This Is A Question For All Yall Beat Makerz...

[InvincibleArmor79]

ALRIGHT... I GOT SOME QUESTIONS FOR ANYONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO SET UP A HOME STUDIO ON A COMPUTER...

im startin from scratch, and i wanna hear yall opinions on how i should do it...
basically i just wanna make my own beats, prolly from a program like fruity loops or protools, and have a keyboard wit micphone access...

nothin extravagant, or extremely high priced but if anyone could point me in a direction that would be tight...

ive did some research but i think the best way to approach this is to hear from people that have studios of their own or know something about settin one up...

thanks, and peace...

[rzarazorrzarazorsharp]

1...i reccomend BUYING fruity loops so you can get free updates.
2...Get an interface...with that you'll knock out two birds with one stone cuase it'll serve as your soundcard for your beats and also let you connect a microphone to it.
3...when you set up your mic(everyone makes this rookie mistake)..make sure to set it up with alot of padding sourround the mic....when recording just open spaces your voice will echo off walls and corrupt your quality...try putting it in the closet so that your clothe absorb the sound and not bounce back...or you can do what we did and build and booth and put foam on the walls.
4...after that its all in your head on how to mix stuff down and its up to you to decide whats sounds good and what doesn't

[no-dachi]

There is no right way. You would do well to seek out a studio program (I use Reason and Cubase in conjunction with one another when doing takes, or just Reason for beats)... get a good condenser mic, or the old school performance kind... condenser is kind of a pussy looking mic, but it really does the job... and it's versatile for recording different things other than voice (i.e. drums). The beat splicing capabilities in Reason (you will also need the app Recycle) are what you want if you're going to do Wu type breakbeat sounds. Other than that... hm... get a nice pair of monitoring headphones, or speakers (Mackie HR-824s)... and a midi controller to play keys [Midiman Oxygen-8]... finally, a soundcard with low latency to tie it together (Midiman Audiophile).

Or just jack some software and get cheap ass gear like me, and just work out the sounds you like... RZA learned to do more with less and that's why his beats were so bad ass back in the day when he was downsampling shit. Can't go wrong no matter what you do, really... just need all the pieces in one form or another. Good luck.

[Qwiffersniffer]

I smoke rock.

[Sun Tzu, Tha Soul Controllah]

There is no right way. You would do well to seek out a studio program (I use Reason and Cubase in conjunction with one another when doing takes, or just Reason for beats)... get a good condenser mic, or the old school performance kind... condenser is kind of a pussy looking mic, but it really does the job... and it's versatile for recording different things other than voice (i.e. drums). The beat splicing capabilities in Reason (you will also need the app Recycle) are what you want if you're going to do Wu type breakbeat sounds. Other than that... hm... get a nice pair of monitoring headphones, or speakers (Mackie HR-824s)... and a midi controller to play keys [Midiman Oxygen-8]... finally, a soundcard with low latency to tie it together (Midiman Audiophile).

Or just jack some software and get cheap ass gear like me, and just work out the sounds you like... RZA learned to do more with less and that's why his beats were so bad ass back in the day when he was downsampling shit. Can't go wrong no matter what you do, really... just need all the pieces in one form or another. Good luck.

words of wisdom

[InvincibleArmor79]

good lookin out

[LORD ZERO]

hmmmm i would start w/ fruityloops first and then elevate from there basically, and if u wanna chop samples, either use cool edit or soundforge for that kinda job

[The Eighth Sonn]

hmmmm i would start w/ fruityloops first and then elevate from there basically, and if u wanna chop samples, either use cool edit or soundforge for that kinda job

Where can I get those programs from??

Peace

[FrenchShin]

get the accurate hardware. coz good software with wack hardware just doesn't fit.

[MithBeatz]

First thing you need to consider the software your gonna use , personally i don't like FL , but thats me , go check some other shit out first maybe kontakt 2 , Reason , cubase etc. if your gonna drop your hard earned on it go d/l some demos first .
Your keyboard or your midi interface is of the utmost importance a usb one would certainly be advisable they have functions and adapt to the software that midi-0out only keyboards just cant , but if you on a budget hit up m-audio.com and check out their range of usb-midi interfaces starting the "midisport 1x1" starts at around US$40 (i think) .
If you are willing to drop around the US$200 mark , a very good option would be the m-audio O2 usb midi interface , which when i bought mine was bundled with reason adapted ( this is in australia , but i'm sure you could get the same package where ever you at) Adapted is pretty much just reason 2.5 , My favourite program is reason 3.0.3 which cost me 3 times the cost of that package and 2.5 is not far off it !!! So IMO a very good start-up option .
As far as any other equipment is concerned get the basics first , and if you fall "in love with beats" you'll find your own path. If you got any questions feel free to hit me-up .

[InvincibleArmor79]

thanks for the input

[GRANDMASSIVE.]

I'm lookin into this also, I'm all hardware right now with basically jus an mpc 2k & a roland rs-5 but want a better sound plus more options. Right now I'm considering adding some software or maybe jus gettin a workstation. I'm researching on Saffire, Lexicon Omega, & Mackie Spike, does anybody have any suggestions any help would be appreciated.

1
Grandmassive

[MithBeatz]

of the group you couldn't go past the Lexicon Omega , i don't know prices so what is best value for money ? i don't know . If you have more specific questions hit up http://www.illmuzik.com/forums there would be more people around there with lots of hands on experience in these products

[Grim Reapa]

i would recommend kinetic by cakewalk and also acid pro 4.0



Kinetic is an all in one program and you make your beats use ur chops on acid pro then use music match jukebox to convert them from wav to mp3

[MithBeatz]

Not one of the ones you mentioned but was peepin e-bay and came across what seems like a good recording interface for the price
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/PreSonus-FIRE...QQcmdZViewItem