Rating: 
Summary: Great Starting point and Worthwhile Upgrade
Review: Man Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 comes up strong!Home Studio XL heads up:
If you're looking to purchase HS XL because of the DR-008SE (by FXpansion, then I suggest you don't. The DR-008SE is extremely buggy, and frequently (as in everyday) crashes and brings HS down with it.
-------------- DR-008se Elaboration -----------------------------
It's a terrible nuisance! Absolutely horrific that such software was packaged and sold. I think it was just an incentive to get people to buy the pro or full version - the DR-008. Also, if you've used the DR-08SE in a project, it always says that it cant find the audio file and you have to listen to this for EVERY wave file that is used by the DR-008SE. It doesn't take long to get sick of this. FXpansion offered no solution to this when i posted it on there message board back in November.
--------------------------------------------------------- Home Studio ' for the Upgrading user
Awesome. I upgraded after being an expert with HS 7 (toot-toot). I think the new features I use the most are the Envelope which let you 'draw' how certain parameters change over time, like volume (It's a vast improvement over recording the parameter changes into the track as in HS 7), audio exporting, like to .wma, .wav, and .rm. In HomeStudio XL, you can export a limited number of .mp3 files with this trial software. Also, augmented in this version (at least from an ex-HS 7 user's perspective) is the fine-grain time. A note used to have 120 places within a meter where it could be placed. Now it has (wait let me check') 960! Funny, thing is, I'm so used to 120, that is difficult to get calibrated to 960 when reading the note start times. Ah, but HS is a sympathetic app and allows you to choose how fine you want the time to be. The gamut is from 120 ' 960. I've been working with 360 lately. One of my favorite new features is Groove-Clip looping. With it, you can take any piece of audio (either recorded or imported into your project/song) and delimit it using a window that makes the audio part you're looking for pretty easy to find. You adjust the beginning and the end of what you want looped over and over again in a non destructive manner until you're sure you've gotten it (you can play the delimited audio from within the window to test your loop). Once you're happy with it, you then lop off all the audio outside of what you want and what's left is called your Groove-Clip. With your groove-clip all set up, you can extend or contract [by dragging] it in either direction (right or left) and it is looped over and over for the distance you finalized it at. MAGNIFICANT!! I use it for guitar parts that luckily come out right. The absolutely most used feature is something called, (um hold on a sec') slip editing on MIDI clips. This allows you to silence notes without having to change there velocities to 1 or delete them. This is an INVALUABLE, and a Welcomed augmentation.
For some reason, they moved Normalize Audio, and 3db louder and quieter operations off of the context menu for audio and kept it in the Edit->Audio menu section. Home Studio for the New User
I have to assert that this is an excellent program for learning to compose with. It comes with tutorials that will get you up and running fast. The online help is very good too. I can't say that there has been an instance where I couldn't find what I wanted (not many anyway - I can say with certainty). Its user interface is so easy and it looks nice. You can mark parts of you're song such as "Guitar Solo" or something) and navigate them quickly in 2 different ways. One takes you there immediately while the other steps you through marker by marker from where ever you start. Recording is like a 2 (setup and record) step process, which is good seeing as how you'll be rerecording a lot. Recording can be stepped up and specialized at the cost of maybe 2-4 more steps that you only do 1 time for each Different time period of the song you try to record in. Most often I use punch-in recording when specialized recording is required. This allows recording only during a time period you set. You can also set whether to record over existing notes or in addition to them.
There is non-destructive editing of both audio and MIDI clips (clips are sections of notes or audio). You can import audio, export audio, and add effects to midi and audio tracks like a distortion to audio tracks that sound good. My only qualms
1-Sometimes Home Studio will playback at some awfully fast rate. Like if you recorded with the tempo at 100 bpm, then playback might be at like 600bpm. It's a pain in the neck when that starts happening. I think that only happens when the sound card is 'tired', so you should probably give it rest then.
2-To get someone on the phone at tech support takes a long time. A LONG time. However, the person I dealt with was pleasant and put an honest effort into helping solve the problem with the Dr-008se. This review is probably a bit too long, so I'll end it now. I highly recommend Home Studio or Home Studio XL. And when you buy yours, be sure to register it, so you can get spectacular deals from Cakewalk that not even auctions can rival ' seriously! Once you use it, you'll want to use it exclusively. I've tried Cubasis after knowing HS and it was an unpleasant experience. The only other software I would use instead of Home Studio is Sonar. But Home Studio gives me everything I need to put songs together.
Rating: 
Summary: For it's price it is a good value
Review: Software sequencing is not as easy as some might think. It takes a bit of getting used to and reading up on midi, recording audio and mixing. All of this is available on the interent for free and for a person new to home studios it is an excellent supplement for ANY sequencing software. One area where Cakewalk and other "linear" sequencers create difficulty is when comparing to audio based programs like Acid. It doesn't get much easier than Acid....until you want control that enables you to add your own sounds while playing in which case you'll need the Pro version which while more capable is still not meant for using with midi in any significant way. Home Studio 2002 is an outstanding bargain. You get a couple of direct x synthesizers aka DXi. They are simple but effective enough to get the user started in software synthesis. Partiuclarly Dreamstation is useful for analog style timbres and the Virtual Sound Canvas is acceptable for traditonal sounds that will play standard midi files. The audio system is dead simple and requires about an hour to get help through the Cakewalk bulletin board or several other music related sites. Cakewalk's manuals are drab but have the information necessary to get you started. Third party books are common for software. They cut to the chase and do not have to spend the laborious time explaining the entire program. They get you going and then you continue learning with a decent knowledge of the application you are using. Feature wise you get 80% of the much more expensive Sonar program which adds a beat slicing and sequencing DXi, Rewire capability (for programs that can be synchronized in sample perfect time, some include Reason, ReBirth and Abelton LIVE) and several direct x effects. It's ability to use Acid loops and to save loops to the format makes it especially good for remixers and for those projects that needed a bit more instrumentation but survive as audio tracks. In terms of value for money this is an incredible deal. There are a couple of contenders but they are nowhere near the capability of Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 which is good enough to create professional tracks. Considering the professional quality plugins available for instruments and sound/effects processing nothing at this price point is close. Maybe the price of so much flexibility is a little extra work but that becomes a question of whether you need to work immediately or can take a day or two to master the most important aspects of the program so you can lay down tracks and midi takes. Pass on Cakewalk Home Studio if you are looking for instant gratification. Buy it if you want a taste of the pro-studio at a fraction of the cost.
Rating:
Summary: not for the timid
Review: The interface is admittedly fairly daunting, especially to those with no experience with digital recording/editing. If your needs are simple, i.e. casual fun, the steepish learning curve is probably not worth it. My experience thus far leads me to think that if you're willing to put in a few hours of patient study, you can really do a lot with this for a relatively low price.
| 
