I am a lyricist and tunesmith. Together with an arranger/orchestrator and an orchestrator, I'm developing a musical play that will be performed at a local high school in December 2008.
The arranger/orchestrator uses a Mac PowerPC running OS 10.4; the orchestrator uses a MacBook Pro running 10.5 or Leopard. To create their orchestrations, each uses professional notation software (not sequencing software). One uses Finale, the other Sibelius.
I use Windows XP Professional.
I want to create quick-and-dirty mixes, in three stages:
Accordingly, I am in the market for cross-platform mixing software that will let the three of us collaborate to complete the mixes. I don't need MIDI or anything fancy; I've completed my first mix using NCH's $25 MixPad MultiTrack Mixer. But that's a Windows-only application.
None of us has any experience doing digital mixing.
I'm prepared to upgrade my hardware: My desktop is a 1GB 2GHz Pentium with a Creative Audigy I soundcard. My laptop is a 1GB, 2GHz thinkPad with an Echo PCMCIA soundcard.
What do you recommend that would cost us less than $250 apiece? CuBase SE3? UltraMixer 2.1.4? Some other commercial product? Freeware, like Audacity?
PS: The arranger/orchestrator is the music director at a high school, so he would qualify for academic pricing.
The arranger/orchestrator uses a Mac PowerPC running OS 10.4; the orchestrator uses a MacBook Pro running 10.5 or Leopard. To create their orchestrations, each uses professional notation software (not sequencing software). One uses Finale, the other Sibelius.
I use Windows XP Professional.
I want to create quick-and-dirty mixes, in three stages:
- the piano arrangement plus multitrack vocals (all recorded using my voice), to let the orchestrators hear all singing roles in harmony.
- orchestrations plus my multitrack vocals, to let prospective singers hear the completed songs with all harmony.
- orchestrations plus the multitrack vocals recorded by trained singers, to give the full effect for the school singers and prospective investors.
Accordingly, I am in the market for cross-platform mixing software that will let the three of us collaborate to complete the mixes. I don't need MIDI or anything fancy; I've completed my first mix using NCH's $25 MixPad MultiTrack Mixer. But that's a Windows-only application.
None of us has any experience doing digital mixing.
I'm prepared to upgrade my hardware: My desktop is a 1GB 2GHz Pentium with a Creative Audigy I soundcard. My laptop is a 1GB, 2GHz thinkPad with an Echo PCMCIA soundcard.
What do you recommend that would cost us less than $250 apiece? CuBase SE3? UltraMixer 2.1.4? Some other commercial product? Freeware, like Audacity?
PS: The arranger/orchestrator is the music director at a high school, so he would qualify for academic pricing.