Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

Hi all,
I'm getting ready to make the jump into MIDI and home
recording and am narrowing down my softwear choice to 
the Cubasis VST and Cakewalk Home Studio. I need MIDI, 
recording/mixing, instruments, etc. but at a pretty
basic level. 

Since I don't have all that much time to spend on 
learning and fiddling, ease of use is of equal 
importance to features. 

I get the feeling that I probably can't go wrong
between these two but if anyone has used products by
both companies, I would appreciate some feedback, good
and bad.

Thanks,
Rick

That's a toughie.
I've used both and I they've both got their strengths.

I've used Cakewalk Pro Audio since version 2 and now I'm up to v9 so I guess I'm biased, but it really is easy to use and conforms to
the Windows standards more readily than Cubase. There are loads of good features - Guitar Tuner/Tab notation, Style Enhancer, etc. plus all the usual stuff. DirectX plugin support is good but there's no VST plugin support. If you've got outboard gear you can control it with StudioWare (although I'm not sure this is included with the basic package). The learning curve is really shallow - you'll be up and running in no time. Results are very good and the latency is extremely low. All in all, a very stable and easy to use program.

If you want sheer "blow-you-away" appearance and twiddly stuff then Cubase is the choice. The program looks simply stunning
and has got loads of knobs and sliders and LEDs to play with. It actually runs and feels more like a "proper" studio than Cakewalk and consequently prefers a system with a good quality soundcard. If you can master Cubase (and that takes some doing), you could easily slip into a professional MIDI studio and have an idea about what you're doing. It's also got tons of features, DirectX and native VST support, outboard-gear control and is just so much more professional than Cakewalk.

In summary then,
Cakewalk - 
Pros : Simple, powerful and stable. Nothing too complicated. Easy to set up and use. Version 9 has very low latency and nice extras.
Cons: No VST plugin support.

Cubasis/Cubase - 
Pros: Sheer total control. VERY professional. Loads of features (more than you'll ever need).  Visually - the dog's bollocks.
Cons : Can be overly complex. High learning curve. Harder on system resources than Cakewalk. Doesn't like cheap soundcards.

I could go on for years, but I hope this helps you. My suggestion is to get demo versions of each from the Web and see what you think.



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Giles comments are spot on  - only thing I would add about Cubase VST is that ISA Soundblaster cards are useless. You'll have problems with midi timing, and they are not 16 bit full duplex for the audio features. For best all round performance with VST you will need a PCI sound card, the Yamaha all in one PCI cards being especially good. However, I'm using a simple cheap Terratec 128i PCI sound card for midi (so I can fit a Yamaha DB50 synth to it) and its fine. I'm also using Steinbergs own USB dual midi interface which is fine too. For audio I'm using an Event Gina PCI multi channel audio card which works great too (not using the ASIO drivers though as latency not a problem - I'm using a mixing desk).

I was recording this weekend, with the DTXpress and playing back ok from VST, along side the DB50 and a Korg NS5R - all worked great.

Definitely, VST takes some driving - a steep learning curve, but in the end its worth it.

Finally, give VST loads of RAM and its very stable (min 128Mb). Its also worked much better since upgrading from a P200MMX to a PII 350MHz Intel CPU. Also, apparently AMD CPUs have less capable floating point processing (which VST needs) but never used one so I can't confirm.

Paul

Just an aside - Paul
The AMD chips have suffered in the past from a poorer
FPU than Intel. But now, they're actually just as good
- and better in the case of the new Athlon.
See
http://www5.tomshardware.com/cpu/99q3/990823/index.html

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Thanks for the info Giles

Paul