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Kent Williams <williams@cs.uiowa.edu> writes:
quoted 6 lines I'm looking for some advice on equipment. Like what is really, really cheap,> I'm looking for some advice on equipment. Like what is really, really cheap,
> but usable for recording/playing.
>
> The only things I've got to play with right now is a Casio SK-1 (don't laugh)
> and a PC with a sound card. I have a lot of ideas for cool (at least to me)
> tracks, but I need a little more to work with.
Which soundcard do you have? For years my only pieces of equipment were
soundcards in my PC. They're still my most-used pieces :)
quoted 3 lines So hey, what's your recommendation for:> So hey, what's your recommendation for:
>
> 1. Synths.
Sh-101s are cheap and quite fun. for me it's a downside because there's no
MIDI, so unfortunately i have to sample it alot and sequence the samples,
but for live-recordings it's great. you should be able to get one for
around $120-150
lots of people will laugh, but many of the _older_ cheezy consumer
keyboards, like the yamaha PSS-480 FM keyboard, are great for sounds.. this
particular model even has a pretty realtime resonance control.. lately
we've been using alot of sounds from old casio consumer keyboards too, as
well as a Casio CZ-101, which you can get for around $100. don't pay more
than like $50 for a consumer keyboard though.
you're going to need/want a sampler with some decent memory.. the cheapest
way to go about this is to get another soundcard in your PC. there are two
inexpensive choices at the moment that are worth considering, the Turtle
Beach Maui, and the Gravis UltraSound. Here's a bit about both:
TB Maui - this is a card designed to be added to a system which already has
a soundcard with sampling abilities. It's a wavetable/sample playback
module with 2 SIMM memory slots that can hold up to 8mb of RAM. It's also
got a full General-MIDI sound set in ROM for games and things like that
(the sound quality is good enough on these to use some for regular music,
like the string sounds), and has a standard MPU-401 compatible interface so
almost any piece of software can use it, although the patch maker runs
under windows, so you'll probably want to use a windows midi sequencer.
samples are transferred from the hard drive to it via Sysex. The card is
going for about $160 mail-order, but a friend of mine says turtle beach is
selling them direct for **$99** with 256k of RAM, which can be upgraded to
8mb for about $300, or 4mb for about $150. I'm about to pick up two myself
(you can have up to 4 of these cards in the same machine). This is without
a doubt the best price-performance deal for sample playback out there - you
can have four 8mb cards for $1600 which gives you 32mb of sampling RAM, up
to 128 polyphonic voices (at 16bit, 32khz, or 96 voices at 16b, 44khz), and
the sound quality is superb.
Gravis UltraSound - this is an all-in-one card with built in 8-bit, 44khz
sampling, 16-bit, 44khz playback and up to 1mb of RAM (256k standard). The
sample playback portion does 14 voices at 16b, 44khz on up to 32 voices at
22khz (i believe). i personally can't tell the difference :) it comes with
about 7mb of patches, and there is _tons_ of support for this card on the
internet, including a large ftp site. the sampler can be upgraded to
16-bit, 48khz with the addition of a daughtercard for about $100. The card
itself is selling for $110-150 usually, although I would say don't pay more
than $130 because it's quite easy to find somewhere that sells it for that.
The major downside to this card is the small amount of memory it can hold,
but it's otherwise very powerful. This card is used by alot of budget
techno makers nowadays, including myself :)
quoted 1 line 2. Recording Decks.> 2. Recording Decks.
I assume you mean multitracks. First, I'll have to ask "Why?" If you pick
your synths and boxes wisely, you can do most everything with midi, and
it's alot less hassle than laying everything onto tape. Your money might be
better spent on a DAT (digital audio tape) machine for making final
mixdowns and making live recordings (get a portable one - they're also nice
for grabbing sounds to sample from everywhere).
If you _do_ want a multitrack, there are plenty of good ones for not too
much. The Tascam Porta-03 is really cheap (i sold one for i think $100)
although it's very no-frills. The Tascam Porta-07 might be a better choice,
or any of the comparable yamaha models. Fostex makes great cassette
multitrack machines as well. Compare features and prices and decide which
one you want.
quoted 1 line 3. Drum effects.> 3. Drum effects.
Lots of people will argue about the sound quality, but ART's FXR and FXR
elite are two versatile, cheap fx boxes. The FXR is non-programmable (has
like 200 presets) and goes for under $200, and the FXR elite with
programmable parameters and midi control is about $50 more. If you could
find a cheap used Boss SE-50, that's also a great box.
quoted 5 lines Some ideas I've liked (though not necessarily original)> Some ideas I've liked (though not necessarily original)
>
> Record the highway noise by my house late at night. I've often
> tranced out on the subtle phase shifts and phantom tones it gets late
> at night. And I don't even take drugs.
Hmmm. neat idea. i often hang a microphone out a window and record 'real'
ambient sounds for sampling. there's alot of sounds out there to be used
that don't come from some analog or digital synth!
quoted 1 line I play the 'cello. No one's done THAT yet.> I play the 'cello. No one's done THAT yet.
go for it!
quoted 3 lines I've also had a lot of fun sampling and looping from a cheezoid Radio> I've also had a lot of fun sampling and looping from a cheezoid Radio
> Shack electronic drum kit. The biggest problem I have with it is that
> it's so flimsy that it falls over if you actually drum on it.
:)
btw, for those that have read this far, i'm working on getting a techno music
makers list up and running, as well as a WWW server where each musician can
have clips of their music or whatever they want. (thanks to Jamie for this
idea!) At the latest, it will all be up and running by the end of June,
although I hope to get it working sooner. Stay tuned!
- DanN
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