#1

microphone + good speakers/monitors < 500 $ ??

in PB Guitarstudio FORUMS Tue Apr 30, 2013 2:25 pm
by student • 146 Posts

I am interested in learning to record/create music after reading some of these past posts by dlraben.
Since I am new at this I was wondering if any of you know of decent quality equipment to get me started with this.
I am not looking for professional grade equipment, but good equipment that will last me a long time and produce a good quality sound.

My setup should only have to consist of the following 3 things ?
1) reaper
2) microphone
3) speakers or monitors

Thanks in advance


Last edited Tue Apr 30, 2013 2:28 pm | Scroll up

#2

RE: microphone + good speakers/monitors < 500 $ ??

in PB Guitarstudio FORUMS Tue Apr 30, 2013 5:45 pm
by dlraben • 278 Posts

I had (and still have) these same questions. I've read TONS of material on what to buy and what not to buy and here's the conclusion I came to: only buy enough to record your guitar into Reaper, and stop there for a long time. (I tried Cubase LE and Ableton Lite and compared to Reaper I think they suck. But whatever, they all can probably do the same stuff.) My reasoning is that I'm simply not skilled enough to hear the difference between good PC speakers and near-field monitors, or pro-grade A/D converters and entry level, or an acoustically treated room and my spare "music room." I think spending more than a couple hundred bucks just to set yourself up is going to be wasting money, but please defer to someone with more experience. We all want to be stars like Pebber & Ursin (et. al.), but if we ever do get sponsorships then we can upgrade our stuff later, right?

I own the Line 6 GX audio interface which comes with Pod Farm 2.5 (guitar & bass). I'm not stating this to shill for Line 6, and in retrospect I wish I got one level higher to have an instrument input and an XLR/balanced input. Nearly all of the major brands make an entry level audio interface and most come with software. I picked Line 6 purely because the POD Farm marketing sold me. Is it good? If you don't have a tube amp with a line out, yes, it's very good. (Notice Pebber uses a line 6 solid state amp in most of his videos. Same programming as in Pod Farm.) In truth, I am lucky enough to have a tube amp and an attenuator with a line out. So now I only use Pod Farm for bass guitar. I still use the GX though as my audio interface and aside from the single input problem have never had any problems at all.

I own a decent set of powered PC speakers (Klipsch promedia 2.1). Are they good? Yes. Do they put out an unbiased signal with a flat response? Heck no, the bass is boosted and the waterfall graph sucks. Can I tell? No. Have the 5 people that have listened to my music ever complained the bass was too high/low, or that instrument X wasn't cutting through? HAHAHAHAHHA. No chance. Would i buy the speakers again if I was starting from scratch with what I know now? No, I'd spend $50 or so more and buy a pair of 5" near-fields. I very likely would not be able to hear the difference AT ALL, but if I stay as motivated as I am now for another 5 years I'm betting at some point I will.

I hope this helps you, but I'm afraid this might be a case of the blind leading the blind.

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#3

RE: microphone + good speakers/monitors < 500 $ ??

in PB Guitarstudio FORUMS Wed May 01, 2013 4:40 pm
by John567 • 156 Posts

Hey diraben,

Thanks for this and the the other post in the video thread. It's given me a better perspective. I appreciate it.

:D

John

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#4

RE: microphone + good speakers/monitors < 500 $ ??

in PB Guitarstudio FORUMS Tue May 14, 2013 7:31 am
by student • 146 Posts

Found this article on reddit.
http://lifehacker.com/the-basics-of-musi...our-h-499088482

I still have not purchased equipment, still in the absorption mode


Last edited Tue May 14, 2013 7:33 am | Scroll up


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