help with home demo studio

[neuvip]

Hi guys,

I wanna set up a small home studio and need a little advice. I'm in the market for a new computer as well. My needs: create drum/bass loops on computer, record vocals and guitar, and mixing and editing capabilities. I'm leaning towards a mac mini and a firewire interface such as the M-audio firewire solo or the Presonus Inspire. I don't really need more than one preamp and I don't plan on recording more than one track at a time for now. I've played around with garageband a little and would probably use that to create loops, record, and mix to start. Some of my friends are pretty experienced with Soundtrack, so I may migrate to that when I feel the need to. Is Mac the way to go? I know they're switching to x86 architecture next year, but I'm not too worried about that. Is there software available for PC that's just as easy to use and as high quality for

Thanks.

[Funkwave]

You might want to consider Reason. It's an amazing program that uses very little cpu juice.

 

I use it for many genres of music. Other midi sequencer/rack programs I've tried like Project5, etc, sound a little too techno for me.

 

The firewire interfaces you mentioned would do fine. Also consider Tracktion by Mackie, an inexpensive audio/midi DAW.

[Lee Knight]

Since you like Garage Band use that. Then... I'd look into the new Digidesign M-Box. That way you get Reason too (an LE version at least) and lots of other goodies.

 

A lot of people don't like the Digidesign corporate vibe but, "digi benn berry, berry good to me".

 

I built a PC and I recommend that to anyone who asks, but the Mac you're interested would work fabulously. The platform doesn't matter anymore. I was Mac, now I'm PC. Whatever.

 

The software compliment that comes with the M-Box is a steal. If you can find a 1st generation M-Box, you're looking at under 3 bills. Whoa!