can anyone reccomend software for my setup?

[Kev Brigden]

K,

I'm running a 1.5Ghz AMD Athlon Processor, running windows XPpro. 256mb ram, Voodoo4 AGP graphics and Edirol DA2496 sound system...

XP is updated fully...

[T-D@gg]

Basically any current software will run fine under XP on your machine, although some of the more sophisticated programs would benefit from a RAM upgrade (which is pretty cheap nowadays...) There are instances of various applications experiencing motherboard or video card conflicts, but I think the more important issues are determining your budget and your needs... Doing alot of MIDI sequencing or just recording audio tracks? Will you need lots of export options to take your tracks over to the big studios? Any plans of doing "for hire" studio work? There are so many options out there that it really depends on what you are looking to do...

[Kev Brigden]

esentially, I want software, that will allow me to learn the medium/advanced level techniques of digital recording. Ideally, I'd lke the software to run after that, I would like to use some software that will stand me in good stead for when I eventually make the jump to a bigger all inclusive recording setup. (such as a Mackie D8B for example...)

I did consider a version of protools, as obviously, Digidesign also do some high end mixers. (although they are EXTREMELY expensive!) but I'm leaning more towards a D8B, simply because I have been to two studios where they are implemented and I was chuffed with the results both times

[T-D@gg]

Welp, I'm personally a big fan of Steinberg software -- CubaseSX2 and Nuendo 2.0 (which is what I currently use and can't say enough good things about!)... Nuendo is probably one of the most powerful applications out there for production (even more feature-rich than ProTools), but at $1200US, its a huge investment and not for everyone. CubaseSX is somewhere around $500US I think, and provides scores of MIDI and audio features, export options, various control surface support (like for a DB8!), etc... I think after that I would take a long hard look at Samplitude -- it is priced somewhere around CubaseSX, and although it lacks some MIDI functionality found in Cubase it makes up for it in rock solid stability, a cool realtime convolution plugin, and great customer support.

Lastly, I'd check out Sonor... To be honest, I'm not a huge fan, but the Cakewalk series of products are what I learned on... The user interface was easy to understand, the price was right, and it was pretty easy to dive right in and get recording. Can't really say that holds true for the new "Sonor" stuff though, have only played around on it a few times...

Take with a grain of salt -- all personal opinion from a heavily biased Nuendo fan!