Set my home studio up!!

E

Elyst

New member
Hey guys,

I have a ton of questions. Now some may sound stupid because I don't really know how these things work, but I'm pretty sure they can be done... maybe just not with my gear.

Before I start let me break down the material list so we know what I'm dealing with

.Mac Book air
.Alesis IO2 express interface
.JTS E-100
.Yamaha psr 323 keyboard
.yamaha UX 16 - a midi/usb interface
.Line 6 amp 15W
.Ibanez AR 250 (black)


1) What is the best recording program for Mac? Back when I was on Windows I used Cubase and then Reaper. I want to dedicate to recording mostly clean sounds, maybe adding a few effects here and there.
But I also want something to make a little more "dubstep" like sounds, so I can add layers of effects to my naturally recorded sounds.
I sum, I want to try my hand at electronic music/dubstep but not with synthethic sounds (maybe a couple of them).

2) As you noticed I'm missing some drums XD. What do you recommend? EZDrummer? Some crazy VST?

3) I saw this in a Youtube video, a guy had a midi keyboard hooked up to his mic and PC, and he sang while playing keyboard. The keyboard would modulate his voice to the pitch of the key, and when he pressed a chord it would accompany the voice, making it seem that there were 3 people (one in each note) singing in the respective keys.

I have an interface and a MIDI interface and a midi keyboard. How can I set this up to do that vocoding.


Thanks a lot for reading :D
Hoping to see some answers pop up soon ;)
Cheers and keep your Groove on mates!
 
FL Studio tends to cater towards 'Dubstep', House, Hip-Hop and modern electronic genres, though it can of course be great for any kind of music. Though you will need Windows for that so you could use the Mac - Windows converter.

Maybe it will be too much trouble and cost to convert the Mac but it does include generators and plugins which will do that sort of crazy thing with your voice, such as the Vocoder and their version of 'Autotune' for the voice. The automation also allows you to trigger VSTs to create that 'breathing' effect using side chaining and all that kind of thing. I don't know the full extent of that as I do not use it in this way. It comes equipped with several drum machines and there seems to be a great emphasis on getting that deep, fat, electronic bass drum sound. All things considered, I'd say it would be ideal for your purposes.

It's a shame they have decided not to code for the Mac OS but there are ways around it and I did notice a couple of Mac users on their forum.
 
Reaper is available on macs so if you were happy with it on PC then the mac version is no different. However, if you want something for both standard recording/mixing and making "dub step" etc then Logic is pretty versatile for both.

I've only ever played around with EZdrummer lite but it's pretty cool, but there's also BFD which seemed just as good.
 
It's like the older Metasonix gear; The Butt Probe is probably the most "polity" named of their whackier named gear :D

Tbf there was a time when BFD2 was mega cheap, but by the looks of it EZDrummer have just undercut them a shed load. Cheeky muthas! Oh, there's also Superior Drummer which is Toontracks bigger boy drum stuff and if you're into djent/metalcore/stuff like that then all the cool kids use it
 
thanks for the replies musical bro's/sista's,

FL Studio - there are several ways to run this on a Mac I believe. I have a Windows 8 VM and I guess I could just use that. But it's bound to slow down things since it will consume more memory and processor. I usually wouldn't worry about this, but the software + VST's tend to get a little heavy on the specs.
(even for games and such I've though about installing Windows in a partition, but I don't really play that much and I don't think it's worth the extra disc space used).

I'm sorry if my first post made it sound like I wanted to dive head first into dubstep. Truth is I'm very selective to which types of dubstep I hear and I want to ease into it. But I am curious about those phat basses and drops.

Reaper - yeah... I liked Reaper on Windows... but truth be told I never did anything besides recording, cutting and trimming some edges and putting tracks together.
I haven't goten into the fine details of EQ'ing adding effects and so forth. I actually have a trial currently installed, I just need some time to sit down and figure out how it works.

I have to look into Logic... maybe take it for a test drive.

Some follow up questions,

What about Garage Band? What are the opinions for general music composing/recording with it? I only tried it once or twice, but just a few clicks of a button and it was jamming on with itself to some funky Grooves... I recorded a little guitar track, but I couldn't figure how to cut it.

As for the vocoding and the midi. Theoretically I have everything I need right? All it should take would be pluggin the Ux16 to the usb and the MIDI keyboard and tune the software (whichever one it is).
But the Ux16 cable as a usb port on one side and 2 midi (in and out) on the other. I assume both MIDI's are plugged to the keyboard... ? Or should I plug the Midi in to the keyboard and the MIDI out to the interface (which should work with the software part to make the vocoding)?

thanks for the help so far guys ;)
 
Any ideas for recording bass?
maybe:

a) A plugin to modify the sound of guitar to one similar to a bass

b) A bass vst

c) using the keyboards builtin bass midi

???
 
a) I've had reasonable results using EQ and a filter, just playing the first four strings. A musician might advise you to alternatively tune the guitar (?)

b) Run a Google search for free plugins. Being a PC user, I never took note of how many are also available for Mac.

c) Depends on your keyboard. Only you would know how good it sounds.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top