My first MIDI setup for College

soham_b

New member
Hi guys. First post here. Sorry if this has been answered before but I searched and couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.

I'm primarily a guitar and double bass player. But I'll be off to college by fall and I can't carry all my existing gear to a dorm room. So I thought of putting together a small and portable rig to just keep myself occupied and learn the ins and outs of computer-based music.

First off, I'm using a Samsung Series 3 ultrabook. Core i5-2430M @ 2.4Ghz, 4 GB RAM, Realtek drivers and I'll have Win10 running by August. I'll probably be using this for the next 2 years.

I've also messed around with FL Studio 9 I few times, and although I enjoyed the new experience, the cluttered interface really put me off. Looking around, I found Ableton Live's neat and minimalist layout to the best of my liking.

I've been doing some research and this is what I've settled on:


DAW: Ableton Live

MIDI Key: Novation Launchkey Mini (comes with Ableton Lite - I can later make use of their student discount and upgrade it)

Audio Interface: Focusrite Scarlett Solo (comes with the Novation Bass Station VST, which seemed useful since Lite doesn't have any synths. Plus the Loopmaster samples should be useful to get me started.)

All this and a decent pair of headphones (most probably the ATH-M50x) just about fits in my small budget.

So what do you guys think of this? I'm not expecting amazing quality at this price point and neither do I need to since I'll mostly be learning stuff for the next couple of years. However, I do want decent audio quality, durability, portability and low latency (I checked for latency with the DCP Latency Checker app and I seem to be okay since it's under 2000 μs).

I'll appreciate any help I can get. Thanks a lot.

Soham.

PS: I've read that the audio interface will help with latency issues so I looked them up and picked the one I thought would best fit my needs but I have no idea how to connect the Launchkey to one as it only has a USB port. Do I even need one, then? :confused:
 
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Well done in running the latency checker! But that just tests the computer for speed, latency is almost all a function of the AI and MOST importantly, its drivers.

Economise where you can but NOT on the interface if you want low latency. The only AI I know sub £300 that will perform well is the Native Instruments KA6. I also think the lack of connectivity and general simplicity of the Solo will frustrate you very quickly and AFAIK the bottom feeder range of the Focusrite AIs are not known for low latency.

The keyboard plugs into the laptop USB port. If said lappy has only two USB ports you might want to invest in a USB hub? Get one that can be powered. Usually AIs' don't like working thru hubs so plug that straight in however I am sure I have tried my KA6 on a POWERED hub and it worked. Can test that for you if it is moot.

Dave.
 
Well done in running the latency checker! But that just tests the computer for speed, latency is almost all a function of the AI and MOST importantly, its drivers.

Economise where you can but NOT on the interface if you want low latency. The only AI I know sub £300 that will perform well is the Native Instruments KA6. I also think the lack of connectivity and general simplicity of the Solo will frustrate you very quickly and AFAIK the bottom feeder range of the Focusrite AIs are not known for low latency.

The keyboard plugs into the laptop USB port. If said lappy has only two USB ports you might want to invest in a USB hub? Get one that can be powered. Usually AIs' don't like working thru hubs so plug that straight in however I am sure I have tried my KA6 on a POWERED hub and it worked. Can test that for you if it is moot.

Dave.

Thanks Dave. I think I'll get the NI Komplete 6 then. Worst case, I'll buy it used to stay within my budget.

I do only have 2 USBs. Which hub do you recommend?

I've been playing around with FL Studio 9 and so far I haven't had any latency issues (but that's probably because my ears are just not fine-tuned enough yet). So from what I understand, in this setup, I'll only be using the AI for monitoring, right?

I've been looking at videos of the Launchkey Mini and it seems to integrate very well with Ableton & does enough to get me started so that's one less thing to worry about.

Thanks again for your help. :thumbs up:
 
Thanks Dave. I think I'll get the NI Komplete 6 then. Worst case, I'll buy it used to stay within my budget.

I do only have 2 USBs. Which hub do you recommend?

I've been playing around with FL Studio 9 and so far I haven't had any latency issues (but that's probably because my ears are just not fine-tuned enough yet). So from what I understand, in this setup, I'll only be using the AI for monitoring, right?

I've been looking at videos of the Launchkey Mini and it seems to integrate very well with Ableton & does enough to get me started so that's one less thing to worry about.

Thanks again for your help. :thumbs up:

I doubt there is anything to choose between the various USB hubs? You could stick to well known names, Belkin, Trust, D-Link but the 4 port jobs all seem about the same'ish money, £10 or so. Do make sure however that you get a powered hub and that it comes with a power supply.

You don't need "finely tuned" ears to be bothered by latency! In fact the more experienced you get in playing and recording, the greater delay you can cope with it seems. But people vary tremendously in how much latency they can work with, getting a low figure cannot be a bad thing!

Rock on.
Dave.
 
I doubt there is anything to choose between the various USB hubs? You could stick to well known names, Belkin, Trust, D-Link but the 4 port jobs all seem about the same'ish money, £10 or so. Do make sure however that you get a powered hub and that it comes with a power supply.

You don't need "finely tuned" ears to be bothered by latency! In fact the more experienced you get in playing and recording, the greater delay you can cope with it seems. But people vary tremendously in how much latency they can work with, getting a low figure cannot be a bad thing!

Rock on.
Dave.

Hi Dave
Yeah I checked out some of the hubs and found a powered, 4-port one from Belkin with good reviews. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

So it looks like it's gonna be

1. Novation Launchkey Mini (with Ableton 9 Lite)
2. NI Komplete Audio 6
3. ATH-M50x headphones
4. A Blekin powered USB hub

The best part is that all of this is very portable I don't see having any trouble carrying it to college, which was my main concern.

Thanks for all your help Dave.
Cheers.
 
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