From a Newbie to other Newbies...

I'm gonna share a newbie mistake I made...

...I bought an obscure sequencer, 'cos the price was right. I realized my mistake soon enough, and replaced it with Cubase, but the work I did in that first sequencer (PowerTracks 6.0) is stuck in that format. I could extract the wavs, I suppose, but the midi work is trapped in lo-fi land.

If I'd had it to do again, I'd have started with Cubasis or one of the baby Cakes :-)D ) instead, so there's be an upgrade path. That's how my Acid work started out (Acid Music 1.0), and I've been able to move my files upward as I've upgraded.

Of course, not enough newbs come here before they buy (typical thread: Hi, I'm new here and I just bought a Sowsear Soft Sequencer!!! I'm so excited!!! What do I do now???). The right answer would be, "take it back, get something normal". But hopefully, a word to the wise...

Daf
 
There are good points on both sides. Just as Slack said a solid monitoring system should be where we should all start, but you hardly ever see that happen. After that you work it out from going from need to want.

When i first got interested in digital recording I already had a so-so PC with a Soundblaster Live card and a cheap keyboard with midi capabilities. I had protools free and a cubasis demo that i dl'd from the web. I knew right away that the sound was not good( coming from my PC speakers). I went to GC the guy talked me into a delta66/omni (i consider myself lucky that its was actually a decent purchase. I was so anxious to buy that taken his advice on anything he suggest to me) Long story short, everything i had originally, I ended up replacing, and i dont recommend buying cheap. but you don't have to go top shelf either. The delta 66 is still part of my setup its reliable and good sounding and not incredibly expensive. I didn't know how to maximize the uses of the Omni I/O (still dont) but i use its basic functions everyday. and when i decide to take it to the next level I dont need to replace it. I'll just have to RTFM. Any piece of equipment you buy will have to be learned why waste hard earned cash on temporary gear. Unless of course recording is only for temporary fun

P.S. If you cant afford the cost all in one shot, try AMS's easy payment plans. Break the cost into 3 or 5 payments Its the only way I fly.
 
Probably get flamed here but, I'm gonna' take a chance and jump in............

Kevin, I understand what you're saying and, to a large degree, I'll have to agree with you on many points.

I'm a newbie on a limited budget myself. I've got what I'm sure many experienced folks would call "junk equipment" (Tascam Porta02 MKII, Nady mics, headphones and PC speakers for monitors, n-Track Studio) but, at this point in time I've got alot of basics to learn and all the extra bells and whistles would only confuse me. What I've got works for me at this time.

I've been at this less than a week but I can see already that I need to upgrade my monitor situation. So next, I'll study the equipment available and, when financially able, I'll upgrade accordingly. As I become more educated in this home recording business, I'll continue to upgrade equipment as needed.

As for the tool analogies, let me make this analogy.........

If you're a new driver and only need a car to go to the grocery store, does it make sense to buy a Mercedes or a BMW to accomplish that task or would a Hyundai suffice? As you become more proficient at driving, you might want to start to explore. IMO, at that point, that's where you might consider upgrading to the 'Benz or BMW. Otherwise, there's alot of money tied up for little benefit to be realized.

Next, I've got a very good friend who, when he takes an interest in something, buys only THE BEST, top-of-the-line of equipment available.

As a result, he's got tons of money tied up in high-end toys that he's really only capable of using the most basic features of. He can rattle of every pertinent spec and feature available but doesn't even begin to scratch the surface in terms of taking advantage of all the features available.

He got into SCUBA diving about ten years ago. Bought THE BEST regulator, THE BEST double tanks, THE BEST mask, THE BEST fins, etc.......topped off with some type of big-dollar divers watch that is rated for some unbelievable depth that would most likely crush you from the pressure if you ever went that deep but, he can honestly claim that he's got what, at that time, was the best gear available. Thousands of dollars worth of it.

He hasn't done any SCUBA diving in about 8 years. His equipment now sits in a closet in his house. The hoses are dry rotting and the equipment is no longer state-of-the-art so, he can't even come close to getting his money back if he tried to sell it.

My analogy..........I don't need a Makita screw gun to mount the license plates on my car. Just a regular old flat head screwdriver will do the job just fine!
 
High Kevin!

I understand what you are saying and to a certain degree you are right IMHO... but in others really not.

IF you buy a midi keyboard that opens the world of midi to you, it certainly will not be worth to buy an upper-league thing. But if you ever plan to record some singing, you'll need a 'half way decent' mic. If you buy something in the sm57/58 class (which I personally dislike) you'll have at least something you'll surely end up using lateron, too. The same thing with something like an audio buddy or a dmp3... you will be able to use it for some time. It may be different with a better sound card... If you own half way decent monitors, you'll be able to use them for a long time too.. If you cannot afford them, buy some half way decent headphones and start. Your mixes will definately have some problems (with stereo image and a lot more) but it may be something to start from.

The problem is that you may end up in a lot of stuff that is so bad that you never start to train your ears. You resemble to me to someone trying to improve his SLR photo setup. You use an objective, a skylight filter and always watch through the viewfinder through sunglasses. Everything of these three has some greasy film on it. You realize you never get these sharp details. You change the objective, but still it is not better. You change the filter and still it is not better. You take off your glasses and it's not better either. So you decide to buy a flash...

So I assume a mic and a mic pre should be on your list and probably some headphones. You'll need them for recording vocalsanyway. My first 'real' phones were closed ones (which came quite bassy) which I still use for recording vocals. As they were too bassy, my mixes sounded very thin.

YMMV,

aXel
 
ok well i understand...kinda.

Ok well I get what your saying kev... but to a certain extent...
When I was starting I got a mixer then i got a mic then a stand then a pre amp then an equalizer than a sound card and so on... so basically what I did was just get everything I NEEDED to record ...but once you have a basic set-up dont just keep getting crap once you have a basic set up and grasp recording and know that you want to do that and not just drop it two weeks later start Upgrading.... so yes when your new dont upgrade yet... get what you need like a mic, cable, stand, and mixer, and 4 track (or computer program) then after that you should up grade :)
 
First off.......I agree with Slack....you have to have a good monitoring system.......doesn't have to be mega-bucks....but it has to be fairly good. There's a lot to choose from.

As for the rest of it.....I have had a homestudio since 1970 (started with a Teac 3340AS ) and everything you guys have now is better than what we had.
Now I don't know 'puters so I accept that maybe some soundcards or software suck. But in the hardware dept., every single thing that's out now surpasses the stuff that was available back then unless you bought the top notch pro gear which, of course, only the big boys could afford.

So make some music.....let your muse flow and don't get so caught up in the "Oh if only I had the Bombast 1503, then I could make some good music" syndrome. Sure, there's differences and the better gear is worth it. But in a world where plenty of people claim to hear no difference between a wave-file and a high bit-rate MP3, the differences aren't so great that you can't make nice music and learn with the lesser stuff.
 
damn Steve, they had electricity when you started.......:eek: :D :p


but the Lt. is right.....i started with a crappy 4 track and a WalMart mic back in the 80's, and now I have decent gear and guess what?....I still suck as much.......

I think starting out with crap gear gives you the advantage because you learn to make the best out of crap gear, and once you start learning, the places you need to put your upgrade $$$ are obvious......
 
Gidge said:
I think starting out with crap gear gives you the advantage because you learn to make the best out of crap gear, and once you start learning, the places you need to put your upgrade $$$ are obvious......
Click to expand...
Yeah, I agree..........l'm a bicycle rider. I have some very nice bikes.....but until I had been riding a while, I really didn't have enough knowledge to make a good decision as to what bikes to buy. Now music gear isn't as user-specific as bikes, but to some extent, I think the same principle applies.

Just as bad as buying something cheap and having to replace it is buying something expensive and it turns out you don't need it. I've done both. :D
 
Re: To address the power tools analogy...

KevinTran said:
There are very complicated power tools out there. A person that has never handled the equipment would be overwhelmed by the complexities of the higher-end much more costly tools.

Let's say you never knew how to use a jigsaw before. You used it for 6 months, learning what could and more importantly couldn't be done with that $45 jigsaw. Then after 6 months, you've gotten that much experience with using it and when you went to replace it, you knew what functions worked for you, and what functions you didn't care about. With that knowledge, you were able to choose just the right 'professional' grade jigsaw. Maybe it's a simplistic example because a jigsaw is pretty straightforward. You can't discount all that you LEARNED with the cheap one that ENABLED you to know what to upgrade.

I'm sure spending 45 on a cheap jigsaw to first learn how to use, freed up some money to get an accompanying miter saw. Now you get to learn 2 pieces of equipment!

kt
Click to expand...


Spending money to learn is what you do when you go to college so no Chris I do not discount any of the money or time I spent learning. I also cannot discount the fact I have spent a lot of money learning that if I spent more time researching before I made those purchases I would have more money now. I sing A Cappella so I wanted quiet recordings. I did some research on the internet and finally bought a shielded sound card which cost a little more. When my recordings were still noisy I did not even suspect the soundcard as being the culprit. I looked at my cables and mic. To me it was worth it to have that gauge from which to proceed. I really do understand your original point and I agree that learning a new aspect of something keeps the creative wheels turning and gives you insight into a larger picture.

Recording is an expensive endeavor and this is why I have adopted my own version of "buy something you can grow with".

I think you have done what you set out to do by initiating a dialogue that any newbie can reference and then ask themself "how does all this relate to me?"

As me fictious pappy would say: "We like it when it works!"
 
Ok... now from a TRUE newbie's point....

Well, after reading all your posts and analogies... I have come to one conclusion... You are all comming to "post/semi post newbie" point of view. They say that foresight may be fuzzy but hindsight is 20/20... That's not the case here.

First off... Let me reply from my point of view... I am a TRUE newbie... I have yet to compose a single song.... I came here hoping to find the basics... And from reading this post, people suggest I go out and spend $500 on something I know absolutely nothing about. What is a monitor? Do you need good headphones for recording lyrics? I don't know.. I haven't been there yet. Remember, this post is for newbies... not for pro's talking about the past.

I came here because I, probably like all of you have been at one stage in their life, have a simple midi keyboard, a SB live in their home PC, and a $30 pair of headphones with PC speakers. When I was young, I was semi-interested in MIDI. When I was younger, I was introduced to the MIDI side of PC's by buying the Gravis Ultrasound Max (brings back memories). Back then, I used a DOS midi player, and could load samples into the Gravis's 512K of sample memory. The fact that I could change the samples in the card's memory, and change the piano in "moonlight sonata" to something that sounded more real fascinated me... I then bought Midisoft's Studio V 3.... Now, I could actually change the music.... Maybe even add my own echo and make it sound almost real.....

Well, Gravis got old... and SB AWE had more memory and more capabilities.... I bought an AWE 32 and put some Simms in it... now I could load some soundfonts... Eventually, I upgraded to AWE64 gold, and actually bought the memory upgrade from Creative labs... Still.. no keyboard... just changing existing midi to suit my taste.

Well, a short time ago, I actually went out and bought a cheap midi keyboard in the hopes I could learn to keyboard. Needless to say, I was disheartened to not be able to find any programs to teach me how to play.... I even went out and bought Cakewalk for $100ish in hopes of composing some music.. .but no luck.So, I just dabbled with the keyboard from time to time. I'm semi-frustrated at my own lack of knowlege of how to play.... Since I was young, my mind has always composed songs (I figured my mind can keep track of 4 different instruments at once... or one "final" sounding song)... I would humm the basic tune into a tape recorder, and left it alone... Since I couldn't play the keyboard... can't convert it to music.


Now, I have an old version of Cakewalk, and still don't know how to play the keyboard. Recently, I've been getting back into the idea of composing my own music.... If I would have bought $500 worth of equipment, it would now be $500 worth of OLD equipment that probably wouldn't work with my current PC.

My end statement: If you're a newbie wanting to do this as a hobby for your own pleasure, then I don't see the need to go to the full spectrum. However, if you are a newbie with the idea of doing it as a secondary income, or plan on publishing it or sharing it, then you might want to consider getting the high end system.

Analogy replies:

If you're planning on doing carpentry as a secondary income, then by all means buy the good tools, but if you just need to fix the broken birdhouse, why buy $500 of tools?

If you're driving just to the grocery store and back, then you don't need that high priced Mercedes... However, if you have a job that might require alot of driving... by all means go for the luxury.

My newbie question will be posted in a new thread.
 
Hey newbs.......welcome to the board! :)

Look......all of this depends on the individual. If I was just starting out........I'd get a MR-8 or something like that. To some on this board, that's not sufficient, but it would be fine for starting with.
Or, if you use your 'puter to record, then there's all kinds of free software around that more experienced guys wouldn't use, but once again, it's suitable for starting out.
But if you're gonna ask the question.......then the folks who answer it are gonna answer it from their own perspectives. How can they avoid it? So you're gonna have a majority say that you need whatever they feel they need. You have to pick and choose.

Plus.......I went back thru the whole thread and the great majority did not say you had to spend $500 on something. Only a couple did, so why would you focus on that specific thing?
In fact, I said in my posts that basically anything you get today will do an adequate job, so just get some gear, any gear, and go nuts.
The performance is the single most important thing in the chain.
 
...

Well, $500 was Slackmaster's dollar figure to save up.... And, since I don't know too much about prices on other professional equipment, but I do know it costs quite a bit even for the low end. For example, c7sus suggested to use anything BUT a soundblaster... He even said that a Darla20 was at least better... Well, I did a search for it, and found they run about $350... someone suggested get at LEAST a good mic... I looked on Ebay, and it was selling for about $50..... It seems people's "minimums" seem to start around $500..... But anywho.....

Thanks for the welcome... I'll frequent here from time to time, but it's just a very mild hobby for me. I'll see if I can make due with what I have.... I know it's not professional, I know it doesn't even match up to other's "minimum"... but hey, I'm doing it for the fun of it...

By the way, I normally type fast, so typing up that paragraph didn't take me more than 5 minutes. Besides, It'd be good to see how far I can go with what I have... I'm the type that learns to build webpages using Notepad.exe.... maybe this will be a similar learning process.
 
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