so confused

[timnmelinda]

As some of you may have read in another post I am setting a studio up for my daughter, her primary interests are vocal and guitar. She is good on piano so I am going to set her up with keyboard/synth for this studio, my thoughts are it will give her more fill for anything she records.I have really been reading and studying to try and make reasonable decisionson my purchases. To the nitty gritty poing, I have a couple of questions:
I am leaning towards Cubase SE (or Steinberg Studio Case Production Bundle) or Powertracks

Would it be better for me to get her a controller keyboard and run with the software using soft synths or is it better to get her a lower end synth
I was thinking maybe the Korg microkorg as it is compact but sounds like it has neat features, or a low end Yamaha (the only thing about the micro is she has gotten useed to playing a real piano and a cheapie casio so will she adapt? I really am on a budget fighting with her mom cause I am spending alot for Christmas (New Pc, recording stuff, Pa system and mixer. guitar amp upgrade) But she really has alot of talent has performed solo and with groups so I wish for her to persue this (And allthough I cant play or sing I am digging all this stuff alot)

Another side note is I know she wants a drum machine which I was going to get a low end Zoom or Alesis, do I need to get the drum machine or will either route I am talking about cover it for me?

And final thought in the really low end Yamaha 150- 200 range I know these units have sounds, will they function as a controller keyboard for soft synth use if so that would probably maybe be better than buying just a low end controller keyboard. I know I am long winded on this one I apologize but I am a bit confused and hope you all can share some wit and wisdom (Ok hopefully more wisdom) Thanks all in advance, Tim

 

[ssscientist]

Tim -

Add Tracktion to your short list of midi/audio sequencing packages. You can download a free demo version that's fully functional for two weeks and if you like it as much as I do it's only $80 to buy a copy.

http://www.mackie.com/products/tracktion/

As far as a low-line Yamaha versus a controller keyboard, if the Yamaha has midi jacks then it has (probably) enough midi functionality to serve a dual role. Read the manual to make sure that it has velocity sensitivity that's transmitted over midi and a control for turning Local control off. This breaks the connection between the keyboard and the sounds inside and lack of it means there's no way to kill the internal sounds without turning the volume all the way down.

I would hold off on the drum machine because Tracktion comes with a simple but capable sampler plugin that will give the same result and functionality. If she insists she needs a drum machine in a few months you can get it for her then...

 

[tedluk]

If your budget is really, really tight, then you're better off running soft-synths within whatever program you choose. There are inherent drawbacks to that approach, of course, but if budget is the overriding determinant, then you might have to live with them. The drawbacks are that to run multiple soft-synths concurrently, you need a powerful, properly configured and optimized computer. Even then, you will quickly run into limitations. There are ways around them- rendering soft-synths to audio to free up resources, for instance. Other drawbacks can be latency and difficulty in programming to name a couple. Still, the advantage is a wide availability of different instruments and processors, many of them free or inexpensive, all of them far cheaper than their hardware counterparts (and for many of them, ther ARE no hardware counterparts).

I'm a little confused by your suggestion of getting a Microkorg. It's a cool little synth, but, unless I'm missing what you're trying to accomplish, would probably not be a good unit to either learn keyboards on or be useful for generating a wide range of common sounds. It's a 2 oscillator, mono-timbral, 4 voice polyphonic analog modelling synth with 37 mini-keys (think toy piano). It's more suited for creating techno and hip-hop. Is that what you're going for?

Just to throw one more choice out there for you- Consider Cakewalk Home Studio 2 or 2XL. They're the entry level products from Cakewalk and have a lot of good features plus an upgrade path to their flagship product SONAR when and if she gets that serious. They sell for $99.00 and $149.00 respectively.

Lastly, any keyboard that has MIDI on it can be used as a controller. Keyboards dedicated to this function often have additional assignable sliders, buttons and knobs to facilitate programming of softsynths and other devices, but for simply playing the sounds, any keyboard will do the job.

I hope that helps answer your questions.

Ted