so, how does this hardware business work

hear is how i set up my hardware with a lovly picture of my studio and lines.

  Derelic7 said:

thanks a ton for your help guys, it means a whole lot. I guess I'll be looking into some mackie's instead of behringer monitors. I'll let you know what kind of setup I'll be aiming for.

 

edit: hmm.. the mackie ones are quite expensive, like 800 a speaker :o

oh yeah, monitors are a whole hell'u'van'other issue

behringer truths are great value for money and sound like expensive monitors (at a glance)... i.e. they sound bassey and have this really clear top-end - so when you a/b with some regular, cheap monitors, you think "behringer's got more bass+ more top-end = better"... in fact, the truths are closer to cheaper hifi speakers than monitors because they flatter the mix and cause listening fatigue

so your mix may sound huge and upfront on the behringers, but get it onto regular monitors and it'll sound tiny.. you always compensate for the sound of the speaker

mackie monitors are a little the same - obviously much more professional, but they boost the top-end and phase the bass, so you're never certain you mix will translate well - although you hear a lot of detail

tannoys are very clean and clear sounding, but lack detail and top-end, so i'd rather use good hifi speakers than behringers or tannoy (reveals) because you'll be getting more quality/£ and either way they're not really studio monitors

there's a middleground of monitors, like Spirit Abs 2's, Alesis, and the cheaper Genelecs, where you get a nice balance - you get enough detail, useful range, you don't get too much listening fatigue, and it doesn't flatter your mixes

these days, too many ppl are using mackie and dynaudio monitors in untreated rooms, so you're hearing a lot of really small sounding mixes now... NS10's sound horrible, but the philosophy is, if your mix sounds good on them, it'll sound great on anything else

~Hardware's best~

So what are you suggesting Moon? Regular hi-fi's? are you serious?

what price range should i be looking for? I dunno how much money I want to waste at the perfect sound, but it'd be good to have something that lasts though.

if i wasn't broke i'd get those cheap yamahas. not the NS10 but one of the new ones. i think they're great and they're like 500$ for the pair.

I'm right now kind of at a loss at how midi connections and PCI and audio interfaces works, how you connect it all? Basically, now I have a regular soundcard, everything in my computer is regular, i donth ave any cables or anyhting. Where do I go from square one to a fully functioning audio interface connection to everything, and connecting my midi controller to like a synth module? I know absolutely jack shit on this issue and thus dont know what exactly to buy, what kind of cables etc. i feel stupid as fuck

but i'm planning to get an external audio card, firewire possibly, where do I connect it?

soundcard: if it's firewire then you connect it to your computer's firewire port. ask google what it looks like and see if you have it (if you don't you can get a pci card for it).

you'll probably manage to connect the audio to the mixer right?

the midi is a digital data interface that carries the notes and other musical event signals over a 6 conductor cable with din 5 connectors.

Okay I dont have a firewire port, PCI card? is that somethign you connect to the motherboard then? is that what you buy an external card for or an interface or what's it called?

My soundcard is rather old, aureal vortex 8830, so there's no fancy bells and whistles but it has audio out, mic etc. Do i connect the audio in to the mixer? And the audio out to the speakers?

Yeah i realised midi seems kind of simple, as long as you have the cables.

For great bass, get a FM synth from Yamaha. The TX-7 and TX81Z are t3h l337 stuff for basslines. FM power all the way baby.

Cheers

no! subtractive!

My mate's got a yamaha DX something (100 i think). It's got one or two nice presets but programming it is like... well I can't think of a decent analogy. It's just shite.

haha all fm synths have shit interfaces :D

True, and I've met a very sadistic dude that only used the front pannel on the TX81Z (a true nightmare). But you can allways run some very good software (DXHeaven on the Atari / STEem) and stuff like SoundDiver for great visual programming.

As soon as one understands how frequency modulations works, there is no limits for deep, powerfull sounds...

ClockDVA knew that.

Cheers

one of my favorite pieces of gear is the tascam 244. i use it as a mixer and it sounds really warm, and then it's a 4 track tape recorder built in so that works out nicely. i guess 4 channels is a bit limited but it's usually all i need.

i got it for $100 on ebay