Advice on home studio setup

machiavellianme

Hi,
I know theres been similiar threads before but I just want advise on a reasonable home studio setup. What I've got is a pentium 4 pc with 512mb ram and about 3000 euro. What I would like to know is what ideally I should have as regards software and hardware. I'm a songwriter who plays guitar and keyboards. My vocals are not overly strong so I will also need a harmoniser. On such a budget (say up to a max of 4000 euro), would it be possible for me to acquire a soundcard (mixer/recorder), mics etc and some software?
For software, is there anything that exists for musical composition that allows step input (melody/contrapuntal/chord input) via a mouse or similiar controller? It would also need to be able to assign both notes and dynamics (cresc/dim etc) to any voices (bass flute sax etc) and play from the score? Essentially I'd like the software to have lots of capabilities but behave simply say like a word document with all the edit/copy/paste functions.
Thanks for any help or ideas as to the above

bombidol

for 3 or 4 K you could definatly get a nice little studio going. I use adobe audition for recording multitrack and Fruity loops for Programming music, it allows keyboard/mouse input for virtual instruments on a piano roll.

Lets get started on Mixing board / mics what are you looking to record in the long term?
id also recommend moving up to about 1 gig of ram at some stage too but 512 is a reason able number for the time being

Doctor J

I'd steer you towards a digidesign mbox factory bundle (about €600) which comes with Pro Tools LE. That'll cover your software mixing and hardware soundcard.

Get a set of Alesis Active M1 monitors (about €350 from Thomann) for some clear sound.

Mics, maybe a Shure SM57 and something like this should enable you to record everything well enough, then blow the rest on plugins.

machiavellianme

yes, I'd imagine long-term I will probably plan to record some jazz/blues or rock tracks but predominantly for the moment I'd like to get any relevant hardware/software and learn to fully use their applications and utilities and just start composing in this manner. I can also forsee some live gigging perhaps later on but portability isnt important for mixers etc at the moment. As for RAM, yes, I do intend to acquire some more (possibly 2 gigs total) but I was wondering as to hard drive requirements also.
Also Dr J, is the digidesign mbox factory bundle a worthwhile prospect in the long run? I'd rather shell out for higher specs now and learn to use it rather than upgrade at a later stage thereby losing out on the learning curves and at further expense. Also, would its 2 analog inputs be enough? or would i be better with something like the tascam 24 track?

Doctor J

I got one of these. Recording onto the same hard disk Windows is running off is a huge no-no. Plus, since most studios around the world a pro-tools compatible these days, if you ever wanted to bring you stuff into a full studio to mix/record extra parts/whatever, you just bring your disk and off ye go. Seems to run better through Firewire than USB2 (but works just fine through both) so maybe a PCI firewire card while you're buying the RAM would be a good idea.

Edit-> in response to your edit, the way I see it, if you want to record a load of things at once, a drumkit or whatever, you're not going to do this in your house. You could look at a Digidesign 002 and an octopre LE with an adat card which will allow you to record 16 tracks at once into protools, but for all the grief of humping all that gear and your PC, without the additional expense of buying a powerful laptop, is it really worth it when you'd probably get better results just hiring a reasonable studio for a day and bringing it back on your disk to edit/mix in protools at home. Pro Tools LE has 32 voice capability (ie you can mix 32 audio tracks) on your computer, with an mbox you can only record two tracks at once. For home recording though, I think it's a good deal. Protools is amazing, it really is.

machiavellianme

Dr J, I cant get your link to open for some reason. I can see your point of view, that I'd be better with the simple 2 channel setup so with that in mind, and considering my preference for the blues/jazz and early rock, what plug-ins would you recommend. Oh and thanks for the helpful discussion by the way.

Doctor J

No problem, I've recently done this myself, so I'm going on direct experience. The main plugins you'll need for your style of music would be a good EQ, good reverb and good compressor, the rest, well you can live without them, it's up to your own personal taste. The mbox factory bundle comes with a few more bombfactory effects and a joemeek EQ, which isn't too bad at all. Waves have some excellent plugins. The thing with Protools LE is that the effects hit your computers processor hard and you've got to learn how to balance usage and sometimes you've got to bounce a track down to free up some resources but, other than that, it's the dogs bollix. It is fantastic to be able to record something in a proper studio and bring it home to edit/embellish/mix and vice versa.

If you do feel the need to record a lot of tracks the digi002 is quite sweet, a mate of mine has one and the octopre le (it would suck up your whole budget though) so there's a potential 16 tracks simoultaneous recording. The handy ting is, regardless of your hardware, protools is protools, so it's pretty much the same wherever you go, given the differences between different revisions. Once you learn protools you can attach whatever hardware and you'll know what you're doing, same if you go into a proper studio.

That link is www.carillondirect.com - they sell excellent external hard drive systems, well worth the investment.

dabhoys

Listen to the doc he knows what he's talking bout.

Pro Tools is an excellent program. If your just going to be jamming ideas on your own then the Mbox is plenty for your needs. I have the 002r and OctoPre but my aim is to be recording full bands so I need the most I can get out of my inputs. I'd give the two thumbs up to Pro tools its worth getting.

Also try and get urself a nice set of monitors. You can have all the greatest gear in the world but if you have crap monitors then its not worth it and mixing it headphones isn't an option.

The Yamaha MSP-5 or 3's are good. Also the alesis MK-1.

Another important thing is the seperate audio hard drive. There worth there wait in gold do get one

machiavellianme

Ok but as for compositions. Is it possible to "write" music using Pro tools or is it just for mixing editing? I would ideally like software that could I could score my compositions with and perhaps "voice" some bass/drums etc in any recordings that I might make by merely typing in the musical notation and having it accompany me. How realistic is this? Should I perhaps think about a drum machine and can that be easily incorporated into the mbox bundle?
Oh and I have decided to go with Dr J's advice. Seems pretty sound.

bombidol

are you talking about literally putting notation into a program then getting a Virtual instrument to play the music? Its possible yeah but i dunno what program can do it off the top of my head

machiavellianme

bombidol wrote:

are you talking about literally putting notation into a program then getting a Virtual instrument to play the music? Its possible yeah but i dunno what program can do it off the top of my head

Yes. Something like that would be most usefull. If anyone has done this before, I would also like to ask as to the realism of such virtual instruments. ie does say a sax actually have the full range of sounds available and would it be blatantly obvious that its not real?

bombidol

It depends on how much work you put in. If the sax lines etc arent too mad you might get away with it but personally i find a lot of virtual instruments to be lacking. However if you embrace the fakeness you can get some interesting results

david

We have composing software in school with virtual inst simulations... Its ok but not as good as the real instrument obviously... The guitar sounds like crap on it. Its a program called Sibelius

Doctor J

bombidol wrote:

embrace the fakeness

LOL Good name for a tune, that


TBH, the whole MIDI side isn't my strong point but I remember working on a program called Performer years ago which at least converted what you composed into notation so I'm sure there is a program which would allow you to input and edit notation. Buy a cheap ass MIDI keyboard and play your lines in and edit them in MIDI, I think that'd be by far the easiest way to create what you want and then you can edit the MIDI information afterwards in ProTools or pretty much any other program. ProTools also comes with Reason Adapted which, although largely designed for dance music, can be well used for other musical styles and experiments. Virtual Instruments can really only be judged individually, some are more realistic and sample based, others just plain suck. You could ask here for more advice and also pick up Sound On Sound magazine if you see it in a newsagent, it deals with exactly what you're looking for.

Kenny_D

Hey. If you decide to go for the Mbox Factory Bundle then check out this guy.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23784&item=7315479662&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

I've just ordered mine from him and it came to 530euro incl fully insured delivery. It comes to 640 incl delivery from thomann.de

dabhoys

Reason is a very powerful program. Theres plenty you can use in it to write drums, piano, strings etc... And re-wire it directly into Pro Tools.

The midi functions of pro tools aren't as good as dedicated sequencing based programs. But its more then enough to make music with.

For an all around making music package the Mbox is the way to swing...