very general question from a newbie

B

Buzi

New member
hey tweakmeisters !!
First off, let me say I've been reading up in here on alot of stuff for the last week, and I think you fellas are great for giving such helpfull and constructive answers.
Anyways...here's my question :
I'm getting into the field of Electronic music creation. Let me tell you what kind of gear I already have -
PC :
Pentium 4 1.7ghz with :
256 RAM
soundblaster soundcard (should I upgrade?)
Software :
Reason v2.0
Cubase
FruityLoops
SoundForge v6.0
Midi Controller :
Evolution X-Session
I am about to get a used Midi keyboard as a controller - no sounds.
Speakers :
2 large Floor speakers, they sound ok, except for the highs that are
starting to get distorted (paper dome tweaters)
Amp :
Technics hi-fi home stereo amp (got it used)
My soundcard out is going into a Numark 3channel DJ mixer, which also has 2 DJ turntables and 2 CDJ turntables hooked up into it.

I'd like to make recordings of my music onto CD.
Do I need a multi-channel mixer (like those small 12-channel Mackie ones?)
What else do I need?

Thanks alot.

Buzi. :cool:
 
Yes, a soundcard upgrade is in order. Look at M-Audio, Edirol and EMU.

Good monitors are a crucial part of the recording chain. Without them you are flying in fog. Wharfedale Diamonds and Behringer Thruths are two you might consider.

Yes, you will need a small mixer especially if you want to use the turntable setup as a sound source. Mackie makes good mixers. You might also want to consider Yamaha and Soundcraft as alternatives.

Also, you don't mention a CD burner - a necessary item if you want to make your own CDs...
 
i would suggest several things to ponder.
1..a memory upgrade to 512 ram
2..two fast hard drives if you only have one. NOT BIG SUCKERS. 7200 rpm , dma enabled.
windows on one, and your audio on the other.
3. a cdrw if you dont already have one.
4. a delta sond card eg ,,,delta 44 .
5. a pair of yorkville montors.
6. if you want a great midi sequencer that also does 48 tracks of audio.
check out the demo of powertracks at pgmusic.com.
talk to folks on the forum there at pg if you dont believe that its a nice piece of software.
7. i would get two small mixers . one for recording mics to sound card
and the other for mixing from sound card and sending to monitoring/
headphones.
8. some decent mics if you dont already have some.
check out also a free sequencer called hotstepper. uses wave samples.
great for all sorts of drum and other tracks. has a neat sample tuning feature. export into your sequencer and lay the rest of your audio tracks down.
just some ideas to ponder.
 
Manning1 -
I don't see any use for mics at this point. I'm basically using Reason for all of the sounds (samples, loops, drums and so on)
How do you feel about using a virtual studio instead of getting those sequncers? I've been using Reason's sequencer.
 
ssscientist -
I've got an internal PC burner - Lite On LTR or something.
I also have 2 hard drives - one is 40G and has windows and all the software on it, the other is 200G and has all my audio on it.
What's a good but cheap monitor ? say around $300 a pair ?
 
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