Basic studio setup advice please?

[the butler]

Hi there, Im new to this site, so please forgive me if im in the wrong section.

Im returning to music production after about 6 years or so when I messed around as a hobbie but am now looking to get a more serious setup. My lord how things have changed!!!

Im expecting, well hoping to spend around £3000/£4000 on kit. Its mainly dance music Im into producing and I want to take it a step further and be able to do what I want with my music rather than being restricted by my equipment and get to a professional level.

Im a bit lost and unsure about what basic things I should buy in order to acheive this goal. So I thought before I spent a load of money on kit Id seek some advice.

Im not looking for particular brand or product advice as I think searching around this site will help a lot with that, Im just looking for hardware advice.

My basic idea so far:

-Mac computer with good soundcard loads of RAM etc
-Cubase (or something similar)
-Good synth
-small control keyboard
-Big mixing desk?
-Decent monitor speakers
-Drum machine?
-Sampler?
-sound modules?

As you can probably tell, I dont know much about setups! I don't know if I need a drum machine or a sampler or how big a mixing desk I need or if I need a custom made computer or if I need any other stuff.

Basically I want a professional set up and want to be able to master my tracks and be able to do anything I want with my channels etc and with my music and am willing to pay whatever needs be.

If anyone could give me any pointers on setup with some product examples so I have an idea then I would be extremely grateful. Any help is greatly appreciated, forgive me if Ive asked too much.

Thanks for reading, Joe

[itsplayed]

What are you looking to accomplish with your setup? How many I/O do you require? How many midi devices will be used? Why have you chosen to run with a Mac?

[the butler]

Im looking to accomplish a professional dance studio setup so that I am not limited in any way by the equipment or the setup I have. For example I used to be limited to only being able to control 1 performance via midi on my old synth, so the rest had to be audio.

Im now thinking of getting a carillon instead of a mac, and thinking of getting one control synth and 2 or 3 rack synths. I don't know how many I/Os ill need (I guess a few?). (help!) I understand Ill be able to control any effects such as compression on any channel using the computer, and that if I want to use a few synths then Ill need a mixer with enough channels to cope. Please correct me if Im wrong.

I don't know if the synths should be daisy chained or if there's another way to do it. As long as I can control any sound on any synth via cubase (through midi i think) then that would be good. I believe that one can now record something using midi then record the same thing as audio in the new cubase, thereby freeing up more performances to be used on a synth?

Please excuse me if I sound ignorant, Im just looking for a few pointers to help me get started.

Cheers

[GZsound]

First off, no matter what computer you get, forget all about it having a "decent" sound card.

Make sure your new computer is Firewire and USB compatible, has extra PCI slots available and you will be good to go and able to expand as you need.

You can daisy chain synths, but you would be better served getting a midi router of some sort if you have multiple synths playing multiple parts.

You would also be smart to buy a multi port MIDI interface so you have at least two MIDI ports sending information.

Then decide how many channels you want to record at the same time. Normally, most "professional" level interfaces are at least eight independent inputs and outputs and with Firewire you can always add additional interfaces if you need more inputs.

With computer prices where they are today, you can build or buy a great music compatible computer for very little money. I personally would not buy a "music" computer.. Even folks like Dell can build you a great computer for music far cheaper than one of the "custom" computer makers.

[87PRS]

"Even folks like Dell can build you a great computer for music far cheaper than one of the "custom" computer makers".
__________________ Mark, glad to see this reference, as my wife bought me a Dell for the studio, and ya know getting a Core2Dou for $509 isn't a bad deal, it takes some Windows optimization, as given on the Sweetwater site, but seems to work effortlessly with AA 2.0 (so far). I know its not a "music" computer, specifically built for music but where are you going to get a deal like this and it came with the conroe 965 duo 186 Ghz proc, XP Pro SP1 & SP2, 1 G Ram, 256Mb video (duo monitor) card, 160 g HD, 2 PCI, 1 PCIe and 1 PCIe X16 slot loaded with a SATA/Raid controller, since I have installed a PCIe 1394 T.I chipset firewire card, and still have room to grow....now if I can just figue it all out haha, actually AA 2.0 seems to work real nice. Dell "outlet store" good buys for working musicians!

[GZsound]

Originally Posted by 87PRS

"Even folks like Dell can build you a great computer for music far cheaper than one of the "custom" computer makers".
__________________ Mark, glad to see this reference, as my wife bought me a Dell for the studio, and ya know getting a Core2Dou for $509 isn't a bad deal, it takes some Windows optimization, as given on the Sweetwater site, but seems to work effortlessly with AA 2.0 (so far). I know its not a "music" computer, specifically built for music but where are you going to get a deal like this and it came with the conroe 965 duo 186 Ghz proc, XP Pro SP1 & SP2, 1 G Ram, 256Mb video (duo monitor) card, 160 g HD, 2 PCI, 1 PCIe and 1 PCIe X16 slot loaded with a SATA/Raid controller, since I have installed a PCIe 1394 T.I chipset firewire card, and still have room to grow....now if I can just figue it all out haha, actually AA 2.0 seems to work real nice. Dell "outlet store" good buys for working musicians!

About the only addition I could recommend for that computer would be an additional hard drive for the audio files.

I had a computer built for me last year with two 160 gig SATA drives, a 2.5 gig processor, one gig of ram, etc. and quiet power supplies and cooling fans and spent a whopping $385.

I see no reason to buy a "custom" music computer for a couple thousand bucks with high speed, reliable computers available off the shelf for a quarter of the price.

[KAYEHL]

here's my opinion


-Mac computer with good soundcard loads of RAM etc
you'll really like the power mac if you've got the money
( but listen to what they say about inexpensive computers too )
you have to get a high quality sound card, most stock sound cards the ADC and DACs are not designed for pro sound

-Cubase (or something similar)
that's right, a DAW. But don't limit yourself to one software. i have a program for printing scores, one for programming midi, a daw for recording, and another program for mastering. I find that individual programs each do their own job better than one do-it-all program would

-Good synth
the question here is virtual or hardware? virtual synths are powerful, but they take up processor power. And try to avoid getting all your synths from the same manufacturer it can limit your sound.

-small control keyboard
an extra keyboard controller is not really necessarry if you get a good synth keyboard to start.

-Big mixing desk?
You can do most mixing inside the computer, although you'll want to make stereo keyboard mixes - eight to 12 channels should suffice . A good desk with EQs trims and sends on each channel will give you more options with your sound. Keep in mind options for microphones like phantom power and mic preamps.

-Decent monitor speakers
yes

-Drum machine?
No, you get more distinctive drum sounds from samplers or virtual drummers, and you can constantly update your sounds. In dance music you dont wanna keep using the same drum sounds over and over. And preprogrammed beats? forget it, you gotta make your own. Although for the price an Alesis SR-16 is very convenient to have around.

-Sampler?
yes this is the most efficient way besides effects processors and loops to make your sound distinctive.

-sound modules?
virtual synths should cover you in this area.

For synth sounds, i would recommend you start off with at least one general midi wavetable rompler, one analog modeling, and one sampling synthesizer. That way you have all the bases covered. They can be hardware or virtual. Actually you may want to skip the rompler and get multiple samplers and analogs.

Doing dance you will have to master loops, beats, sampling, vocoders, other sound processors, (which can all be done in the computer,) importing sound from various sources, and recording vocals. You'll need just a couple of good mic setups, unless you want to record 8 man acapella groups all at
once.

Another important issue is how many independnt tracks do you need to record to the computer simultatneously? You may never need to record more than a single stereo mix at one time but its something to think about.

You can get all the gear you need for well within your budget imo if you research each purchase. i would recommend getting things piece by piece and mastering each as you go.

[KAYEHL]

I don't know if the synths should be daisy chained or if there's another way to do it

i have four USB MIDI interfaces connecting my keyboards. Better to get a single USB interface with multiple ports. Each port is limited to 16 channels, so if you need 35 midi channels that 3 ports.

i use sonar, import my midi sequence, and convert each midi track to a separate audio track so each can be individully processed. takes forever. so i am setting up a multi input card so i can convert 4 stereo tracks simultaneously.

[guanche]

Hey, buttler...


Do you wanna buy a micro for me?...
...and a keyboard controller and a bass?

Come on maaaaan!!!!

Just kidding, of course...!!!