Help with wav file edit?

[StevePral]

Hi,

I have successfully resurrected a song recorded long ago on a cassette tape using Cool Edit Pro 2. It is just piano, bass and drum tracks, but it has turned out great after some tweaking. The resulting wav file is around 50 megabytes. It's big because the original recording was done live, so it has a lot of wonderful ambience that I don't want to lose.

Can anyone tell me how to bring this track into FruityLoops? I really want to add some new instruments like NI's B4 and add some more solid percussion and FL makes it so easy to add sounds and instruments and mix it all down. If Fruityloops won't do it, can you recommend a program that would?

Any help, suggestions or ideas? The song means a lot because the friend who wrote it died last August.

Thanks,
Steve

[jackcu]

The following is based on the way I use the various packages - I could be wrong.

Fruityloops is a drum machine / sequencing package. If you already have the wave file I doubt Fruity would be the way to go as I don't think you can import the wave file (I guess you could import it as a very long sample but that might get messy).

Is the wave file you have (the song) sync'd against anything? If, for example, your song is sync'd to a 100bpm click, then you could sequence your percussion, etc. in Fruity at 100bpm, export the result as a new wave file and then mix the 2 files together in amultitrack package. I use N-Track, but you could use Cubase, Sonar, etc., etc.

The only problem with the above is that 100bpm on one machine and one clock won't necessarily match 100bpm on another machine - I run in to this problem from time to time.

If this is the case or you don't have a click track for the original I would load your song in to your multitrack package and add the new instruments live.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Jack.

[StevePral]

Jack,

Ahh.. Maybe syncing is the way to go! It's a viable suggestion and I didn't think of it (I am a dummy). I know there are a few problems with this approach, as I must do a lot of tweaking maybe to get it all synced up right. Maybe you'll puke with disbelief when I tell you this, but I am an old Southern rock n' roller now living and teaching English in Shanghai, China. The song was written by my friend Leon Wilkerson (Lynyrd Skynyrd's bass player) and I about twenty two years ago in his house in Mandarin Florida. He died last August of natural causes and I miss him very much. So, I have this great song from long ago and now I want to add more drums and some other embellishments to it. I don't think a lot of people ever realized how talented Leon was and always thought of him as just a bass player - though he was a damn good one. Even so, I know this forum is mainly for more modern music like techno and hiphop, so I didn't really have much hope for any help in here anyway.

I have just got ahold of some stuff like Fruity Loops and Cool Edit Pro, but I am dreadfully poor and make about 75 dollars a week these days. I don't have a midi keyboard for input, so I must rely on something like Fruity - which allows me to input track notes from my computer keyboard fairly easily. I am saving to buy a Creative 'Blasterkey' keyboard but getting it here will take a while.

Anyway, thanks for posting me a reply and for the advice. I will try your idea tonight and see how it goes. I know it's not the best way to do what I need, but it may very well work out OK if I can sync everything up properly. I just am so jazzed that I might be able to use my little, newbie-type DAW to actually finish this song instead of going begging to some creepy studio suit-dude that I can't believe it is possible!

By the way, if I can get it up, I will be posting this song on the internet for free for those who care, which will really piss off the assholes at MCI records, but Leon would have wanted it that way. So wish me luck!

Thanks & Cheers,
Steve