I also am slowly building mine out.
So far mine consist of:
-Macbook pro 2.2 i7 17" 750 gb
-Axiom 25
-HDJ 2000
-Logic 9
-Krk rokit 5s
-Focusrite saffire 6 (Or maybe a duet)
lots and lots of RAM
Well let me jump on this set up thing… I’m in the process of slowly building my home studio.
So far I have:
MBP 15" i7 2.0 8GB 500HDD
Logic Pro 9 Studio
Sennheiser HD 25’s
Now I’ve been browsing around for the rest, but there’s just so many options out there, all based on personal preference IMO. So the other things I’m still undecided on, are which sound card, keyboard, monitors to get..
These are what I’m considering:
Focusrite Sapphire 6, M-Audio Fast Track Pro, Apogee Duet 2, NI Audio 6?
Krk’s 5,6,8? or Yamaha HS50
Axiom Pro 49, SL 49, MPK 49 (which ever works best with Logic)
Other than that I think I’m on the right track right? amidoinitright? 
I’ll just say at the price point for home studios people are talking about here monitors are going to make way, way, more of a difference than a soundcard, especially if it is for an mostly ITB setup.
With what you’re getting I wouldn’t spend $500+ on an apogee personally, they may be nice but it’s just not worth investing there over better monitors if you are going to be hooking up KRK Rokits, and I also dislike the small size and all the messy breakout cables it requires on the duet.
The Komplete Audio 6 is surprisingly good for $200, zero latency, solid drivers, no dropouts, very stable over USB at highest settings and you can put the money you save towards decent monitors. Converters are pretty decent. I was reading a lot of people on gearslutz were preferring it over fancy RME and other cards that didn’t perform as well. The only reason I would see replacing it would be for more inputs if I got more hardware synths, but it is very solid and I would have to be in a very well treated studio to consider replacing it for sound quality.
Have you ever actually run out of ram when producing? how much do you have?
[quote=“psykx, post:25, topic:41773, username:psykx”]
Have you ever actually run out of ram when producing? how much do you have?
[/quote]I think it’s a why not thing at this point. 16GB of ram for any current MBP for $200. For an iMac, it costs just over $100. Since everyone says PCs are cheaper, I’d imagine you could get 16GB of ram for PCs for $70.
When you’re talking about that little money…why not jam 16GB of ram in there so you don’t have to think about it for a few years.
[quote=“moomentum, post:20, topic:41773, username:moomentum”]
I guess what I forgot to mention is that be is pretty intent on using Ableton… primarily due to him having a trial version on his current laptop.
[/quote]that helps
How do you guys know mkp mini 25 with Ableton Live? Any feedback? Looking for a beginner midi keyboard around that value.
it’s good for what it is…
My LPK25 gets more use than my MPK49 which I haven’t bothered to hook back up. No pitch bend but oh well.
the mpk mini is a POS toy. It’s not worth it’s price by a long shot. If you can get it for $30 or $40 and are going to be carrying it around in a back pack, sweet. Unfortunately, there isn’t much better in that price range. The Korg MicroKey has a USB hub (that probably sucks), pitch bend and mod wheels, and 3 octaves. You lose pads (the pads on the mpk mini are horrible) and knobs (which have to be assigned the hard way) and save like $20, get more keys, and pitch/mod wheels. And it can’t feel worse.
I kinda feel like control surfaces and keyboards should be separate, but that’s just me. At any rate, what the mpk mini offers isn’t worth worrying about.
Unfortunately almost all midi keyboards kind of suck so there isn’t really much better on all fronts, you just get to choose from a scale of 1-10 how cheap and plasticy you like your midi keyboards.
The novation SLs have decent keys but are way overpriced and the knobs and faders are junk and they are expensive, I really want to get rid of my mpk49 but there’s not much better to replace it with, and I don’t want faders/knobs.
if you can play the piano go for at least a 49 keyboard, of not just use the keyboard on your computer
I don’t think he’d want anything really portable… Something mainly to record vocals at his computer… suggestions?
Thanks for the help! Appreciate it.
Plenty. Budget?
General Entry Level: AT2035
General Little Better: AT4040
Loud/powerful voices: Shure SM7B
A “good” one would take up your entire budget…from what I’ve heard (from using them and talking to others who have) these are the standouts…but again, some mics work better with certain voices than others. Those are kinda standouts for their price points, but they won’t work with every voice.
IMO CPU is A LOT more important than RAM
i have 8GB of ram and i very rarely run out of ram except if i load huge kontakt/battery samples at the same time
and i normally have 40-70 tracks in ableton on a song
my 2.4ghz C2D macbook pro can barely handle the 40-70 track
my iMac 3.06 ghz however, handles everything nicely
so…
More CPU!
Should I go with the LPK 25 or pay double and get the MPK mini 25? I’ve heard from Ableton forum that it’s pain in the ass to map the pads, knobs and faders. Maybe I can save the 40€ for the decent drum pads like Maschine. What would you do?
What are you using it for? If you actually want to play melodies or anything you will probably be disappointed with either. The LPK25 is great as a tiny little keyboard that doesn’t take up much space to fit on your desk for experimenting and auditioning synth sounds. The pads are kind of junk and the knobs are tiny and you have to map them individually so I would rather not have them.
Guess i’m gonna go with the LPK25 just for a while until i save up some money for the decent one
Sounds good. Honestly, I haven’t felt a keyboard that felt even half decent that cost less than about $3,000 by itself. Fortunately, I’m a lousy keyboard player, so I don’t care.
Maschine is also a very good idea…but not just as a pad controller. Get it if he wants a software based groove box. If he’s happy working just in Live, you get a lot more for your money with an MPD32.
So guys any feedback on my post?
Thanks for the suggestions about getting a KA6, completely forgot about that, it looks like a viable option.
Any other suggestions? Am I on the right track so far?
SL 49 is the best of those keyboards