I am going to get a mini keyboard and use my computer to run a software instrument package, now I play piano and guitar and my son is in to making dance music tunes and studying it at school , so I thought this would be a good solution so we can both play and record are music from home . I have to admit I am new to the tech side of this and even after doing alot of reading online i want to make sure I am getting the right equipment , So I will need to get a midi keyboard , instrument software package like FL Studio - cue base, fire wire external Audio Interface to input - midi keyboard - mic,- guitar - I don’t need them all plugged in at the same time , Monitor speakers also where would I connect them to the laptop or external audio interface? Not sure if I will need a pre amp? or mix desk am i right in saying the software comes with mixing and effecs ? Am I on the right track is this everything I need? Also any advice on the type of products that would be used for home use would be a great help ?
Help build home studio
- Thread starter darren2k
- Start date
TheBones
New member
Hey Darren, What kinda budget do you have/How deep do you wanna go? Assuming that you have a decent computer to begin with, I've never worked with FL Studio but i don't think you can record audio. so that might work great for your son to do dance music on, but as far as recording your guitar i don't think it will be helpful. Personally, I use Logic Pro 9 (mac only). It's useful in both applications. Comes with ton of plug in effects (EQ, compression, distortion, reverb, etc etc.) and it also has software instruments that come stock (piano, synth, drums, etc). fairly user friendly and useful for both purposes, recording audio and midi. So when you have a decent DAW (digital audio workstation) installed on your computer the next step for me would be the audio interface. I don't use a lot of midi but when i do i just use an Alesis Q49 usb/midi keyboard controller connected via usb to my mac. doesn't go through the interface at all. just plug and play via usb into logic pro. Open up logic, load a software instrument and go to town. for recording audio, that's when i use the interface. This is a big can of worms as far as topics go (As are all of these ingredients for a home studio, i'm just going for rough and dirty). People swear by firewire and i will take nothing away from it but i use a Tascam Us-800 which is Usb 2.0. I've never had a problem with latency, i've recorded 6 simultaneous tracks with no problem. Do your homework, decide how much you wanna spend. As a general rule of thumb for things like this… you get what you pay for. you can spend like over $500 on a single input audio interface or like $500 on a 6 input audio interface. The more you spend on a single input interface the better you would expect the "digital converters, preamps blah blah blah" would be. which brings be to preamps i guess… your interface will have them… simply put, your preamp is whatever you plug your microphone into that has the three pin XLRs. you can buy out board preamps and run them line into your interface but i don't think that would be necessary for you as they are usually also uber expensive. Instead of monitors you might just start out will a good set of headphones, you can usually pick up a pair for right around a hundred bucks i have a pair of Sony MDR-7506 and i really like them… since i moved that's what i'm using for monitoring and it does suck sometimes but i just don't have the space for my monitors right now. when you do get monitors though they will more than likely run through whatever audio/midi interface you've selected. As far a microphones, i think i would get a decent condenser to start with (which would require you're interface to have phantom power) and a decent dynamic (shure sm57 is my go to dynamic and my Blue Spark for the condenser side). but again you can spend $50 bucks to $5000 on all of these different little pieces of the pie. So, in large all of this has to do with your budget when you wanna get to specifics.
TheAquired
New member
FL Studio can record audio. I am almost 100% certain of it
TheBones
New member
Seems like I heard it couldn't. That's the only reason I mentioned it.
DarrenVocal
New member
Hey what's up, the other darren of me?
On the serious side: You should be able to make small songs with it, but if you want to make good songs, I would recommend you to upgrade your processor.
Cheers,
Darren.