is this good enough for starters?

B

BIOchip

Guest
I gear my setup towards gigging.

A KORG Electribe EMX-1 (for beats and sequenced sounds)

A KORG Kaoss Pad 2 (linked to the EMX-1 for wild effects)

An Alesis Ion (for a lead synth or other purposes)

And Alesis QS6.2 with Euro Dance Qcard (for piaons, strings, pads, etc)


anyone else know of anything I should add to this list? I have a budget that is stuck around $1400 so im getting alot of this stuff used.

Im considering throwing in an alesis nanosynth to expand my sounds a bit if I can find one at a low price.
 
Hey thats a nice start to a setup! Yo I don't know if you gonna be recording vocals but mayb a preamp would be nice and some really good monitors. If you have space you could find a cheap patch bay like a Behringer Ultrapatch Pro maybe???
 
Ah well for recording my solo stuff, i'll just mess around with audacity. But when I want to make serious demos, I have a few friends near me with an actual studio. Ill hook up with them. This setup is again just for live performance. I'll be the keyboardist, there will be a guitarist, and a singer. We might add another member or two but thats what it is as of now. Its gonna be Industrial/electronica music

But thats for the tip... ill look into what you mentioned
 
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For live gigging I've always found it helpful to bring your own DI boxes or a mixer. When I play with my band I have a rack with my audio interface and drum module in it that I have all wired up to a rack mount DI box. I've even played some places where the sound tech was like "Whats a DI box". Thats when I shake my head knowing its gonna sound horrible.

I've done sound for a few electronic/industrial bands and a lot of the time they have all of their stuff hooked up to their own mixer with all of the levels set to how they like it to sound. A lot of the time they send their output too hot so I had to pad it down but its definitely a lot easier than mixing an extra 12 channels.

Oh, and in terms of synths, I absolutely LOVE the Virus C which you can find on ebay for under a grand.
 
I think im actually just going to get a softsynth. I recently discovered FL Studio 7 XXL edition for under $500 which I just got the demo last night and its amazing. It has all the sounds and beats I really need but now I think I just need a good midi controller an then im set.
 
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BIOchip said:
I think im actually just going to get a softsynth. I recently discovered FL Studio 7 XXL edition for under $500 which I just got the demo last night and its amazing. It has all the sounds and beats I really need but now I think I just need a good midi controller an then im set.

Whatever you get in terms of soft synths make sure you have a decent audio interface so you aren't dealing with latency when playing live.
 
a korg kontol49 appears the be adequit. It can trigger and mute different loops and adjust levels live.
 
I'm pretty sure the Kontrol 49 is just a midi controller, it doesnt have a built in audio interface. If you are going to use the stock soundcard on your computer you may run into latency problems.
 
rabblerouser said:
I'm pretty sure the Kontrol 49 is just a midi controller, it doesnt have a built in audio interface. If you are going to use the stock soundcard on your computer you may run into latency problems.

latency problems? What do you mean by that? Oh and Im not looking for somthing with built in sounds as far as the keyboardgoes, I just need somthing that can adjust audio levels and can trigger loops faster then a mouse can while playing live. Korg Kontrol seems to fit that bill nicely
 
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latency is the amount of lag time between when you hit the key on the keyboard and when you actually hear the sound. Some midi controllers have built in audio interfaces (such as the Novation X-Station). As I said, if you are using the stock sound card in your computer then you may run into latency. An upgraded sound card/audio interface will reduce the latency and make it more like playing an actual synth.

The Korg Kontrol looks sweet. I would get it and then see if you are having latency issues before getting an audio interface.
 
I personally try to steer clear of EMU, its the whole Creative Labs SoundBlaster on steroids thing. I'm assuming that you are using a laptop since the 1616 is PCMCIA. If you dont have a firewire port I'd get a PCMCIA firewire card and either the TC Electronic Konnekt 8, PreSonus FireBox or the M-Audio FireWire 410. I prefer firewire to USB interfaces. Thats me though.
 
aight thanks for the tip

rabblerouser said:
I personally try to steer clear of EMU, its the whole Creative Labs SoundBlaster on steroids thing. I'm assuming that you are using a laptop since the 1616 is PCMCIA. If you dont have a firewire port I'd get a PCMCIA firewire card and either the TC Electronic Konnekt 8, PreSonus FireBox or the M-Audio FireWire 410. I prefer firewire to USB interfaces. Thats me though.

call me a noob, but what is firewire verses these other devices?
 
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firewire is another i/o interface such as USB. Laptops generally have USB, PCMCIA and/or firewire. I find firewire to be fast and quite stable.

USB and FireWire
firewire-liitin.jpg

Also FireWire
firewire.jpg

Firewire comes in the smaller 1394 jack and the larger jack. They are both the same speed, its just that if you have a device plugged into the larger jack it can generally run off of the BUS power while the smaller jack usually needs an additional power supply for whatever you have plugged into it.
 
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ok now its narrowed down to just a few seperate parts...

1) ax-7
2) korg padKONTROL
3) fl studio 7
4) laptop
5) an affordable firewire interface if i can find one.

its a setup for live performance just in case anyone is wondering why i chose the ax-7 as my keyboard.

and is a firewire device such as the TC Electronic Konnekt 8 work to speed up midi channel over a usb midi interface?
 
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