The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Well I recently had to clear my CPU and reinstall windows, long story short I no longer have ACID to record my music with. Anyone have suggestions for a replacement program, preferbly something free. Or something that can be "shared".

NeilThrun wrote:I recently had to clear my CPU

4 years of nerd school and they never taught me how to do this. Oh, well, since it's volatile I guess turning off your computer clears your CPU.

gosh puce, that wasn't very helpful.

but then again, the thought of Neil Thrun not being able to record for a couple more weeks is pretty exciting.. and you know.. karmic.

You need to make sure that your hard drive was really, truly cleared out, or else the remnants of your previous system installation might still be there to muck things up. The best way to do this is with a large neodymium rare-earth magnet; it will make sure that your hard drive platters are totally cleared out and the bits are completely fresh.

also pile all of your instruments up in the middle of the street and burn them.

fluffy wrote:You need to make sure that your hard drive was really, truly cleared out, or else the remnants of your previous system installation might still be there to muck things up. The best way to do this is with a large neodymium rare-earth magnet; it will make sure that your hard drive platters are totally cleared out and the bits are completely fresh.

I attest that this will work. If for some reason it doesn't...you can just microwave the hard drive and cpu chip for about 10 minutes. Pretty much the same result 'cept it might cause problems with your microwave later.

Puce wrote:

NeilThrun wrote:I recently had to clear my CPU

4 years of nerd school and they never taught me how to do this. Oh, well, since it's volatile I guess turning off your computer clears your CPU.

I love you, you smartass.

blue wrote:also pile all of your instruments up in the middle of the street and burn them.

Be sure to use your CPU to prop them up on so you get the proper amount of air flow underneath, or else they might not burn properly.

In case you were wondering why you would need to burn your instruments...well, there is certain plant life, such as a pompous bush that will thrive and grow even larger after it's leaves are burnt. You should repeat this process once a year for best results.

A pompous bush.

Uh thanks guys. I aprecciate it. But yes my cpu was "reformatted" if thats the word. Sorry I'm not up on the lingo, unfortunatly for you all my music that I have recorded has been backed up on cd. My legacy lives on.

Is no one willing to help? I'd really hate to just go and illegally download ACID, but I might be left with no choice.

Since when do CPUs contain a file system?

Anyway, all you need is sound recorder, and a cat. I recommend using ice cubes; you can get all sorts of interesting noises out of it that way.

NeilThrun wrote:Uh thanks guys. I aprecciate it. But yes my cpu was "reformatted" if thats the word.

psss...your HARDDRIVE was reformatted. Not your CPU. Just couldn't take it any longer.

can't you still get the demo version of acid, 8 tracks only?
then you can ping-pong to get more tracks.
-bill

Don't know what Acid does - but Audacity is free and very useful.

And you can get a free sample of Fruity Loops which is very cool

BTW now I have a Mac- I can't use my free sample Fruity Loops anymore and I miss it. Does anyone know anything for Mac that is similar to Fruity Loops (and similarly free?)

fluffy wrote:All you need is sound recorder, and a cat. I recommend using ice cubes; you can get all sorts of interesting noises out of it that way.

Tried it. She wasn't impressed.

Caravan Ray wrote:Don't know what Acid does - but Audacity is free and very useful.

And you can get a free sample of Fruity Loops which is very cool

BTW now I have a Mac- I can't use my free sample Fruity Loops anymore and I miss it. Does anyone know anything for Mac that is similar to Fruity Loops (and similarly free?)

GarageBand and Reason are the closest things to FL unless you want to try things like Schizm Tracker. GB comes as part of iLife which also comes bundled with all new Macs.

Audacity on Mac sucks, by the way.

I seem to remember the ACID demo only allowing you to save in mp3 or wav, so you have to sit down and finish your song or leave your computer running. Fruity Loops is a pain to record with. I'll try Reason and GarageBand. Thanks Guys.

My cat is allergic to ice cubes, so thats no go.

ACID demo (at least the version I played with) lets you save out in the native format, but you're extremely restricted in terms of track automation (volume only), effects (none whatsoever), and number of tracks (8).

You'll have a hard time trying GarageBand if you're on a Windows system.

If you just want multitrack recording with basic editing functions, Audacity is good (on Windows anyway).

The Reason demo disallows saving and closes after 20 or 30 minutes. I don't know if you can export or not.

fluffy wrote:

Caravan Ray wrote:Don't know what Acid does - but Audacity is free and very useful.

And you can get a free sample of Fruity Loops which is very cool

BTW now I have a Mac- I can't use my free sample Fruity Loops anymore and I miss it. Does anyone know anything for Mac that is similar to Fruity Loops (and similarly free?)

GarageBand and Reason are the closest things to FL unless you want to try things like Schizm Tracker. GB comes as part of iLife which also comes bundled with all new Macs.

Audacity on Mac sucks, by the way.

FruityLoops lets you build up a beat with the little moving flashing lights - that was cool - that was called the step-sequencer I think.

can't do that on Garage Band. I love GB - but I miss being able to build up a rhythm piece by piece

Yeah, GB 1.x's rhythm recording stuff is pretty sucky... it'd be nice if it supported some sort of multiple-layer recording, or even step-based note entry. I think they improved it a lot in 2.0 though, but I haven't used it yet so I don't know.

Of course, Logic Pro has Ultrabeat. :D