Home recording set-up - mainly synths

B

benroles

New member
Hi all,

New member here with a question! Over the past few years I've purchased various synths etc. and coming from a piano-playing background am pretty adept at flying round the keys when i feel like 'jamming' (with myself!). I've also hooked up my synths etc. at various different times to my computer. However, generally all my kit isn't hooked up to each other and whilst playing around is fun I want to get in to properly composing / recording etc. Can you help me please with regards to how I should go about hooking things up together. At the moment I have:

Virus TI Keyboard (has MIDI, can be a MIDI controller and USB link)
Korg Radias (MIDI only I think)
Korg Kaossilator (ordered the other day but has MIDI and can be a controller?)
Roland Fantom S (MIDI)
Roland VP550 vocal harmoniser (only audio out I think)

At the moment I have them all plugged in to a noddy mixer to allow me to play them 'all' and get sound out.

I already have cubase software on my PC that I bought a while ago but have never used it fully.

So in essence I think I just need to know what audio cards / controllers I need and also what mixing equipment or similar I need? I guess the MIDI / USB etc. controlled synths etc. I'd control from the PC but I also need to be able to capture the sound from things like the VP550. As an aside, I'd like to be able to record some acoustic sound (guitar, harmonica etc.) as well as vocals.

Can somebody please help me put together my set-up?! Basically a 'how to' and 'equipment needed list' would be superb.

I ultimately want to be able to control my instruments, record the sounds that cannot be controlled (e.g. vocals) and mix together the output.

Thanks so much for your help.

Ben.
 
Easy way:

Buy a simple, 2 channel interface that also supports midi such as the Tascam US122 or the like. Run all your keys into the mixer and sum to 2 channels to the interface and from there into Cubase.
You would have the flexibility of recording them all at one time onto 2 tracks, or one stereo source at a time via multi-tracking.

Better: Buy a multi channel interface that supports 8+ inputs + midi. That way, you could stream everything into Cubase but assign tracks to each synth. If you intend to do any sequencing, this is by far the better method.
I keep specifying midi capabilities for the interface because, once you get into this you're going to find that you might want to run some VSTI synths that can be hosted in Cubase and controlled via any of your midi controllers.
 
I would recommend getting a separate MIDI interface, as opposed to one built into the audio interface. Something like a MOTU MIDI Timepiece (or some flavor or it) would work well.

I'd connect each synth via MIDI to the MIDI interface. Depending on how you use your synths, and how many available audio inputs you have on your audio interface, I'd also connect the auxilliary/extra audio outputs on your synths (I think Roland Fantom has 4 outputs, right?) to the audio interface. That way you can have multitimbral MIDI performances, while still having the flexibility of each part ending up on it's own audio channel.

I'd designate the Roland Fantom as your master keyboard controller (it's got great controller features). In your DAW, all you'll need to do is to set each MIDI channel to receive MIDI INPUT from the Roland, while it outputs to whatever Synth it really needs to go to. Although from time to time you might want to change this, so the MIDI channel is set to the same synth (Radias, Virus) for both Input and Output, just in case you're playing directly on that synth instead of sending MIDI through the Fantom.

I hope that makes sense.
 
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