Hi...
quoted 1 line I propose to create a 100% digital studio> I propose to create a 100% digital studio
Excellent idea. See Electronic Musician (I think... maybe it was Keyboard)
a few months back. They had a cover story on doing exactly this, affordably.
At least, their idea of affordable. :) Your suggested system is on the right
track, but a bit off for reasons other people have stated, and this article
will give you an overview of all the available options in some detail.
quoted 4 lines Take the sampler for example. What does a sampler do that a fast PC> Take the sampler for example. What does a sampler do that a fast PC
> can't do? With a large fast Hard Drive and lots of RAM, there should be
> no point at all in having a sampler. I mean, I can sample from a CD
> going digital-to-digital on a PC without any quality loss.
Quite often I *want* quality loss or sampler colouring, especially when
sampling from CD. Nothing more frustrating than having a sample that sounds
too nice, and jumping through hoops to get it a bit less clean. Admittedly,
if you're trying to get a nice synth sound from a sample CD, you may want
cleanliness. However, there's so many sample CDs out there, that you can
easily restrict yourself to CDs which aren't audio, but have .wav files
(or the format of your choice.) In this case, no sampling at all needs
to be done - load it up, edit, and away you go.
Obpetpeeve: good sample CDs cost a minor fortune. The $20 cds I've used
make good coasters and spare jewel cases.
Also, a sampler isn't just some A/D and D/A converters - once the sample has
been tweaked, edited, and messed up, the sampler then becomes a synthesizer,
with all the usual synth capabilities. I don't how well this is done by good
soundcards, but I'd say that having filters, envelopes, lfo, mod, etc. is
indispensable.
quoted 5 lines Until recently, home PC's were too slow to handle doing the kind of> Until recently, home PC's were too slow to handle doing the kind of
> real-time intensive work music entails. But the only reason real-time is
> an important factor in music making is that most people still have a few
> bits of analog equipment in the loop - an 808, some effects processors,
> etc. Also, people like twiddling knobs.
One thing to consider with a computer interface: you only have one mouse.
This makes twiddling more than one "knob" at once a pain in the ass.
The other thing to consider is the size of your monitor. Even if you
splurge and get a 21" you're still going to end up with a very cluttered
screen with tons of tiny little knobs, faders, scroll bars, blah blah blah.
Yuck. User interface is very important. I think this is the main reason
people will stick to self-contained hardware units for the conceivable
future. Also, the ability to play live is greatly diminished if there's
nothing to bang on. :)
quoted 3 lines music theory along the way. But I firmly beleive that these days it's> music theory along the way. But I firmly beleive that these days it's
> possible to create great music without knowing a treble clef from an "&"
> sign.
I agree, but I submit that you will lose nothing whatsoever and do yourself a
big favour if you get some training or educate yourself on music theory,
composition and performance. I'm not suggesting you become a piano virtuoso,
but a basic understanding goes a long, long way. As in any discipline,
nothing beats natural aptitude coupled with knowledge and expertise.
Jon