1996: Using QBasic on my old 386 ... made a text interface to program PLAY strings, which made monophonic sounds.
1997: Started recording guitar to tapes
1998, 1999: Using metronome, keyboard, and guitar, recorded stuff to tapes. I'd use the metronome and the beginning of the tapes to keep in sync. I had 4 tape players, 3 of which could record, so I had 4 tracks altogether and I usually merged some too, although the sound was crappy as hell!
2000: Playing a bit on the guitar, but not recording anything (moved overseas...)
2001: Using Guitar Pro, started making mightily lame MIDI tracks. Fun stuff!
2002, 2003: Using Acid and tons of illegal loops downloaded from Kazaa to make very lame songs
2004: Made MIDI tracks with Guitar Pro 4, recorded stuff with guitar and keyboard, then sequenced it all together in Acid, and threw in some loops.
Late 2004: I finally find FL Studio, and am immediately hooked.
2005: I've tried FL, Acid, Reason, Orion, the old Cakewalk 9, and many others, and still like FL the best, because:
- Defining patterns for each instrument instead of individual notes. Also supported by Orion, but not as nice, and not really any of the others, although you can get by in Acid 5 (the newest one!) by routing MIDI to the same soft synth.
- Per-Pattern Automation. Orion has global automation. In Acid 5, you can have envelopes on any track EXCEPT MIDI TRACKS WHICH IS STUPIDER THAN SHIT!
I do want to someday make my own. It'd be the Reason rack, with more devices, the FL Piano roll and play list, and a seamless interface. That's probably never gonna happen though ^^
What was your first sequencer or DAW?
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- KVRist
- 325 posts since 10 Jul, 2002 from About 3 feet below sea level
My first sequencing instrument was the TB303 I bought for £84 in April 1989 from a bric-a-brac shop. (I hunted one down when I discovered that they were responsible for the Acid House sound.)
My first 'proper' sequencer (if you could call it that) was a Korg SQD8 eight track liner jobbie. Editing was minimal and you had to play parts from start to finish in one take due to the lack of pattern sequencing.
I then 'progressed' in 1991 to my first computer sequencing package, an Atari 520STfm with single sided floppy drive running a copy of Steinberg's Pro12 (a promotional copy that was given to me by a friend who worked at the local (now defunct) music store.)
Pro12, which was supposed to be a cut down version of Pro24, was better than the old Korg SQD8 hardware jobbie that went before but only just!
Pro12 has to be the most unituitive and featureless piece software ever to come out of Steinberg lab's. Absolutely diabolical (to the point where I can't even find any info on it anywhere on the net!)
Next I progressed to a small shareware sequencer from sweeden which was simply called '16 Track'. It was very loosely based on Clab's Creator but only in a very basic fashion. There was no graphical editing, only list editing, but you could still acomplish quite a lot through this method.
16 Track went on to become 'Sweet 16' (By Roni Music Sweeden.) This was definitely my favorite software sequencer on the Atari. This was a full blown 24 track sequencer (it had grown from it's 16 track origins but kept the number 16 in its name I guess cos you could only see 16 tracks at any one time ..?)
Anyway, it was an absolutely rock solid, stable and tight workhorse of a sequencer, able to run 32 MIDI channel's with the aid of an optional MIDI expansion socket.
Graphically, the C-Lab influences remained in Sweet 16, joined by superb piano roll graphical editing (which unlike most other sequencers, scrolled from top to bottom rather than left to right.)
I still miss this sequencer today... But I have long since moved on and left 'Hardware Land' for the soft studio. Orion is my sequencing choice nowadays and I'm still using the 'basic' version that was discontinued about 2 and a half years ago! (It cost me $45 when I first bought it in 2001!)
But compared to what I started out on Orion (even my retarded 'basic' version) is a dream! And I really don't understand all these people with these flashy sequencers that to try to do everything but only succeed in clouding judgemment and causing indecision...IMHO...
My first 'proper' sequencer (if you could call it that) was a Korg SQD8 eight track liner jobbie. Editing was minimal and you had to play parts from start to finish in one take due to the lack of pattern sequencing.
I then 'progressed' in 1991 to my first computer sequencing package, an Atari 520STfm with single sided floppy drive running a copy of Steinberg's Pro12 (a promotional copy that was given to me by a friend who worked at the local (now defunct) music store.)
Pro12, which was supposed to be a cut down version of Pro24, was better than the old Korg SQD8 hardware jobbie that went before but only just!
Pro12 has to be the most unituitive and featureless piece software ever to come out of Steinberg lab's. Absolutely diabolical (to the point where I can't even find any info on it anywhere on the net!)
Next I progressed to a small shareware sequencer from sweeden which was simply called '16 Track'. It was very loosely based on Clab's Creator but only in a very basic fashion. There was no graphical editing, only list editing, but you could still acomplish quite a lot through this method.
16 Track went on to become 'Sweet 16' (By Roni Music Sweeden.) This was definitely my favorite software sequencer on the Atari. This was a full blown 24 track sequencer (it had grown from it's 16 track origins but kept the number 16 in its name I guess cos you could only see 16 tracks at any one time ..?)
Anyway, it was an absolutely rock solid, stable and tight workhorse of a sequencer, able to run 32 MIDI channel's with the aid of an optional MIDI expansion socket.
Graphically, the C-Lab influences remained in Sweet 16, joined by superb piano roll graphical editing (which unlike most other sequencers, scrolled from top to bottom rather than left to right.)
I still miss this sequencer today... But I have long since moved on and left 'Hardware Land' for the soft studio. Orion is my sequencing choice nowadays and I'm still using the 'basic' version that was discontinued about 2 and a half years ago! (It cost me $45 when I first bought it in 2001!)
But compared to what I started out on Orion (even my retarded 'basic' version) is a dream! And I really don't understand all these people with these flashy sequencers that to try to do everything but only succeed in clouding judgemment and causing indecision...IMHO...
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- KVRAF
- 11381 posts since 3 Feb, 2003 from Finland, Espoo
1985 or there 'bouts.. a small program called Musician, which ran on the IBM PC. I think it was a 4mHz, processor. It had a basic score that could be up to 16 bars long and monochrome graphics (probably could do CGA too with proper hardware). It's monophonic playback used the internal PC beeper for sound. However, I did find out a way to fake 'chord' action by speeding up the tempo ridiculously and by entering the shortest notes available (16th notes) doing a sort of an arpeggio.
I had a Commodore 64 at the time as well (who didn't!) which had some small sequencer programs but I could never really get my head around them and I mostly liked playing games on it which took up all the creative time.
1990 ? something I then upgraded to the Voyetra sequencer for DOS. This was when DOS was version 3.x I think. It had a rather sofisticated sequencer with nice graphics and I found it rather intuitive. For playback we had one of those external roland boxes, I don't remeber the model.
1991-96 I used mainly Cakewalk (v 1.0 and 2.0) and Fast Tracker and then the successor, Fast Tracker 2. Inbetween I managed to buy nearly all the consumer soundcards on the market starting with the original soundblaster (heck, we even had an original Adlib card but this was a bit earlier!
). You might still find on the net some old tracker songs made by a dude called Beat Maniac. 
During this time period I also managed to buy a copy of the original Digital Orchestrator Plus. I needed it to do some multitrack audio recording using 2 soundblaster's, one a soundblaster pro and the other one an AWE.
1997 -> I then moved on to learn Logic Audio 3 and 4 and have slowly after that converted to FL Studio which became my main host at version 3. I've also got a copy of good old Cubase somewhere in some weird bundle that I got with something equally weird.. but I never liked it so I kept using logic.
Some of these years may be way off as I'm writing this all from pure memory and years go by so fast that I can't keep track of what happened when.
I've also owned various hardware synths with sequencers like the Roland XP-50 workstation, which I used a lot. I made quite a few songs with it, some even posted on this very forum. I even had that synth with me while doing the mandatory service in the Finnish army. Everybody else had 'sports' lockers for things like hockey clubs, basket balls and all kinds of sports equipment. Never liked sports in the army so I had a synth in it!
Cheers!
bManic
I had a Commodore 64 at the time as well (who didn't!) which had some small sequencer programs but I could never really get my head around them and I mostly liked playing games on it which took up all the creative time.
1990 ? something I then upgraded to the Voyetra sequencer for DOS. This was when DOS was version 3.x I think. It had a rather sofisticated sequencer with nice graphics and I found it rather intuitive. For playback we had one of those external roland boxes, I don't remeber the model.
1991-96 I used mainly Cakewalk (v 1.0 and 2.0) and Fast Tracker and then the successor, Fast Tracker 2. Inbetween I managed to buy nearly all the consumer soundcards on the market starting with the original soundblaster (heck, we even had an original Adlib card but this was a bit earlier!
). You might still find on the net some old tracker songs made by a dude called Beat Maniac. During this time period I also managed to buy a copy of the original Digital Orchestrator Plus. I needed it to do some multitrack audio recording using 2 soundblaster's, one a soundblaster pro and the other one an AWE.
1997 -> I then moved on to learn Logic Audio 3 and 4 and have slowly after that converted to FL Studio which became my main host at version 3. I've also got a copy of good old Cubase somewhere in some weird bundle that I got with something equally weird.. but I never liked it so I kept using logic.
Some of these years may be way off as I'm writing this all from pure memory and years go by so fast that I can't keep track of what happened when.
I've also owned various hardware synths with sequencers like the Roland XP-50 workstation, which I used a lot. I made quite a few songs with it, some even posted on this very forum. I even had that synth with me while doing the mandatory service in the Finnish army. Everybody else had 'sports' lockers for things like hockey clubs, basket balls and all kinds of sports equipment. Never liked sports in the army so I had a synth in it!
Cheers!
bManic
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n-04:05:03:05:7 n-04:05:03:05:7 https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=59832 - KVRist
- 309 posts since 28 Feb, 2005 from France
Amiga 600 w/ 2 MB RAM + 8-bit/22KHz audio interface running ProTracker + Home Music software suite + a Yamaha RY-10 (great 16-bit drum machine), a 30€ mic and a Boss SE-50 multi-fx unit. Sampling from an old PO/GO/FM radio, a VCR and noises/ambiences recordings from an AIWA portable K7 recorder (mono). Monitoring via an Harman/Kardon power amplifier & JAMO speaker couple. Mixdowns on a Yamaha tape deck.
Was great.
Was great.
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- KVRist
- 37 posts since 2 Sep, 2004 from Tha Vee Double L
cassette tape pause button remixing
in 1995 i used goldwave to make drum loops by layering drum samps together and timing them to the correct bpm
knew about midi but never tried it i'm a guitar player by nature so (insert favorite stupid guitar player joke here).
was in a band where we used an Roland MC 808 for drum beats my first hardware tracker exp.
then fruity loops around version 2.
now i use FL , Tracktion , soundforge , vegas and a midi
keyboard controller.
in 1995 i used goldwave to make drum loops by layering drum samps together and timing them to the correct bpm
knew about midi but never tried it i'm a guitar player by nature so (insert favorite stupid guitar player joke here).
was in a band where we used an Roland MC 808 for drum beats my first hardware tracker exp.
then fruity loops around version 2.
now i use FL , Tracktion , soundforge , vegas and a midi
keyboard controller.
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
Won't find too many guitar player jokes around here. There are too many of us. 
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- Boss Lovin' DR
- 14312 posts since 15 Mar, 2002 from the grimness of yorkshire
Hehe, same here, did some mental stuff with that and the crappy cheetah sampler I had. And the old qy-10 still looks mighty cool even these days!op519 wrote:
I honestly loved this thing. Dunno why.
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- KVRAF
- 4074 posts since 28 Apr, 2004
a dodgy copy of pro 24, then cubase on an atari 1040 synced to octomed on an amiga 500.
a room full of things with wires trailing everywhere (my mum really used to hate that) all mixed down onto a shitty reel to reel (1/2 inch i think) that was rubbish but i thought was cool cos i was 13.
happy days,
steve.
a room full of things with wires trailing everywhere (my mum really used to hate that) all mixed down onto a shitty reel to reel (1/2 inch i think) that was rubbish but i thought was cool cos i was 13.
happy days,
steve.
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- KVRAF
- 5782 posts since 10 Mar, 2003 from Music Shed #8
Can you play the riff from 'raining blood' on it?donkey tugger wrote:Hehe, same here, did some mental stuff with that and the crappy cheetah sampler I had. And the old qy-10 still looks mighty cool even these days!op519 wrote:
I honestly loved this thing. Dunno why.
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- Boss Lovin' DR
- 14312 posts since 15 Mar, 2002 from the grimness of yorkshire
Of course. And on a stylophone.clueless wrote:Can you play the riff from 'raining blood' on it?donkey tugger wrote:Hehe, same here, did some mental stuff with that and the crappy cheetah sampler I had. And the old qy-10 still looks mighty cool even these days!op519 wrote:
I honestly loved this thing. Dunno why.
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AngularMomentum AngularMomentum https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=63318
- KVRist
- 252 posts since 29 Mar, 2005
Started on a commodore 64 with Steinberg Pro 16, think it was in 1985 or 86, with a DX-7, sequential series six- and drum-track.
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- KVRist
- 52 posts since 4 Mar, 2005
Let's see....
a few Casio's, a D20 (my first sequencer} and a GEM.
Screamtracker and Fasttracker
Cakewalk pro audio something
Then I quit music for a while, came back with Sonar 1 and 2. Now I'm on SX2/Live5/energyXT
a few Casio's, a D20 (my first sequencer} and a GEM.
Screamtracker and Fasttracker
Cakewalk pro audio something
Then I quit music for a while, came back with Sonar 1 and 2. Now I'm on SX2/Live5/energyXT
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- KVRian
- 610 posts since 16 Dec, 2003
512K mac with 2 floppies and no hard drive.
Some sequencing software - maybe MOTU.
Casio CZ 101
circa 1986
Some sequencing software - maybe MOTU.
Casio CZ 101
circa 1986
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- KVRist
- 224 posts since 23 Jun, 2005
I don't know if this counts, but my real introduction was Windows Sound Recorder, which I sang and played a few guitar chords into with a cheap computer mic. Then I'd reverse, stretch and mishmash waves into jumbles of sound. I was mesmerized and addicted at that point. Eventually, I found Cool Edit Pro and Fruity Loops, which were nice if lacking in automation, integration, monitoring, etc. A few years later I looked for a host that could do it all. I couldn't demo SX2, Live didn't have MIDI, Tracktion was still a baby, and ProTools LE was even more overpriced than it is now, so I went with Sonar and haven't looked back. Newbies are incredibly lucky to have so many great, powerful alternatives these days.