Max Foreman wrote on Thu, 29 July 2004 20:56 |
As for my experiecnce, I'm a classically trained pianist.....
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Greetings,
I was in a similiar situation. I studied masterclass in germany long ago, and 2 years ago got the funny idea to get into recording using puters and whatelese can be used....
Knew nuttin about anything, other than somewhat literate in computers!
Over the period of 2 years I made wrong decisions that cost me a few bucks, for example, I bought gear that I thought is useful for the entire recording process, such as a 8 channel tube-inline and a 24bit digital multiband etc. etc.
I walked straight into the trap that I found on the website of a german manufacturer called behringer. After wondering why this was the only one I found with prices so low that I found it hard to believe, I should have listened to my gut feeling, I ordered a bunch of stuff, couple of patchbays, and build my first outboard rack.
Now, while it was a valuable experience to get my hands dirty and build a rack, learning the concept of patchbays and their multiple ways, today nothing of that particular gear is left in my recording process.
I did not even bother to sell it, because I find it is not worth asking money for to be honest, I just gave it away to people who seem to find something to it and well, whatever makes em happy.
I could tell you more bad decisions I took, but this example alone is meant to show you that you are best advised to make sensible decisions when purchasing gear.
I do not know if you ever played on a synth, if not, you are in for a big disappointment when it comes to the key action, there are only a handful of "acceptable" 88-keys out there which would serve your needs as a pianist, Kawai MP9500 or Gem Promega3 to name a few, and even those high priced keyboards are not even close to the real thing, but they are quite good compared with whats on offer ususally on a stagepiano/keyboard/Synth. I can exercise on them if needed without ruining my technique. However, they are not constructed to withstand a permanent "etudes-tableaux-treatment", get my drift?
I thought that's worth mentioning.
In your budget limitations, I would think of investing into a really good recording card/system. Whereby really good means that it can stand aside with the best of the best out there without being ashamed. The converters analog to digital and digital to analog are the crux here besides other things.
I can only think of a few that can claim that, and the top of the list would be the LYNX.
http://www.lynxstudio.com/ that is now fully OSX enabled.
Seems to me you are in the right place to ask for advise. If I would have known about this place when I started I could have avoided many errors of judgement.
Allow me a question, what music are you planing on making and for what target media?
This may sound a studpid question, but if you are planing to go into scoring music for film, your requirements would differ from a setup where you would make music for CD only.
A last thing for now, sampling obviosuly is a big thing in the audio world, and as the classical educated person you are, it might interest you that there is a solution out there which enables you to have a complete orchestra at your disposal in a unsurpassed quality. It is the best of the best..... but see for yourself.... The user forum on this site is also worth lurking around for a while....
http://vsl.co.at/index.htmlP.S.
Why did no one tell me before about this accumulation of knowledgable and helpful people here?