Studio setup for a newbie

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mwoods

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Hi everyone!

I'm looking to set up a home studio, and have been researching what options I have that will meet my budget, and just wanted to run it by a few people who are in the know, to see if i've made any glaring errors before i part with any cash.

I've been playing guitar for about 10 years now, and have dabbled with home recording once before (i had an Audigy Live card + breakout, and soon got fed up with the fine line between dreadful latency and my guitar sounding like a box of rice crispies).

I've been playing around with a copy of Ableton in the last couple of weeks, and it's made me decide to have another crack. However, in terms of equipment, I'm basically starting from scratch again.

Ideally, I would like to be able to record using my guitars (electric), and a keyboard (and probably vocals in the future, but not bothered about that for the time being).

I no longer own a keyboard, and have been looking at the M-Audio 88es controller. It seems to be pretty well reviewed, and nicely meets my price range. I'm going to get a look at one this weekend, just to make sure i like the feel of it.

In terms of audio interface, I've been looking at the Tascam US-122MKII. As far as I can see, it's one of the cheapest units that will allow for MIDI and direct guitar input, and again from what I have seen, is favourably reviewed.

My PC is reasonably well spec'd, with an E8400 processor (slightly overclocked), an Asus P5K board, and 2GB of good quality memory, running 64bit Vista.

So, my question is...does this all sound suitable? Am I missing anything important? Are there any alternatives to the above that people would recommend instead (at the same or similar price point). Will I likely have any latency issues like I did with that horrible Audigy card?

Thanks in advance, everyone!

:)
 
What type of music are you recording how do you go about recording your guitars? there are many options the most popular being micing an amp. You will need a good amp a decent mic etc.
 
I have a pretty wide ranging taste, so it's hard to pin down what sort of music I'd like to record...whatever takes my fancy on any given day really! As a guide though, I often play around with post-rock sort of stuff (Mogwai, 65daysofstatic etc). All my guitars are electric or electro-acoustic, and whilst I've got a Marshall AVT20, I think I'd rather record direct from my guitars, rather than mic up an amp, which is why I'm looking down the US-122MKII route. Am I being naive here? Would I be better off mic-ing up my amp?
 
yes mic your amp, and mic your acoustic. direct isn't so great unless you have an amazing modeler or you plan on reamping.
 
Hmm...I think I may need to go the modeler/reamp route, as I find the AVT20 sounds pretty average until you start to notch the volume up. Sadly, my current living situation prevents me from doing this very often.

I guess I could get a line6 or something. Or I could grab the Guitar Rig demo or something to begin with, and see what I think of it.

I've read that distortion can be compromised when using direct input, but I'm not really after perfection...just something I can enjoy.
 
So...if I were to go down the direct input route...does the setup listed in my OP sound reasonable?
 
Ok, cool, i'll give that a go.

So, this would allow me to go down the DI route, and get a pretty reasonable sound, right?

With that in mind, does my potential setup sound ok?
 
Yeah just plug your guitar right in and add the plugin to the recording, this gives your the option of playing the tone.
 
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