Heartland

Listening to “Twitch� and “Land of Rape and Honey� has made me decide to get off my ass and finally build a home music studio. So, I made a list of what I needed and then become stumped, because I don’t know much about music technology and had no idea which sequencer would be best, etc. But I figured one of the techno-geeks here would, so if anyone can give any advice, I would be very grateful.

Here’s the list I made:

• PC
• sequencer software
• keyboard
• microphone
• mixing desk
• breakout box
• speakers
• synth and sampler plug-ins for the sequencer

Also, I have no idea what DAT is or how to make copies from it or whatever, all I heard was that it’s what’s best to master music onto.

Everyone will have different ideas on this of course, but some decent allbeit very general advice here -
http://www.homerecordingtips.co.uk/index.html

Zuma wrote:Everyone will have different ideas on this of course, but some decent allbeit very general advice here -
http://www.homerecordingtips.co.uk/index.html

Yeap, a very decent site if I ever saw one.

And the German SAE is very good for recording tips AND for building your home-studio, in terms of isolation and what materials to use...

IZ.

Oh Sir Mister IZ!
Oh Zuma!
Okay, thats another number of nights reading then..

Another thing worth looking at are some of the support forums for the software/gear you are considering it will give you a good idea of the pros and cons before you part with your money...

I use GT Pro, basically a 32 track Guitar biased version of Sonar - forums are here and well worth a browse to see the "standard" problems people encounter...

http://forum.cakewalk.com/default.asp

Thanks for the info.

http://www.studio-central.com

Informative articles, friendly forum, should provide useful background reading on the subject

One extra thought from looking at most of the feedback on these web sites is that people think they can use the standard sound card in their computer. I'd personally budget for a decent card above anything else as this is the "heart" of the system and can easily become the weakest link and cause lag, extraneous noises etc..

Have fun!

Here is my modest set up - note obligatory strong cup of tea and red wine

have a look at your local wh smiths for a magazine called "computer music" usually has a dvd on the front . contains a free home studio type thing and they give away plugins too. about a fiver for the mag , not bad considering you get a sequencer , synth and plugin selection thrown in.

"future music" is another good place to start. free dvd with stuff on.

ableton software is available in various flavours too and is good .
reason is good but costs too much for my liking.
"digital village" have a web shop that do clearnce goods so decent equipment can be got fairly cheaply .

im really averse to spending too much money on gubbins which might be s**t, so look around and try and "try before you buy".