Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: Oct. 17 2005, 10:10 |
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| Quote (arron11196 @ Oct. 17 2005, 12:20) | | I would dispute Korgscrew's idea that changing a soundcard would not affect the output sound though - the 122 db SNR will definately pick up everything you throw at it, and it won't sound flat like some sound cards can do (through recording). |
Ah...I didn't mean that. What I was saying is that if you're doing everything internally (i.e. working with software synths and rendering them straight to disk), they're not going through the soundcard, so it's not going to have any effect on what your listeners hear, assuming you're sending them the files which you've rendered from the soft synths. If you're outputting via the analogue outs to a recorder of some description, then of course the soundcard becomes important, and of course like I said, it affects what you hear when working, as you have to monitor through it. That's a massive can of worms though, as there are going to be loads of things which are going to be making a beginner's monitoring setup and environment less than ideal (like lack of proper monitor speakers, untreated acoustics, noisy computers, etc), so I say that for the moment it's better to forget about all that!
If I understand right here, Alan isn't looking to record anything from outside the computer just yet, so the input performance of the soundcard is even less important than the output.
I'd actually forgotten that Reason costs quite so much. You can get it a tiny bit cheaper if you buy from one of the many music technology retailers in the UK, but you'd still be looking at about £250.
Another alternative, if you just want to introduce synthesised elements into your music rather than producing stuff which is entirely synthetic, would be to get a hardware synthesiser of some kind. I can't think of anything to recommend that you could buy for less than a copy of Reason though, and it would offer far less features (the kind I'm thinking of would give you keyboard sounds and nothing more, which would be fine when combining with other instruments, but might be a bit limiting on its own...of course, if we're talking about recording instruments from outside the computer, we then go back to the soundcard issue, and also onto issues of microphones, mic amps and the like - possibly enough to send you running screaming! ). I personally get along a lot better when I have a proper, nicely designed control surface in front of me though - I find these on-screen knobs rather fiddly, and somehow they don't invite tweaking in the same way. There are also devices which provide a hardware front end to software synthesisers of course, but again, I suspect outside of the kind of budget we're looking at here.
I have heard good things about the Magix products, actually - again, not something I've ever tried (the only thing of that type which I have played with is Apple's GarageBand, which I can definitely recommend, but as it's only available for Mac OS X, I don't think it's a terribly helpful recommendation here), but I know at least one person who has one of their programs and enjoys using it. It looks like Magix Music Studio might offer something like the kind of features you'd be after - a few synthesisers, some drum machines, effects, the works really. I'm looking on their site at the features of Music Studio 10 - no idea how that compares with the Music Studio 2005 which amazon.co.uk has for £23, but I'd think at that price, it's worth a look. It'll at least give you a flavour of computer music, and if you don't like it, you can continue your search for software without having lost too much money, so I think I'd side with a_r_schulz here. You can always upgrade to the full blown Pro Tools HD rig later, if you really feel like it...
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