Hardware & software recommended for deep house/ Acid house studio

[Os78]

Hi all, I am due to start up a home studio, something I've always wanted to do. I started making music 20 years ago purely on a digital platform, I did somehow acquire some hardware, a quasimidi 309, but as a15/16 yr old but back then was impossible to work! I always used a mixture of FL, rebirth, cubase with FL being where I did vast majority. In my opinion I found the fx on cubase another level to FL so have assumed I need to upgrade to another daw. Please stop me if I'm wrong as actually I have no ego and enjoy working on FL.

I have been shopping around and have some components of the studio that I want to buy, I also wanted advise on what I need to complete the studio. I realise some of the things I'll ask are subjective (what daw should I get for example) but connectivity is going to important as well as Work flow.

so I am buying the Korg volca beats/bass/keys my questions are:

which daw would be best to record the volca series?
do I still need a keyboard synth?
if so what would be a solid one for about £200?
do I need anything else to complete this set up?

thanks alot to anyone who takes the time to help me.

 

[krushing]

which daw would be best to record the volca series?

I guess it comes down to how you want to work with them. The actual recording part is simple enough in any DAW (and they all record just the same, quality-wise), syncing them up with each other & your DAW is slightly more complex. Unless you have multiple MIDI ports to spare for each, I'd probably send MIDI out to one of them and daisy chain the rest via the sync cable option. Of course, if you want to just go freeform on the Volcas, just the sync cables can be enough - this meaning you don't want to add other elements in the DAW.

do I still need a keyboard synth?

Well, you don't really need anything - it's more about what you want to add to it. Some kind of a MIDI controller might be a good idea, though.

if so what would be a solid one for about £200?

I don't think there's anything I'd just outright recommend in a generic fashion in this price range. There are some things that might be worth getting, but only when there's a specific need - or at least more specific than just "keyboard synth".

do I need anything else to complete this set up?

Depends on what you want your setup to do. Do you have any other basic gear? An audio interface? Monitors & headphones?

 

[Os78]

Looking at rokit 5 g3 monitors with focusrite 2i2 interface for£320. Decent deal?

regarding keyboard; looking at akai mpk 249. Guess I need for bassline composition when not using the volcas.

I must say I'm getting back into this after a while out and have never been the most tech savy but enjoy learning along the way.

thanks for your advice.

 

[krushing]

Looking at rokit 5 g3 monitors with focusrite 2i2 interface for£320. Decent deal?

Looked at the prices on Thomann, and those would come to just over £300, with shipping. So maybe not that good of a deal, but pretty standard price.

regarding keyboard; looking at akai mpk 249. Guess I need for bassline composition when not using the volcas.

The MPKs are ok. There are simpler keyboards out there if you don't need all the bells and whistles, though. Might be a good idea to head to a music store and try out a few different brands - the keyboard feel is a pretty personal thing.

 

[MadAnthony81]

I like Ableton Live and it gives me few problems. ABletons Operator drum machine is by far one of my favorite things about ableton. Its so complex and diverse. It also has some filters slightly modeled after drum machines.

https://www.ableton.com/
A Roland Rapture VST Cakewalk - Virtual Instruments by Cakewalk offers System-1 Like sounds when on soft. It also sounds like other hardware IMO or in the vicinity of them. Ableton's great point is that I can add Ableton Saturator and custom do my synth in a way. Such as add saturation to make it seem even more analog.

For Nu-house acid house I most enjoy Sylenth1. Sylenth1 | LennarDigital I can get it to sound awesome with its Phaser and LFO on top of even more phaser from Ableton. Sylenth1 is the king of trance and house and is comparable to a Virus but easier to use and you can buy it way cheaper. literally almost indistinguishable and sometimes sounds better sometimes sounds worse. Works wonders in collaboration with a saturator.(tip hint) Polar darkstar

A classy way to get House is Synthmaster2 SynthMaster 2.6: Award Winning VST/AU/AAX/RTAS Software Synthesizer. but its a pain to work with and it used to freeze. Sorry I don't know if they fixed it yet. Working on synthmaster is like reading their website. It's cumbersome.

You can get a midi keyboard and control the paramters of the VST synths that way like a real analog synth. They even squeal evn in the VST alone. I love my Oxygen 49. M-AUDIO - Oxygen 49 - New - USB MIDI Keyboard Controller there is anewer version.

Synths that are cool that are analog are SYSTEM-1 Plug-out synth by Roland SYSTEM-1 :: Products :: Roland
or even an inexpesive M-Audio Venom offers tons of bang for the buck. M-Audio Venom
I used to want analog until I found I could do virtually anything it could do plus more with VST's and a saturator.

Most of all for you I recommend Sylenth1 for that classic Virus sound. Or rapture for a more harder sound. ADD LFo to the Rapture and it gets cool and plastic. It also has a decent phaser but Sylenth1 Phaser is phenomenal.

Need I mention I'm always finding sales on all this stuff like Rapture at plugin boutique for 15 dollars sometimes. Along with others. The Venom went on sale at Sweetwater for 200 US dollars.

Sylenth1 never goes on sale but Synthmaster always does. I haven't seena sale on System-1 but hey cant go wrong with Rapture for a tid bit more mellow version.