Getting around to upgrading the studio

bobcharley

Hello,

I'm finally getting around to upgrading my mainly software based studio.

i'm currently using ableton live 8 for everything with vsts.

Will be upgrading at the end of the month and ive put together a list of vst, daws and monitors that im planning on purchasing.

I know the features may overlap but if there are any significant overlaps or better alternatives could you lads please let me know.

The following is a list of vst, new monitors and daws that i plan on purchasing.

Genelec 8040apm
krk ergo
virus TI2 desktop
abletonlive8edu
cubase 5 edu
komplete 7
spectrasonics omnisphere and trilian
currently using a 37key remote SL (im in love with the feel of this keyboard!) planning on upgrading to a 61key remoteSL as im starting to learn piano aswell.

going to rack up the pc to 4gbs of ram.

Im gonna be doing something with my room aswell what i can do i dont know but going to have someone to have a look at it.

I believe this will give me a huge palette of sounds for every genre.

Your advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance
bobcharles

i57dwun4yb1pt8

dont even think of buying monitors until you have treated and tested your room, with the old ones in the best position you can find .

( unless the ones you have are absolute ****e )

a fixed room is everything , cant press this enough

bobcharley

DaDumTish wrote: »

dont even think of buying monitors until you have treated and tested your room, with the old ones in the best position you can find .

( unless the ones you have are absolute ****e )

a fixed room is everything , cant press this enough

I was thinking that myself dude..

I'm gonna have the room done before the **** arrives and the ergo should sort out what the treatment doesnt would you reckon ill get away with spending 700 on the room man?

The room is my bedroom aswell as studio gonna be a tight squeeze.

ta

i57dwun4yb1pt8

better go with something nice to look at or easily "put away able "
if you also have to live in it .

will likely cost more to do it like that that bang up a load of insulation like i did .

P brewer would be able to advise you on this .

madtheory

If you build your own broadband absorbers, 12 4'x2' panels will cost you less than €200, the biggest cost being the rockwool. What speakers do you have right now?

If you can, audition speakers before you buy them. Digidesign/ Avid RM1 or 2, and the Mackies are well worth considering. The Digi's are stunning, and occasionally come up for ridiculously low prices used on ebay, because they have the word Digidesign on them. They're PMC's with a digital crossover. If you use the digital input it's like getting a free high quality DA.

I personally dislike Genelecs, having used rather a lot of them. IMO Ergo is a waste of money. You can do the analysis yourself, and apply the eq yourself with any plugin. Doing that means that your sweetspot is much smaller though.

bobcharley

i'm currently using m-audio bx5as. I have'nt got much to compare them to but my mixes do translate ok from these.

Ill be using them as secondary monitors as i'm fairly used to them now!

For the price they are a steal imo .

Time to move on though :P

The way my rooms laid out I only have the option of putting the desk in the corner of the room. will this have a bad effect on the acoustics in the room or will i be able to sort that out aswell.

ideally id want to centre it?

This will be temporary for a year or two until i can afford to build a little studio out the back.

The bass traps for under 200 sound great gonna look into that. i'm also gonna be getting my uncle to do a bit of a job in the room with either insulation or some sort of acoustic board and a new door.

Also the walls will all be covered in nice materials and i'm gonna be getting a heavy curtain to cover the window side of the room.

any suggestions on reasonably priced materials. I got quoted 1000 euro for materials alone from some company and they couldnt even guarantee that it would cut out the full 36decibels which the material was capable of.

That was for 4 walls only.

Thanks again

madtheory

Yes the corner would be bad. For advice on laying out your room for best sound, and a primer on acoustics, read this. I think it links to more articles on his companies website too.

The M Audio boxes have a big resonant bass with that port. Pleasant sound but challenging to mix on. Fair play for achieving translation. You'll find it much easier with better boxes.

ebaysellerrob

eastwest complete composers collection
eastwest gypse
eastwest ministry of rock
trilian
omnisphere
eastwest the dark side
native instruments komplete 7
native instruments machine
above is a list of great vitual instruments.prob more than you would need unless your han zimmer but well worth having just in case

bobcharley

Thanks for the advice

Anyone know of a nice set of monitors for about 600-700 each?

Cheers

madtheory

http://www.thomann.de/ie/search_GF_active_nearfield_monitors.html?pr=580a700

old gregg

if by 'abletonlive8edu' you mean the educational version of Live 8 then double check that it's not crippled. I have a mate who bought it and he's forever bitching that he can only have a limited number of tracks. Then again, it could be a case of user limitation rather than product.

bobcharley

old gregg wrote: »

if by 'abletonlive8edu' you mean the educational version of Live 8 then double check that it's not crippled. I have a mate who bought it and he's forever bitching that he can only have a limited number of tracks. Then again, it could be a case of user limitation rather than product.

Yea thanks for making me aware of this possibly being the case.

But i checked on the website.

Basically the only restrictions they have on it is that you need proof of your educational status.

Confused now as to what vst to go for. There is so much to choose from its hard to pick these things especially some of the higher price range vsts.

Thanks mad theory - Yea i was asking more on personal experience of using monitors mate. Thomann is where its at though :P 3 year warranty as standard you cant go wrong and the prices are usually up there with the lowest.

seannash

Im sure your aware but the libraries with Omnisphere and Trillion are fecking huge.
Komplete aint small either.between the 3 of them id say it comes to around 90 gigs

hopefully youll have enough space for all 3 of them.

also wondering if 2 daws are necessary

bobcharley

seannash wrote: »

Im sure your aware but the libraries with Omnisphere and Trillion are fecking huge.
Komplete aint small either.between the 3 of them id say it comes to around 90 gigs

hopefully youll have enough space for all 3 of them.

also wondering if 2 daws are necessary

Once i have the beat made in ableton i plan on exporting as audio and moving it over to cubase.

Seanash i know the komplete library is huge but i dont need most of the stuff in there.. well i like massive and kontakt but the rest i have never found a use for really considering its the same price to go for komplete 7 it would be a stupid decision to just buy them seperately

Whats your opinion on the eastwest stuff man?

seannash

bobcharley wrote: »

Once i have the beat made in ableton i plan on exporting as audio and moving it over to cubase.

Seanash i know the komplete library is huge but i dont need most of the stuff in there.. well i like massive and kontakt but the rest i have never found a use for really considering its the same price to go for komplete 7 it would be a stupid decision to just buy them seperately

Whats your opinion on the eastwest stuff man?

thats cool.
ive no experience with eastwest stuff to be honest man.

komplete is the smallest out of the three vsts(12 gigs,omni is 40 gigs,same for trillion) but like i said if you have the space go for it.

i have heard alot of people who start out on ableton say that they will either rewire to another DAW or bounce out audio but i imagine as soon as they become competent in the other DAW this goes out the window.

then again if thats the way you work then thats the way you work.

seems like your going to have a nice setup once your done,i is jealous:)

ebaysellerrob

eastwest are prob the biggest collection but sound the best imo.If you have ever heard a great score or music froma film then they prob used the eastwest complete composers collection.other good vsts from them are minisrty of rock for rock drums and guitar/bass.Gypse has more of an acoustic traditional feel,very nice for spanish guitar and violin, the dark side is good for sound design and sound that composers like akira yamaoka would use

bobcharley

ebaysellerrob wrote: »

eastwest are prob the biggest collection but sound the best imo.If you have ever heard a great score or music froma film then they prob used the eastwest complete composers collection.other good vsts from them are minisrty of rock for rock drums and guitar/bass.Gypse has more of an acoustic traditional feel,very nice for spanish guitar and violin, the dark side is good for sound design and sound that composers like akira yamaoka would use

Sweet found a sample disk they have on the site its around 100 euro and its called terapack. You get all there stuff on a Tb harddrive and a 10 day trial of everything. Id be particularly interested in there orchestrial stuff. its hard to find decent orchestrial samples.

bobcharley

seannash wrote: »

thats cool.
ive no experience with eastwest stuff to be honest man.

komplete is the smallest out of the three vsts(12 gigs,omni is 40 gigs,same for trillion) but like i said if you have the space go for it.

i have heard alot of people who start out on ableton say that they will either rewire to another DAW or bounce out audio but i imagine as soon as they become competent in the other DAW this goes out the window.

then again if thats the way you work then thats the way you work.

seems like your going to have a nice setup once your done,i is jealous:)

Would you reckon? thing about ableton is it's so easy for me to do things now.

i love the session view!

You may be right though but i really dont know and considering im getting them both for the price of ableton live 8 or cubase 5 on its own.(educational editions)

Man i really dont know if i even need the virus though with all the vsts out there now and they sound great..

its a tough one!

for the price of the virus i could get all the east west stuff well apart from that hollywood strings bundle and a few upgrades to the pc.

More ram, SSD for the operating system + daws and vst put omnisphere and trilian libraries on the raptor and another 300gb raptor for other samples + komplete.

I think komplete 7 alone is like 90 gbs man :O

i have about a terabyte of ****e on this pc that i need a home for to get it out of my way haha.
so thats being dumped somewhere.

amazing how ****e builds up.

Man im always up for working on beats with new heads if your ever up near dublin give me a shout on here and well work something out work on a few beats and a few vapes or something haha..

Ta again..

ebaysellerrob

here is a you tube link to a guy that demos a lot of vst's he owns most eastwest vst's if you look in his upload folder

http://www.youtube.com/user/Torley#p/u/108/LbHJsxxrJXw
hope it helps