Any recommendations for getting a 12 year old started?

shayser

His instrument is piano and he progressing well, got distinction in grade 2, 3 and 4 over the last two years. Has done family weddings, school plays etc.

The attachment is the ports on the Clavinova he uses. He will also have a second hand acoustic piano shortly. Does a bit of singing too.

From reading the stickies (thanks), I think he needs a fast PC, external sound card, pair of monitors, 2 mics? He will be using Sibelius, Cubase and Wavelab.

Not sure about budget. Excluding software, would €1500 to €2000 be enough?

I haven't much of a clue, never did music, so any recommendations very much appreciated.

TelePaul

I'm gonna jump in here and say my piece before the 'pros' do. You can actually get started on the long and winding road to music production for relatively cheap; I don't think I'v spent €2000 on my entire set-up and I've been mucking about for four or five years now.

Most modern PCs are more than capable of providing the means to lay down a few tracks. If the chap has a family PC, it might be useful to post the specs (Go to Start -> Run -> Type: dxdiag).

A cheap USB sound-card seems like it'll do the job nicely, as it'll allow you to record with the electric pianos L/R outputs or a pair of microphones if you choose to go that route. These can be picked up for as little as €100 online (try www.thomann.de) You'll also need something to 'monitor' through, to listen to your music as it plays back. You can use headphones to start with, but generally for best results you'd need a dedicated set of speakers; again, you get what you pay for. I currently use an old hi-fi system which I'm quite pleased with.

As for mics, well as I said, the electric piano can produce sound through the stereo outputs, so no mics are necessary. For the acoustic piano, a pair of small diaphragm condensor mics are preferable; I like www.naiant.com. For vocals, a large diaphragm condensor (let's say Studio Projects C1) or a common dynamic mic (Shure SM58) are fine to start with.

I think something that's worth pointing out is that music recording generally attracts two types of people; those who play an instrument or who play in a band and want to record jamming sessions or a rough demo, and the 'pros', those who look beyond that into the 'science' of things; in reality, audio recording and processing is an incredibly detailed and difficult subject. The point I'm trying to make is that if you're looking for a way for your 12-year-old to mess around with drum loops or experiment with recording his piano, then you can get him on the road for a few hundred bills. If you're thinking more long-term, well, that's a different story.

Also, one of the lads here (Paul brewer) runs a pro audio shop in Dublin, he'd probably be able to cater for your needs and answer any questions you might have about equipment or the whole process of recording in general. Just don't listen to him if he says your guitars are out of tune

shayser

TelePaul that's just great, thanks a million. I will check out all that you've recommended. I was really hoping I didn't have to spend that amount and I'm glad you've shown that it's not necessary.

He has a pc in his bedroom. Without looking, I think it's a P4, 1GB, 120GB 5400rpm, XP. He uses it for games. Didn't think this would be good enough. Should I just go ahead and try this out before buying a new one?

If you have a minute can you say what 19 - 23 do in the diagram? Is the stereo out you mention number 20? I suppose when I get the sound card it'll be obvious?

TelePaul

shayser wrote: »

TelePaul that's just great, thanks a million. I will check out all that you've recommended. I was really hoping I didn't have to spend that amount and I'm glad you've shown that it's not necessary.

He has a pc in his bedroom. Without looking, I think it's a P4, 1GB, 120GB 5400rpm, XP. He uses it for games. Didn't think this would be good enough. Should I just go ahead and try this out before buying a new one?

If you have a minute can you say what 19 - 23 do in the diagram? Is the stereo out you mention number 20? I suppose when I get the sound card it'll be obvious?

Okay, from googling tthe CLP 240, here's my take on 19-23.

19 - USB port, for backing up songs to USB storage device (it seems the CLP 240 is capable of recording three two-track songs to internal memory)
20 - Stereo outputs, presumably for connecting to amplifier inputs
21 - Auxillary input, not sure what this is for, perhaps for an external expression pedal? Dedicated volume/muting pedal?
22 - USB port, most likely for connecting to a sequencer like Cubase (but without a dedicated ASIO driver, you may struggle with latency - more about this later)
23 - Midi input/output, presumably for utilising the MIDI capabilities of the instrument, possibly as a MIDI controller.

I think when it comes to amateur music production, you should spend in accordance with your needs and expectations; with that in mind, definetely try the gaming PC before rushing out to buy something new. XP (with Service Pack 2 presumaby?) and a gig of ram is enough to be getting on with, not sure about the capabilities of a Pentium 4, but as the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. If the young lad shows George Martin-esque potential, then maybe think about spending big money on a prosumer rig.

I should have prefaced all this by saying that I myself have a very modest set-up, because for me, recording music will always come seconf to playing the playing and performing aspects. There are a few similarities, but being good at one by no means equates to being good at the other. That said, with an abundance of quality freeware and thousands of websites dedicated to home recording, it's not difficult to get a handle on the basics.

Ultimately, the whole thing should cost you less than €500 if you take the time to set up your PC correctly.

shayser

Thanks again, will go with the existing pc and check out the soundcard and mics. Which of the Clavinova connections will connect to the sound card?

jimi_t

Shayser, it might make a bit more sense if you explain what you're trying to achieve - are you trying to record the sound coming out of the clavinova directly, are you trying to use the clavinova as a mute 'controller' keyboard to control software synthesisers?

Also, presuming that the primary use of this would be for composing and recording, are you concerned about a structured sequencer using 'proper' musical notation and theory or just the new age equivalent of a fourtrack?

(i.e. Sibelius Vs. Cubase/Live/Fruityloops etc...)

Your computer is plenty fast - I'd throw another gig of RAM in it and put in a secondary 250gb HD with a decent RPM; maybe going so far as to replace the fan with a quieter one and muffling the HD rack so as to reduce ambient noise. This would cost less than 150 euro; less than 100 if you were astute and shopped around.

To be very very honest with you, I think at age 12 he's a little too young and might get completely put off by the complexities of using a computer to record in the conventional sense with Mics and such.

A copy of Sibelius and a cheap (20/30 euro) USB to MIDI adapter might actually be the best option overall for him, especially considering he'd learn a HUGE amount of Theory from just messing around with it and it would be a UI that he'd be immediately familiar with.

fabbydabby

Heh.

think something that's worth pointing out is that music recording generally attracts two types of people; those who play an instrument or who play in a band and want to record jamming sessions or a rough demo, and the 'pros', those who look beyond that into the 'science' of things; in reality, audio recording and processing is an incredibly detailed and difficult subject.

This is a very good point. I messed around in bands drumming and having the craic for about 8 years. I reached a pretty good standard on the drums but didn't know the first thing about music theory... so I started getting piano lessons - at 23! Three years on and I am doing just fine, and have a pretty good idea how to put a tune together but they still don't sound remotely professional, which is my ultimate goal.

As far as I can see, the young fellah has the hard bit done... if he knows theory up to grade 4 and can play well, he can learn the technology stuff as he goes.

shayser

...

shayser

Some good questions asked here, thanks.

He's has as much interest in computers, if not more, than music. I'll set it up and leave it up to him. He might be doing enough as it is. Had a chat with him earlier and he said he wants to compose and add instruments his recorded playing/singing. Am I on the right track for this?

For the PC, I have a spare 74GB Raptor (10k rpm). Would I use this for the system drive or the data drive.

Anima

Nice, thats a quality harddrive. You should install all your software on that as well as the samples. I doubt he'll need more than 70gigs and with the 10,000rpm, things will load very fast. Although they're quite noisy so that might be an issue.

jimi_t

shayser wrote: »

He's has as much interest in computers, if not more, than music. I'll set it up and leave it up to him. He might be doing enough as it is. Had a chat with him earlier and he said he wants to compose and add instruments his recorded playing/singing. Am I on the right track for this?

We'll he's a young guy in the mid grades (ABRSM Grades or RIAA 'Levels'?) so I would really recommend getting him nothing more complex than a USB-MIDI interface, buy (education version of) Sibelius and maybe upgrade the speakers plugged into the computer. That will give him massive scope and will be more than enough for him to get his head around for the next year or so.

I wouldn't recommend him recording his singing just yet - lessons would be infinitely more valuable at this point. Not only is his voice liable to break in the near future, looking at your own voice in a critical way at an early age like that can be a harrowing experience for a youngster and might break his confidence entirely.

Dagon

I didn't have time to read all of the responses but...

You should really think about getting him an Apple Mac (a Macbook pro or iMac would do the trick). They come with Garageband free of charge, and it has everything you need to get started, and it's easy to use and very fast to get up and running. Plug in a cheap midi-keyboard and you can start composing straight away. CoreAudio is amazing and it does everything you need.

I moved over to Mac last September and it's the best move I've ever made. The old motto "it just works" holds true, and if the hardware is being used by a 12 year old you don't want to have too complex a setup, or have to deal with driver issues or crashes!

ICN

shayser wrote: »

OK, thanks.

I would like to apologise for my near the knuckle innuendo.

It was an allusive or oblique remark, a bit suggestive and disparaging.


Christmas cracker jokes from now on only.. :rolleyes: