Pre-bie

[keithcf]

Hi to all. I'm not even a newbie yet; call me a "pre-bie" . . . or something. I'm hoping you will give your advice on what sequencing software (or Studio - in - a - Box) and midi input keyboard you suggest. I'm starting from scratch and I want to do it as right as possible for $2,000 - $3,000 US for computer, sound card, software and keyboard.

I am a bass player, a bit of keys and a hack guitarist, but I still want to play all the parts myself, at least at first. I'll be doing lots of vocals and I want to be able to record my buddies drums as well at some point. We will be working remotely and sharing tracks with each other that we intend to import into our respective editing programs. We'll be doing mostly pop songs, and intend to do MIDI as well as audio recording

If this were you, knowing what you do, how would you do it? Any other "pre-bie" tips are also welcome and appreciated. Thank you in advance to anyone willing to help.

Keith

[macouno]

Ok midi imput keyboard.... doesn't really matter... You can get an expensive one with weighted keys but a cheapo will work as well... I have one by Midiplus here, it was cheap but it works fine and has done for years. (got to keep it clean though) Just find one with an optional footswitch for holding notes, a pitch wheel, modulation wheel, and the one I have has only 4 octaves so it's not huge but I can switch it an octave up or down so it gives me 6 in total... nice ;)

For your audio... I recon you already have a PC... ??

Basicly modern pc's should all be able to handle what you want to do... The big configuration tricks are:

1 get as much ram as you can afford.

2 get a second hdd for the audio files (so one hdd for windose and all the programs, the other for all your files). Make the windose hdd the primary master, put your cdrw drive in as primary slave, make the audio hdd the secondary master and try to keep the secondary slave slot free... You can get real fast hdd's with big buffers but the difference in marginal, so I wouldn't bother.

3 Try to keep your music pc as clean as possible... best is no internet connection and only windose and music software on it, but do what you must. But remember, the more junk the less reliability.

Then you need audio/midi in and output... The thing here is that you want to record a drum set as well... so for that 4 in/outputs would be nice... Have a look at M-audio and Echo soundcards. And find one with 4 in/outs. If you can't find one with midi in/out as well as audio, don't worry a small midi in/out on usb is cheap (see edirol or M-audio) and they work fine.

And since you'll record mics a mixer would be nice... have a long look at souncraft compact mixers, they're real nice for the price. But since you'll want to record 4 channels simultaneously see if you can find a mixer with "direct outs". Mackie is good, soundcraft is nice, alesis also. Just look around and read a lot.

And... not everyone will agree with me but on pc, midi and audio... well get Steinberg Cubase as your software and you're done. Sonar/Samplitude and others are good also, just find whatever you can and see what can do what you need.

Final bit of advise.... you can't make a good mix if you can't hear what you're doing, so I'd spend something like half my budget on some good monitor speakers and 2 nice headphones (beyer dynamic DT 250 are really the best), 2 cause both you and the drummer will need to hear what's being recorded. For monitors, find a store, bring your own cd's and have a long listen. No one can tell you what's best for your ears.