I Get Asked Alot , What Is The Best Way To Start Up , And Keep It Under A Grand?

[tomcollins]

I get this a lot here, people wanting to get going on home studio , get their feet wet so to speak ,.And the truth is , I am not in tune to all of it !! Tell them to reach out to other members and still they come back to me.

I think that it is overwhelming , between everything you see ( ad's) and hear and the net , That it is like what the **** !!

And I have not been into it as a home thing long enough to give good feed back , on things I have tried and failed or succeeded in .

So here it is again ,

what is the best road to travel to get the best basic equipment for a nubbie  in this area ? and that is under a grand , where you don't have to practice rocket science on the side  .

 

[Stova007]

I've got my original home-studio set up for under $1000 by using Garageband as my DAW, 2 condenser mics, and a $200 pair of monitors. I've been able to get some pretty clean recordings out of my equipment, but it took me a great deal of time and trial-and-error to learn how to use everything correctly. Get a quality microphone and start fiddling around with recording styles/microphone placement. Youtube has a wealth of knowledge and videos on how to pretty much do anything in a home studio, including how to get started on setting it up. There are plenty of cost efficient DAWs out there, so I think choosing the right fit for your project is also important.

 

There's also a lot of members here (Gocartmoz for one) who got excellent recordings by using 8 or 16-track digital recorders. For the most part, they are cost efficient and you can get your feet wet with recording/mixing.

 

-Michael

[TapperMike]

If you need a good mic and Daw for a windows environment.  http://acoustica.com/mixcraft-vocal-studio/index.htm

If you don't need the mic - http://acoustica.com/mixcraft-pro-studio/index.htm

 

More - 

http://forums.songstuff.com/topic/34576-the-daw-saga/?hl=saga

 

If you are a guitarist without keyboard skills 

http://www.starrlabs.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_60&product_id=50

 

I know $600 plus shipping can seem like a lot for a midi controller device in comparison to Fishman Triple Play or YouRock.

But it's has ten times the quality and considerably faster then anything on the market.

Midi to Midi it has the same speed limit of all midi to midi hardware devices 1ms  Midi thru usb (usb adds latency regardless of device) kicks it up to,,,2ms (seriously) Roland systems run about 35ms into the box (gr55) and if you try to run that into your computer you could easily exceed 100ms

(seriously) Even on the fasted computer average latency of fishman triple play is 50ms and goes up from there very quickly for slower computers or additional things.

 

YouRocks are terrible to play. Mine arrived broken and refused to track the B string properly (picking) They have terrible customer service and guess what. I got a second one and it crapped out on me 3 months into it.  Most YR users report that they don't last a year.EZ-EG's have so many problems out of the box (let alone used because they don't make em anymore) it's not even funny.

 

I really can't recommend monitors.  I'm an apt dweller with thin walls, for near field monitoring I use this - 

http://forums.songstuff.com/blog/159-tappermikes-blog/

It's perfect for me.

[Gazebo]

Assuming that you have a computer already, for under £1000:

• Microphone (SM58 or Samson Condenser) & Stand - £120
• Interface M-Audio - £130  (or if you are a guitarist try the Line 6 POD XT  (£79) which is bundled with loads of great sounding guitar amp sims and effects)
• DAW - Reaper £70 or Studio One Free (Free).  Lite version DAW's are often bundled with interfaces, and are plenty good enough to cut your teeth, and include enough effects etc to turn out some good stuff.
• VST and VSTi effects - see the thread for the additional free effects you can download on this forum.
• Monitors - I've never had any (space issue) so use either computer speakers when tracking or headphones. Not ideal, but will get you started, no problem.
• MIDI Keyboard Interface  - M-Audio Keystation (£105) if you are a keyboard player

Thats enough to get you going - upgrade as you need to when you know where you want to go. 

 

Hope this helps.