAW (Tracktion) doesn't seem to be good at handling video (3 tries, 3 crashes) so I'm looking for something else (le sigh).

Bummer.

Only because I'm the curious type, what video formats are you throwing at it? I would also wonder, if I were a user, if there are formats that are recommended or not. I probably wouldn't give up on my main host that is "supposed" to run video without exhausting every avenue... short of a deadline or some other more practical reason anyway. If it uses Quicktime or some other thing for video support I'd also make certain that the latest version of that was installed on my machine.

I'd maybe also cut a small part of that video and send it to the Tracktion guys for troubleshooting in either case.

kelldammit · Post by **kelldammit** » Sat Aug 15, 2015 8:59 am

First things first. Demo stuff, and see what works best for you, in terms of how you work. Do them one at a time. Snag public domain movies here: https://archive.org/details/movies and score 'em with the demo. It'll give you the most practical/realistic experience.
There are poster children for virtually any DAW, so take it with a grain of salt, as you would recommendations from any stranger. Zimmer uses cubase simply because it's what he already knew. His proteges (like Gregson-Williams) use it because they had to in order to work for him. Elfman uses DP, others use logic or even notation software. Once you know software, it's not really sensible to change when your living's on the line.
In terms of purchasing, check out zzounds. They offer installment plans that are pretty reasonable (no credit check, etc). Just pay on time for 3 months, and you're golden. It's how i bought DP.
So all of that aside, what are your real goals? What instruments are you using, and if you don't have what you think you'll need, what are you anticipating purchasing? Be realistic. None of those big guys are doing major scores on single machines (Gregson-Williams is now "down to" a half dozen!). So, you may want to consider something like Vienna Ensemble Pro if you're particularly ambitious. (If you're considering DP on PC, i'd recommend it anyway, as it's not as efficient as Cubase in terms of vsti, but it evens those odds, plus allows for expansion later. It uses the same dongle as cubase, so it may not be a bad idea anyway. it's also on sale at audiodeluxe for around $160).

As you demo, there are no doubt facebook groups and internet forums for each piece of software that can help you find your way through the process.

anyway, cheers, and best of luck!

ULAS · Post by **ULAS** » Sat Aug 15, 2015 9:06 am

Cubase Pro 8.

Robmobius · Post by **Robmobius** » Sat Aug 15, 2015 10:15 am

tehlord wrote:90% of the people that do score use Cubase for a reason!

I dispute that figure.

Back on track. Any of the big ones will do you to be honest.

This dude uses Ableton - Hes' got some decent tutorial breakdowns as well.

Kode · Post by **Kode** » Sat Aug 15, 2015 5:48 pm

I use Cubase Pro but i dont like the video integrated in Cubase with QT, as alternative i use this:

http://www.mtcvideoslave.at/

You only need to send MTC from your host to the program.

Dewdman42 · Post by **Dewdman42** » Sun Aug 16, 2015 8:35 pm

DP has far and away the most tools for scoring films, its not even a close contest. That being said, some of the features built in to DP are for advanced film scoring, which if you have never really learned about that, you will probably not dive much into anyway. For simple socring needs where basically you just need to be able to see the video along with whatever you're working on, etc.. most all of the big DAW's will work just fine.

DP is better on a mac, I can't vouch for pc, but I switched to mac once upon a time just so that I could run DP. I tried to do a film score project once on sonar, can't remember which version...it was a while ago..but it had some severe bugs related to complicated meter and tempo changes. Halfway through the project I had to switch to something else to get it done, but after that I switched to DP on the mac and never looked back.

But frankly, you could use most of the DAW's listed so far and they would probably work perfectly fine if you are just going to lay some straight forward music back against the video. If you plan to get into hit points and more complex timing issues..then I highly reccomend DP. Or if you need to do streamers and what not.

The chunks feature of DP is also extremely valuable.

See this video for comparison of logic and DP for film scoring:

Ultimately it depends a lot on the kind of film score you are going to make and if its mostly about just making some straight forward music to go against the video without complicated meter and tempo changes, then use the one you are most comfortable composing with. If you are just now getting into using a computer to compose music, you have a steep road of learning ahead of you, I would choose something simple to use.

prene · Post by **prene** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 8:07 am

Studio one 3 is giving me laggy video issues so I jumped into reaper 5 and I have to say it's a HUGE step up from the older version.

Tonberry · Post by **Tonberry** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 12:35 pm

How's Reaper video working out for you compared to other daws you've done video with?

SuitcaseOfLizards · Post by **SuitcaseOfLizards** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:55 pm

Wow.. glad I revisited this thread, lots of good info (and a big THANKS for the link to public domain movies, bless you!).

Looks like I have a busy few weeks ahead.. lol..

Need DAW good at film scoring