Building Music Production Studio - £500 Budget - Help & Advice Greatly Appreciated!

[AndiWhitts]

Building Music Production Studio - £500 Budget - Help & Advice Greatly Appreciated!

What I want with my £500 budget is a pair of flat as possible studio headphones (Needed because of living situation), mac computer (Fast enough to run logic and decent virtual instruments), midi keyboard (49 keys) and an audio/midi interface to get ultra low latency.

So up to now I have found:

Used iMac on eBay £350
Shure SRH240 Headphones £50

And I have no idea what audio/midi interface or keyboard to get.

I would like low latency so would I need an audio interface even though I won't be recording anything just producing instrumentals? Will an audio interface give me low latency?

Also I would like a 49 key semi weighted or full weighted keyboard but can't seem to find one I like.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[dangersgs]

I see you're on a tight budget so I'm gonna recommend the best you can find at a low price.And of course this is just advice based on my personal opinions.

MIDI KEYBOARD :
This was my first midi keyboard.It's actually the cheapest one I know but it;'s great for it's price.ESI is known for making quality products at low prices.I don't really know what semi weighted or weighted is exactly but I have a feeling it has something to do with having the feel of a real piano.Sorry but you can't get that with your budget.It is velocity sensitive though.I guarantee you can still do your thing with this one:
ESI KeyControl 49 XT - Thomann UK Cyberstore

AUDIO INTERFACE :
You do need a good audio interface for low latency.
If you don't need too many inputs and outputs and you're using is just for beatmaking this should be perfect:
M-Audio Fast Track MKII - Thomann UK Cyberstore
If you need more,get this one:
M-Audio Fast Track Pro + Pro Tools MP9 - Thomann UK Cyberstore

COMPUTER:
Most people don't know that the mac is an overpriced piece of shit.Just like the iphone,it's more expensive just because it has the apple brand.You can get a computer with the same capabilities for a lower price.If you decide to not get a mac,you need a decent motherboard to support a core 2 or core i3 processor and at least 4GB RAM.The graphics card obviously doesn't matter much because you're not using it for gaming and neither does the soundcard since you are getting an audio interface.

I don't know much about headphones but I do know that it's not such a good idea to mix with headphones.If you would want good monitors I would recommend Yamaha HS50M.

[UnkNowNGenius]

^
How he's going to run Logic Pro on a PC? Otherwise good advices.

[dangersgs]

^
How he's going to run Logic Pro on a PC? Otherwise good advices.

He could always get another DAW lol .Maybe he didn't get logic yet and has time to change his mind.

[UnkNowNGenius]

He mentioned that he's going to buy a Mac so he can run Logic.

''mac computer (Fast enough to run logic and decent virtual instruments),''

TO RUN LOGIC

[dangersgs]

He mentioned that he's going to buy a Mac so he can run Logic.

''mac computer (Fast enough to run logic and decent virtual instruments),''

TO RUN LOGIC

Yeah but he didn't specify if he already has logic or not.You never know...Maybe he just heard that logic is good on mac .If he already owns logic of course it makes no sense to spend another 200 or more on another DAW just to get a PC.But since he plans to get another computer I'm just guessing that he doesn't have logic since he couldn't run it on his current computer.

[van-c]

If you want to go the Mac way then you won't need an audio interface just for low latency. Mac come out of the box with multiclients low latency audio.Since you saying that you are not recording and just want to make beats playing software synth then you re be fine with the mac built in interface. You will have £150 left to buy your software, midi keyboard and headphone which is not enough. Logic pro cost £170 alone.
You could go for a PC desktop for half the price (at the most £200) of the imac and for low latency audio you could download asio4all driver for your built in audio interface. you will have £300 left to spend. Then you could get fruityloops for £70 or Ableton live intro for less than £100 and you still will have £200 to spend on a Midi Keyboard and headphones which is more than enough.

[futureproducers4andy]

My 2.0 Ghz dual core 4gbRAM 20" iMac runs a pretty decent session with several instances of Alchemy, Ultrabeat, a few space designers etc etc... when it gets bogged (when a project is pretty big) down I bounce stuff in place and the 7200rpm hard drive comes into its own. eBay is a great place for it and I see you mention £s and not $ or €. I also bought from the UK. I actually have a Line 6 UX2 Toneport for sale if you're interested as I upgraded to a Focusrite Saffire eariler this year. However
I would also consider one of Line 6s combined keyboard + interfaces - TonePort KB37 | eBay - here are 2 on eBay currently. Line 6 is great for beginners/budgets. But as Van C clearly put you would get away with not using a soundcard if you're producing 100% 'in the box' / not recording live intruments or audio. If this is the case I would strongly encourage you to consider the Akai 25/49 which will come with Live 8 Intro I believe (mine did 2 years ago).

In fact Logic download is now pretty cheap, an Irish friend of mine downloaded it from the app store the other day for €150 (this might only be possible if the system is running Lion - Snow Leopard must be installed to upgrade to Lion. Snow Leopard can be purchased direct from Apple for 25 quid or something). Alsl Mac OS upgrades are pretty cheap 20 - 30 quid. Also in the long run it may be possible to upgrade the hard drive to SSD.

I got my first pair of Audio Technica headphones free with a year's subscription to Music Tech magazine which helped me grasp a lot of the basics...

Anyways, it's exciting times for you. Have fun with whatever you choose, and remember some great music can be made on some basic stuff these days.

[AndiWhitts]

Thanks for your replys!

To: dangersgs, van-c. I definitely want a mac because I have worked on a friends logic and I have a good workflow on it. Also i managed to get an amazing deal on ebay, iMac G5 17" 1.83ghz 2gb ram for £130/$200 with wireless mouse and wireless keyboard, so that gives me more money to play with. The might is quite low end but I will upgrade in the future if I find it's not enough. Plus as van-c said i shouldnt need an audio interface because macs soundcards seem to be decent enough. The money I have mentioned is only for hardware, I have money aside to invest into logic pro 9 and some virtual instruments I have used.

To: futureproducers4andy, dangersgs. Also I have to use headphones in my situation, I know it is not ideal because of there design, no acoustics and everyone's head + ear dynamics are not the same but I have to use them because of my living situation. So I have decided after much research to go for Sony MDR-V6 as they are a very reasonable price and are the flattest I can get for that price range and durable.

To: Dangersgs. I like the look of the midi keyboard you mentioned so I may purchase this one, i don't want semi or weighted keys now anyway as I have found it is awfull to play if your playing anything but piano on them so that's ok.

Thanks again for your replies!