Someone's gonna have to help me with this (MIDI and gear rel

[Guest Lysergic Source]

Ok, i've been writing psy and dub for about 3 years now, and am just now moving on to a hardware studio... I have some questions.

 

So far, I own a juno 106, a novation bassStation rackmount version, an old yamaha drum machine, and i'm building a studio pc. So far the pc has 1.2 ghz processing power, 330 megs of ram. No soundcard yet, no monitors. This leaves me with a lot of questions...

 

 

How do I control all my instruments via MIDI? I'm gonna buy a Kurzweil K2500 to use as a master keyboard.... does the MIDI cable go to the kurzweil, which then goes to a patchbay? Do I even need a MIDI patchbay? Someone needs to explain how to control an entire studio via midi to me...

 

Also, I guess i'll be needing a mixing desk, what's good as far as those go?

 

What soundcard would you recommend?

 

Also, where do nearfield monitors go? Do they plug into the mixing desk, or are they plugged into the output of the PC?

 

I'm just confused, someone needs to walk me through some of this <_<

 

if it matters (and I think it would for figuring out how many channels I need on the mixing desk), my studio is eventually going to be:

 

Roland Juno 106

Novation Bassstation rackmount

Virus B

Roland SH-101

Kurzweil K2500 (thinking as a master keyboard)

 

A mixing desk, monitors, maybe a midi patchbay, some soundcard...

 

Alesis Quadraverb GT

Zoom 1201 effects unit

An old-style tape delay unit (good for Dub, and I mostly make dub)

 

that's what I have planned for now, now I just need someone to tell me how to set it all up and control it all via midi...<_<

 

thanks in advance

[Guest Emil aka X-OR]

Since you have a Virus B (AS I HAVE HAHA), I will try to help

 

You need an audiophile 24/96 soundcard, and most probably a MIDI device per synth, since you won't like to use MIDI THRU on everything, since it will be messy and have latency

 

Soundcard: www.m-audio.com

They also sell MIDI interfaces 8x8 and 4x4 etc (USB) I have the 2x2, it works perfectly.

 

Monitors: Tannoy Active (nice price) www.tannoy.com

or samnson monitors or euphonix (hehe)...

 

I use a headset, and I use the virus as a mixer and effects unit for my other synth (micromodular) so I dont need a mixer...

But look at www.behringer.com (THEY ARE CHEAP), and has an ok SnR rate.

[Guest Emil aka X-OR]

Btw, euphonix is a mixer unit

[Guest Andreas of Amygdala]

Hullo

 

Some coments on the MIDI-ordeal. I don't think you need more than one MIDI-port.

If we asume you get one: Hook up the synths in daisy-chain. MIDI-cable from the output of your MIDI-interface to the input some synth (say the Juno) - then a MIDI-cable from the Juno's MIDI thru to an input on some other synth - and so on, and so forth.

The issue about latency is nonexisting, since the MIDI-thru is effectively nothing but conducting material - i.e. it's just as fast as any cable - actually even faster, since the MIDI-input uses a light-hatch (don't know the actual word), and light is (I guess?!?) a bit faster than electricity - Hmm, exactly how fast is electricity...?

 

If the parts your synths can play sum up to more than 16 MIDI-channels, then of course you need a MIDI-interface with more channels... Don't worry about the latency though

 

-Andreas

[Guest emptyspace]

Well I'm no expert on hardware... But a wicked site for info about setting up a home studio (and just about any other beginner-to-advanced music making info) is Tweakheadz Lab. www.tweakheadz.com

It's gotten me thru many technical issues and has given me a better understanding of how the studio operates (and CAN operate). Hope it helps....

[Guest olly]

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