What Do I Need?

FlimFlam

I browsed back through this forum all the way to January but I didn't find the answers I was looking for. I'll try to be concise!

I want to be able to play any instrument (piano/drums/guitar etc.) on a keyboard and record to my PC.

Soundcard: I have only on-board sound. Any suggestions as to what I should be looking for in sound card? Do I need some top range product like the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro or will any €100 sound card do?

Keyboard: I don't know what I need for this part. Would something simple like the M-Audio Keystation 61es or the Novation Remote 61LE do what I'm looking for?

Software: For editing, I plan to mess around with the demo versions of Reason and Fruity Loops to begin with. For sound samples, can you buy a huge selection of instrument samples or is this something I should be looking for in the actual keyboard itself?

I have a budget of about €800 for the lot. I'm using Windows XP. I would appreciate any feedback!

condra

Hey there.

Before I start, the whole recording thing is a pretty subjective affair. Everyone has their own way of doing things, and opinions on products, methods etc can vary greatly.
Take most music/recording advice with a pinch of salt. (except my advice, I'm the best :rolleyes: just kidding!)

I want to be able to play any instrument (piano/drums/guitar etc.) on a keyboard and record to my PC.

Shouldn't be a problem.

Soundcard: I have only on-board sound. Any suggestions as to what I should be looking for in sound card? Do I need some top range product like the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro or will any €100 sound card do?

Firstly, dont touch anything by creative. Thats one thing everyone will agree on!
Onboard sound on a Windows machine is probably going to suck. The drivers are part of the problem, I wont go into much detail about latency, WDM/ASIO/ASIO4ALL etc because once you have a good soundcard you wont have to worry about all that rubbish.

When buying a soundcard, think about what you will need, you probably wont need numerous ins/outs/preamps etc etc. You might not even need midi i/o, midi keyboards these days are usb compatable.
You could get something like an M-AUDIO firewire/usb audiophile for half nothing, and it will do pretty good. I use a firewire audiophile myself and I swear by it.
If you want to spend a bit extra for good quality and features that you will use for a long time, have a look for a second hand MBOX or Saffire. These are fantastic bits of kit and will allow you to record "professional" vocals, instruments etc.

Keyboard: I don't know what I need for this part. Would something simple like the M-Audio Keystation 61es or the Novation Remote 61LE do what I'm looking for?
Too right theyll do. Novation products are that bit more expensive but are fantastic quality. Bang-for-your-buck-wise, I'd recommend the M-Audio Axiom.
All of these keyboards will slot into your usb port, you may need to install drivers. Then your sequencer software ("DAW") will recognise them, choose your instrument, and play away!

Software: For editing, I plan to mess around with the demo versions of Reason and Fruity Loops to begin with. For sound samples, can you buy a huge selection of instrument samples or is this something I should be looking for in the actual keyboard itself?
Reason is pretty good for starting out. Its handy to get your head around, and comes with various virtual synthesizers, samplers, effects etc. Still, in my opinion it is not a nice environment to sequence in, and it doesnt support audio recording in the typical sense. A lot of people use it like a plugin with other, more powerfull sequencers like Live, Sonar, Cubase etc.

I dont know anything about FL but have never been inclined to mess with it.

Sonar and Cubase are extremely powerful bits of software, but will take quite a while to learn. Cubase is historically one of the most popular sequencers in the "prosumer project studio" but seems to be going through a hard time lately.
I used Sonar on my old windows machine before going mac+ableton and it is an absolute BEAST. One instrument included with Sonar is the TTS-1 "rompler". It is basically a sampler pre-packed with tons of fantastic sounding instruments.

Ableton Live. That is what I reccommend most. Its easy to learn, yet more than powerfull enough to make professional recordings, especially if youre into dancey stuff. Download the demo, its only about 80mb, and it will blow you away. There are tutorials built into the software. If budget is an issue, there is also a "light" version which is still very powerfull.

Whatever sequencer you choose, presuming youre going down the "honourable" route and paying for them, remember that most sequencers have a cheap "light/LE" version, which will allow you to upgrade in your own time.

Regarding instrument samples, it sounds like you want to use realistic "real world" instruments, as opposed to synths, analogue drum machines etc.
No, these wont come with the keyboard. Midi keyboards send midi messages. What sound is made is up to what they are connected to, in your case, a computer running software.

Theres basically 2 types of virtual instruments (VST plug-ins) available in audio software, those that rely on samples, and those that generate sounds from scratch, the former being samplers, the latter being synths.
Multisampled instruments come in many formats, you will need a sampler such as Kontakt to play them. For starters though, you could get a free soundfont player and use soundfonts, of which there are millions available online for free!

I have a budget of about €800 for the lot.

Wish I had 800 quid to spend on my rig!

2 more things. The best advice I could give you.
1 - Buy or subscribe to Computer Music or Future Music.
2 - Visit http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm

Best of luck on your new adventure. You wont regret it.

cornbb

Hi, welcome to the forum.

You've probably seen this sticky already but I thought I'd throw it in there just in case. Read it if you haven't done so already

Edit: just realised I'm mostly echoing what womoma said here, but anyway:

Soundcard: I have only on-board sound. Any suggestions as to what I should be looking for in sound card? Do I need some top range product like the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro or will any €100 sound card do?

Firstly, the type of music you want to create (electronic, sample-based) won't involve recording per se as all the sounds are produced within your computer, so strictly speaking whatever soundcard you have will do the trick. However as womoma pointed out, most generic soundcards suck for audio production. The Creative card you mentioned might be considered top of the range for gaming/watching movies, but it is not geared towards audio production. But you don't need anything too fancy either.

Keyboard: I don't know what I need for this part. Would something simple like the M-Audio Keystation 61es or the Novation Remote 61LE do what I'm looking for?

I'd also recommend the Axiom, preferably with at least 49 or 61 keys.

Software: For editing, I plan to mess around with the demo versions of Reason and Fruity Loops to begin with. For sound samples, can you buy a huge selection of instrument samples or is this something I should be looking for in the actual keyboard itself?

FL and Reason are probably good choices as DAWs/editors. Also check out Ableton Live. As for samples/sounds, your keyboard won't actually come with sounds built in - think of it as a controller for triggering sounds within software. A good product to consider is Native Instruments' Kontakt 2. It comes with a large library of instruments, is expandable, and can be used on its own or as a plugin within something like FL or Ableton Live.

Don't forget you'll also need to budget for decent speakers/monitors.

Best of luck and have fun!

squibs

For samples, if what you're looking for are instrument samples rather than loops, then you'll need a rompler (Read Only Memory sampler - a sampler engine packaged with a large colection of sounds). You can easily drop several 1000 euros on a rompler, but there are some cheap alternatives.

I strongly recommend Wusikstation from wusik.com. If you subscribe to the magazine (6.95 a month) you get access to the sampler, many Gigabytes of samples (more every month), and updates. It has an incredible synthesis engine for playing with your sound and it's very light on CPU.

A step up from this is Dimension Pro from Cakewalk.com. It has a great selection of bread and butter instruments and is priced to sell.

FlimFlam

Thank you all for your very informative replies and encouragement!

cornbb wrote:

You've probably seen this sticky already but I thought I'd throw it in there just in case.

Oh dear. That was one of the first threads I opened when I discovered this forum, and I did see your post. But I read "A Guide to Electronic music production" as meaning 'electronic/dance' type music production and just skipped down to the next post. My apologies for making you repeat yourself

womoma wrote:

have a look for a second hand MBOX or Saffire. These are fantastic bits of kit and will allow you to record "professional" vocals, instruments etc.

Those MBox's are a lot pricier than the basic sound cards And to be honest, I just don't understand what the MBox is capable of and whether I need any of it's features. I'm quite proficient with regular consumer PC hardware, but I feel like a fish out of water when looking at the various sound card specifications! I wouldn't mind spending the extra money on the MBox if I could appreciate how much better it would be against a cheaper sound card, if you get my drift. Speaking of cheap, I think I'll go for the E-Mu 0202!

The Axiom looks like a great piece of kit. I had been glued to the Korg range of products and never noticed it before.

cornbb wrote:

Don't forget you'll also need to budget for decent speakers/monitors.

I was just planning on picking up a pair of headphones and side-stepping the whole monitor issue. I can't yet make a decision between a few Audio-Technica and Beyerdynamic models.

squibs wrote:

You can easily drop several 1000 euros on a rompler

I saw NI's "Komplete" package and it looked very appealing, until I saw the €1300 price tag Although, it does seem reasonable for what you get, compared to a lot of other packages that I've seen around. Having said that, I'm very impressed with the amount of demo versions of software available. I can't wait to give them a try and find one that I like.

womoma wrote:

http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm

Excellent resource!

cornbb

FlimFlam wrote:

Speaking of cheap, I think I'll go for the E-Mu 0202!

Sounds like a great choice, I have (had ) an E-MU interface and was very happy with it.

I was just planning on picking up a pair of headphones and side-stepping the whole monitor issue. I can't yet make a decision between a few Audio-Technica and Beyerdynamic models.

Those are decent brands. Decent headphones are well worth splurging on if you're not getting monitors.