Hows this for a beginners setup?

SuperJemBoy · #1 03-02-2004, 04:34 PM

PC w/ Windows XP
Pentium 4 at 2.8Ghz
60Gb hard drive

From here onward, my budget is around £400

M Audio Audiophile 2496 (good, from what I've read on this forum) = £120
Cakewalk Home Studio 2004 = £100
Line 6 POD £200 (probably cheaper s/h)

Would this be a good setup for beginners home recording? I want to make high quality demos with this. Also, can anyone suggest the best way to get drums onto my tracks? Either through a program or a drum machine or whatever.
Any feedback, good or bad appreciated!
Thanks!
Joe

Artist · #2 03-03-2004, 08:12 PM

Yes the Maudio 2496 is a good card, as long as your not on Mac OS X + trying to use the midi ports (which your not so relax

)

Does cakewalk handle samples? and which formats.
If so, check out Drumkit from hell (www.toontrack.com) costs £60ish and is a very good set of drum samples.

An alternative set up would be to get a POD XT, which has USB in/out.
Although this will cost more money, it means you won't need a higher quality sound card (the audiophile) for recording.

SuperJemBoy · #3 03-04-2004, 04:16 AM

So I could use the Pod XT straight in via USB? Correct me if I'm wrong, but am I not likely to encounter latency problems doing this?
So if that works, I could buy the XT and a Sequencer and I wouldnt need an interface at all?

Thanks for the help!
Joe

T-D@gg · #4 03-04-2004, 10:58 AM

Latency is the time it takes the audio driver to pass information into your recording software and back... Its pretty much independent of how you go in -- whether using USB or line input on your soundcard, there will be some lag while the audio driver buffers information. So either way you'll have to deal with latency if you are monitoring through the soundcard.

That said, I would (personally) still get a recording-quality soundcard. What if at some point you want to mic up an acoustic guitar or try your hand at vocals on a track? More importantly, the MAudio cards use ASIO drivers -- these drivers can get your latency down to 1.5 milliseconds... I doubt the stock sound card that came with your computer supports the ASIO spec (although who knows, maybe they do nowadays!), and it is not likely to deliver that kind of low latency without dropouts or crackles...

SuperJemBoy · #5 03-04-2004, 01:33 PM

So if had a POD + the M Audio 2496 USB + Cakewalk Home Studio (or if that doesn't support samples (drums are important as I have no way of mic'ing a drumkit) something else) I could do full recordings yes?

Thanks for the help.
Joe

T-D@gg · #6 03-04-2004, 05:38 PM

Yup, I think you'd be pretty happy with that setup! And the new version of Cakewalk Home Studio comes bundled with a DXi soft-sampler, so you're all set to program some drum tracks out of the box...

SuperJemBoy · #7 03-05-2004, 03:32 AM

That's cool....but!
I was all set to order this until my guitar teacher recommended I start with Pro Tools and the M-Box package. I went and checked it out and it comes with LOADS of bundled software. Check the website for all the details. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this? It looks like a great package plus I can get help person to person from my teacher (used to use PT LE, now has PT TDM) because he knows how to use it.

Thanks!
Joe

Polaris20 · #8 03-05-2004, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperJemBoy

That's cool....but!
I was all set to order this until my guitar teacher recommended I start with Pro Tools and the M-Box package. I went and checked it out and it comes with LOADS of bundled software. Check the website for all the details. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this? It looks like a great package plus I can get help person to person from my teacher (used to use PT LE, now has PT TDM) because he knows how to use it.

Thanks!
Joe

The MBox is a cool set up, IMO. Nice pre's, portable, and the bundle they have going with it is really nice.

Reason is fantastic, it'd be worth the upgrade to the full version.