Setting Up A Studio, Questions, please help Options

[coldharbour]

Apple Loops SDK 1.1 can be downloaded from the Developer website at Apple (after a bit of searching)- And once again it's FREE!

That's really interesting - what's the difference between the Apple Loops Utility that comes with Logic Pro 7 and SDK? Does SDK require X11 environment or such - I mean is it usable for musicians or just for *nix wizzies?

[Adrian Delso]

The Mac Mini may be fast enough, but you'll need a lot more RAM and Apple charge the earth. Get a G5, as you suggest.

If you are starting absolutely from scratch and are not planning to use MIDI extensively, I'd look at ProTools. Digital Performer is also highly spoken of. I'm trialling Metro 6, which seems excellent and good value for audio and MIDI.

I have been using Logic Express for over a year and would not recommend it to anyone who has not been with Logic since the Atari days! Although it's powerful and has great instruments and plug-ins, it's a bitch to learn and use. IMO.

[DannyMac]

Cheers for the replys guys!

But isn't Garageband limited to 8 curves?! Read it on Apple's homepage. Don't you think that you're geting very fast to the limits? Even if you're a newbie?

And are Loops like "2 Steps Ahead" from Apple usable for Garageband? If so, Garageband would really be a cheap alternative for a newbie...

[DannyMac]

Ok, I've checked and surfed and checked and surfed... and this is what I thought I would buy:

- Mac G5 (2x2 GH dual, 1GB DDR400 Ram)
- Edirol PCR-30 Keyboard
- Garageband Jampacks / Apple Loops
- M-Audio Firewire 400
- Edirol MA-10 2.0 monitors

Do I need ANYTHING else to make good music on my mac (using Garageband at first?) like a mixer or s.th.???

Cheers,
Dan

[Atahualpa]

Posted on May 9 2005, 11:44
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AND: If you're saying that a G5 1,8 GH would be enough, why don't use the Mac Mini in order to reduce costs?

Would a Mini 1,42 Gh be still enough?

The G4 processor on the MiniMac will be more than enough to run Garageband, and even some more professional sequencer software, however, once you start using plug ins and effects and tasks that are RAM demanding, you will find yourself very limited with the 256 MB that come by default and I don't think you can upgrade your MiniMac to more than 1GB...?
Ciao, A

[opiepac]

I've been meaning to reply for a while, but had to search for my login/password to the forums. You've gotten some pretty good experienced advice, but I'm somewhat of a newb (at least in the mac/music world) so I thought my perspective might be of assistance.

I have slightly different musical needs - mostly real instrument recording is what I'll do, so I'm less into the loops/midi/audio instrument stuff, but here's what I've done:

I bought one of the new Dual 2.0 GHz powermac's stock config (yes I know I don't have pci-x and it maxes out at 4 gigs of RAM, but I still thought it was a good buy) from an apple retail store (so I could get it the day Tiger came out, yes I'm impatient). Apple charges too much for RAM, as most will tell you. I took the stock 512MB, and then added two 512 sticks from Crucial, to give me a total of 1.5 GB RAM. On a PC the most I've ever had was 1 GB and they don't even use it as well as OSX does. Ram is definitely a good thing to have. An expensive computer, that I'll be paying for for quite a while, but I don't mind.

I bought an M-audio Firewire Solo interface for $200. I know M-audio has had driver problems in the past. I also am aware that this unit can totally destroy your firewire port if you hotplug it. If I had it all to do again, I might buy a different interface, but ... I really wanted something with firewire over usb, and this was half the price of the presonous firebox. I like the unit a lot, and it fits my needs. It only has two inputs, but for me, I'll usually have 1 mic and 1 instrument (guitar mostly). But if you will need more inputs in the future (recording a 4 piece rock band or something like that) you can never add inputs to the unit, so you'd have to upgrade to a new interface. Me - I'm okay with two.

By the way, since mine was one of the new Power Macs, it came with Tiger installed. There wasn't much "do I upgrade?" choice for me. I wanted Tiger a lot. And I'm not as concerned with stability because I am not depending on this machine to make me money currently. I am using the M-audio drivers for 10.3. They haven't given me any problems, though I've heard other units by M-audio haven't worked right with Tiger.

I am looking at getting a decent Mic - probably a Rode NT1-a.

I use Logic Express. I wish I could afford Logic Pro, but I can't, and I probably am just fine with Express. I played around with Garageband, and liked it, but I wanted to just jump in to Logic. For me it was the sooner the better (as I knew this was the sequencer I wanted to use) and I need to get over the learning curve and start being productive.

I guess I forgot to mention, I mainly set up my DAW for writing music and recording demos. Also, I have an ambition to one day become a recording engineer on the side, so I want to slowly learn at home, in addition to learning from friends of mine who run studios.

You will be happy if you decide on what you're talking about. I sure am. I might have to check out that keyboard you mention, as I do want to mess around with the audio instruments a bit. Maybe add some cool synth textures to my music.

[opiepac]

Forgot to mention, I haven't gotten monitors yet, but use Sennheiser HD-580 pro's for my headphones. Some of the best closed ear headphones there are. I love them.

[lepetitmartien]

The extended use of headphones for monitoring is a bad health idea… people tend to use them too long and too loud.

A common reference right now is the Sony 7506 and 7509. Good sound and closed.

I'm very suspicious on the choice of the Edirol monitors (forgot them in the avoid monitors). They are just "computer speakers" (i know the family, ooooch!). Tannoy, Samson, Krk, event, Berhinger… make decent to good entry level monitors. (I don't recommend Behringer usually but the monitors seem nice enough and are well suited for "dance" material) I may forgot some companies but these are good tracks to follow. If you can, you should really go in a shop and listen to them with music material you know and of the style you will mix, and some stuff (voice, classical, unplugged…) to have a larger picture.

[DannyMac]

Thank you all, once again. Am afraid about those "fake" monitors I wrote in my list...bad thing.

I think I'll start with Garageband first and get a few experiences as it's coming alongside with iLife on my new mac. The Loops and Samples are usuable for both, Garageband AND Logic. So if Garageband doesn't satisfy me, I'll upgrade to Logic.

But does anybody know how many Loops/ Samples can be recorded in one session? I wrote s.th. about a limit of 8?! I think this is not to much.

[StevieBoy]

As I understand it, you can record up to 8 tracks simultaneously. As to the limit of tracks you can have in a tune, I've not yet reached a limit and I'm using the old version. It gets a bit slow when you have lots of tracks, but I believe GB2 has a freeze function which would help with that, too.

So unless you want to record a band and need more than 8 tracks going in at one time (which I don't think is what you intend) then GB2 would be enough for your needs.