Recording Questions

[jmillz]

I'm starting to enter the tedious, and rather difficult world of recording along with my good friend. We have a basic 8-track and have been messing with that for a while now, but I'm looking to educate myself about some of the more complex things now.

I have a few questions:

1.) Can anyone explain to me what features like sequencing and sampling are? Along with anything else thats really common that I should know. I hear those quite a bit.

2.) Also what exactly do programs such as Reason and ProTools do for you? Without knowing the other question its a little hard to understand what this software actually does.

So far I've gathered that quite a few of Will's drum effects and textural sounds are achieved from these programs.

I'm here to learn so any help is greatly appreciated. =]
Thanks,
-Jay

[Thrill Kill Will]

sequencing.
this is kinda what it sounds like. it just means that you're putting things in order. typically its used like a drum machine. you tell it when to play what notes/hits. but a sequencer can also play notes, if that's how you set it up, so it can play a keyboard melody. this is horribly dumbed down.

sampling.
in its raw-est sense. a sample is just any short recorded sound. it can be a snare drum, a hiccup, thunder, a hand clap, a word. whatever, any sound. a sampler/sequencer are usually combined in the same unit (whether its a program or a hardware unit)

reason
reason is actually a sequencer/sampler. when used in conjunction with pro-tools or other recording software, you can set up a tempo and program a beat into reason, and it will play the beat back. again you can also program melodies and stuff.

pro-tools
this is a multi track recording program. you need hardware to use this specific program (like an mbox or digi002). using the mbox/protools, you can record a few tracks at a time, then record more tracks over it, edit the sound files, and mix it, all in a computer.
(its kinda like having a 4-track or 8-track inside a computer.....again this is OVERLY simplified.)

other people can probably give you better answers, but yea, keep searching. wikipedia it. and good luck!!
-w

[jmillz]

Thank you very much! I shall continue to search =]