SURF'S UP
Jul 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Doug Eisengrein
With the ever-growing population of audio composition, recording, arranging and mangling software tools showing up on dealers' shelves, it can be difficult to know which to use for your personal music studio. And once you do make those initial selections and own a few virtual tools, you then have to determine the best way to make them work together to produce the results you want — as quickly and as painlessly as possible. As with any complex, time-consuming project, you have to learn to multitask and use the right tool for the right job. This frequently means using multiple tools simultaneously. In short, you have to learn to application surf.
SCREEN SAVVY
Although it has not always been the case, due to a variety of reasons such as soundcard-driver inflexibility or inadequate CPU power, just about any newer PC or Mac has enough juice and RAM right out of the box to drive multiple audio applications simultaneously. Also, drivers nowadays (especially in the case of the Mac with OS X) typically allow applications to play well with others. This is important if, for example, you like to sketch out rough ideas in Propellerhead Reason or Arturia Storm but turn to MOTU Digital Performer for your serious mixing work. Or perhaps you like to keep your favorite audio editor open at all times alongside your multitracking app so that you can make proper audio-file edits on the fly as needed. Either way, now that keeping multiple memory-hungry applications open at the same time is easily possible, one of the greatest allies to this process (if you're on a tower, not a laptop) is to add an extra video card, hook up an extra monitor and effectively double your work space. Then, you can always park Digital Performer (or your DAW of choice) on one screen while keeping Reason (or whatever) visible on the other screen. This way, you don't have to constantly wade through overlapping windows.
On the other hand, if you are on a laptop, screen real estate is always of premium value. You need a rapid way of scrolling through all open windows instead of wading through items on your PC's Taskbar or your Mac's Dock. On a PC with multiple windows open, try pressing Alt + Tab. By repeatedly pressing the Tab key, you can rapidly scroll through all open windows before choosing one and bringing it into focus. With Mac OS X, a similar (but perhaps cooler) functionality can be achieved by pressing the F9 key, which automatically zooms all open windows down in size (relative to the number of windows open) and sets them up in gridlike fashion on the desktop. As you mouse over each window, it changes contrast and a bold text box telling you the title of the window appears. Therefore, you can see what each window contains at a glance. When you click on a miniwindow, it focuses that window and zooms all windows back up to their previous full size, effectively reversing the effects of the F9 key press.
THE RIGHT TOOL
If you have one program that does a certain job and another that does the same thing better, don't be lazy; use the one that does it better. Although it may mean stopping and launching a different app, one of the best, most efficient things you can do with your compositions (as with anything in life) is to do it right — the first time. Otherwise, you may find yourself scrapping what you've done in an inferior application and going back to the better application later and doing it again, doubling (or more) the amount of time you've just spent on something. For example, many full-blown digital audio workstations, such as Apple Logic or Steinberg Cubase, provide functionality for editing digital audio files, but do they do it as well as a dedicated audio editor, such as BIAS Peak or Sony Sound Forge? In my experience, the answer is generally no. Similarly, each program will have its strong points, yet some are designed to fulfill a certain niche. For example, Ableton Live is explicitly designed to be an intuitive, efficient sample and loop playback application whereas Propellerhead ReCycle is formulated to chop prerecorded audio material, such as loops, into its rhythmic component parts while providing users deep control of altering the individual slices.
The key to choosing the right applications and using them effectively lies in your musical ideas. Ask yourself what exactly it is that you're trying to do, get to know the different software out there and then decide which one will do the best job for what you need — not the other way around. Don't try to force results out of an application that just isn't designed to do what you want it to do. You don't use pliers to hammer nails into the wall, do you?
CABLE UP
For some, this may be old news, but one of the most ideal ways to application surf is with ReWire. If you haven't already used this technology and have more than one application that supports it, now is certainly the time to exploit this useful feature. ReWire is like invisible cable connecting different audio software. For example, you can stream an entire song from Reason into Logic, Digidesign Pro Tools or another ReWire-capable DAW in real time as well as stream multiple mixing consoles or even individual virtual instruments onto their own individual tracks. Again, if you set up your rig with multiple video monitors, you will reap the maximum benefits of ReWire technology, as you can situate each app on its own screen. Heck, if you have enough empty slots and available cash, get more than two monitors running. Take it from someone who already has a dual monitor system in place: The more screen space you have at your mouse tips, the better the party.
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