electronic music production

Gardor

i have just bought a 40gig, 512ram, 2.8ghrtz p4 laptop with windows xp. i have cubase and reason on it at the mo and am considering getting the motu 828 mk2 for music production. my plan is to hook it all up with my korg synth/guitar/1210s/whatever and have my own little recording studio to fu@k around with. i have heard that it'll all work better with a mac from some ppl, and it'll work fine on both if done right from others. wondering if there's any ppl with more experience than me(i've next to none) in electronic music production that have a similar set up and know the best ways to get great recordings on the DIY spectrum.
any advice on any other sofware/hardware that'll help?

also, im gona need to have some better friggin speakers to hear it though than the laptop ones. any one know a cost friendly solution? (info on cables/connections would be great too.)

-G-

D!ve^Bomb!

would ya not have thought about all that BEFORE u bought the gear!:rolleyes:

Gardor

you didn't understand the post. if any 1 does understand the post, advice on the best recording set up would be great.

robbie1876

Hi Gardor,

Firstly, I don't have much real experience in electronic music production yet, I'm just getting into it, like yourself. I was also looking at the motu unit, but in the end decided to get just a good soundcard instead. I decided that I would do all my mixing on the PC rather than using an external mixer. If you are planning to mix externally, the motu is yer only man, otherwise consider a good external soundcard instead.

I got a Soundblaster Audigy Platinum EX for €100 off the creative.ie site. It supports 24bit 96Khz (albeit only one channel at a time) and has optical in/out and midi in/out for connecting to my Yamaha Motif7. There is also a pretty good mic input. Overall, I've found the quality to be excellent and am happy with the results. I use Cubase to do all my audio and midi mixing and everything else!

I have a couple of small mixers that I can use for sending multiple sources in at the same time. A little while ago, I recorded a demo for a singer/songwriter with acoustic guitar and vocals, and it sounded great. The only problem I could have with this setup is recording the likes of drums, where you need to individually mix 5 or 6 channels after they have been recorded. The Audigy can only record 1 channel at a time. So have a think about what you want to record, the Audigy might get you up and running, and you can always lash in a motu at some later stage.

Speaker wise, I have a couple of setups, but I do most of the work on my Acoustic Energy AE200 Sub/sat speakers. They have served me well, and are neat and not too expensive. For final mixing, I have some more expensive speakers - it's always a good idea to check your mix on several pairs of speakers.

Hope this helps, sorry I can't be more specific with the motu stuff...

Robbie

fitz

Depending on the type of music you're intending on producing, check out Reason, from software developers Propellorheads....
Great for synth stuff, drum loops, etc.

Gardor

i checked out the audigy2platinum there and it seems pretty cool. but the motu seems leagues ahead considering the mix and channels. especially since i know i will need to record drums at some stage(an live gigs- i hear its great for that). the motu seems the more pro of the two, but with that comes the price. but you get for what you pay for (so the reviews keep telling me).

i also checked out the acoustic energy ae 200s. they look sweet and i've already found a few good sites with decent prices. havent founds any reviews but you say they do well, so it seems a good afordable option.



cheers dude

-G-


yea, reason is what i have at the mo. am pleased with it so far but want to try some others(already looking though cubase). wont really know whats best till i have the set up complete i suppose.

musician.ie

Have you considered what you need the soundcard to do? Looking at the specs, 10 * analog I/O + ADAT ( 8 channels ) may be overkill. Will you be recording more than a couple of external instruments at a time? Do really need 10 separate outs? If the answer is yes, then add a 24 or 32 channel mixer and a patch bay to your budget.

Like fitz says Reason is an excellent program for electronic music. Another alternative is FL studio which can use VSTi instruments. These are software synthesisers which integrate with FL. The best news is that there is a dizzying array of them available for free at http://www.kvr-vst.com . You can also download a demo of FL studio which isn't crippled. There are other packages such as project 5 and orion, even some free ones ( but not as good ) like buzz and audiomulch.

Using a setup like this will allow you to mix inside your computer and have most of your soundsources inside the computer, reducing the complications. expense and noise of outborad equipment. Of course you can still use your existing outboard in conjunction with the software. I would suggext a more modest soundcard for this though. Maybe 4*analog IOs with a couple of XLR connections and phantom power for a condenser mic. Also at least one set of midi ports and low latency ASIO and WDM drivers.

Also note that laptops can be fiddly, as can external USB or firewire audio interfaces, so be careful.

Hope this helps?

robbie1876

By the way, have you shopped around for the motu? I'd be curious to know the best price you found it for, if it's cheap enough I might be tempted now...

Gardor

so far i've found it at £630.99 sterling (so over a grand euros) and $749.95, although not sure about p&p with the states one. if its catching your eye check out the review on www.tweakheadz.com. theres some good audio hardware reviews on it and a nice little low down on reason.





-G-

as it has a decent ammount of channels and also some xlr, i think it might be the right device. i've heard that about laptops alright but its needed for convienience and portability.

m0rt

M-Audio have a good range of 'portable' recording interfaces (usb and firewire). I've been using their Delta 66 internal soundcard for years and love it. Their prices are reasonable too.

http://www.maudio.co.uk/index.php?do=products.list&ID=mobileinterfaces

For recording / sequencing, I used to use Cubase. I moved to Sonar about 2 years ago and have never looked back. It is incredibly powerful, easy to use and built for the PC. It also works with VST instruments and plugins as well as its own native DXi format.

http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/producer.asp

Check out Digital Village for gear. Most of my gear has come from them - they always seem to be cheapest for pro audio stuff and they're nice people.

http://www.dv247.com

If you're looking for monitors, I'd highly recommend the Behringer Truth active monitors. Loads of welly, reasonably flat freq response, built in amps (active) and loads of controls on the back - hi and low frequency roll off etc - which is handy for different room positionings. If money is no object - look at the Mackie 824s.

http://www.dv247.com/invt/14454

Hope that helps.