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Hip-Hop
R&B
POP
As far as instruments I have acess to musicians.

Depending on how much equipment you need to get and the quality you're looking for, $1300 sounds pretty low to me. But again, it depends on the particulars of what you're planning on.

I think Reason would be good for what you're looking for--then you would need a midi keyboard to control it.  You would also want audio recording software for live instruments or vocals--Pro Tools is the industry standard, but Bias' Deck is a nice setup for the more budget-conscious.  I don't know what music hardware you already have, but you'll at least need a mixer and a mic to record the live stuff.  You could probably get away with a cheap mixer (I have a Behringer Eurorack that was under $100), but a decent mic makes a big difference--Shure's are my favorites.

Good luck.

ProTools LE w/Mbox Street $390-450. Drawback: Latency for overdubs and only 2 outs. but you can mix everything within. On the positive side your Reason works and PT LE is cheap. Mixer Behringer cheap and okay as well. Mic is a matter of taste there are a couple great ones out there (Shure SM57/SM58 Sennheiser 421, and off course Audio Technica 40xx, Neumann, AKG) but for all the gear check eBay. Learn your prices and happy bidding.

cq

for entry level i would recommend DP and motu over pro tools...

Why do you say that?

I have a roland studio package pro, and it works pretty well, but i have a coupla MAJOR complaints against it.

1) the mac support sucks. which is stupid considering how many mac music people there are that actually pay for this stuff

2) no dual processor support in logic RPC pro. they took it out for this version. i dont know why they had to dumb it down.

3) only 2 inserts per track. once again, why dumb it down??

4) various other small things i dont remember.

when i bought this i was told by emagic that it would do what i wanted, then when i found out about that stuff, i was pissed, because those limitations were never mentioned to me. So i downloaded logic platinum off thier website and as long as i dont change the date when i load up platinum, i have a fully working version. However, platinum doesnt interface as well with the si-24, even thought its supposed to. emagic keeps giving me half answers, because the fault now actually lies with m-audio, who makes the interface card...m-audio cant seem to make a correctly functioning driver.


i originally wanted to get a motu 896, because 8 mic ins are a must for me. but the 896 doesnt come with digital performer. it comes with some other half baked software, and DP will cost somemore. Plus, DP doesnt use any standard plug-ins..you have to find motu plugs..

so im going to get the digi002 rack. it has 4 mic ins, and 4 more line ins, and i have a preamp already, so ill have my total 8 mic ins. it is rackmounted, has phantom power, monitor and headphone controls opnt he front, uses firewire so i can tote it around and use it on a laptop, and comes with protools LE, which takes RTAS and AU plugs, runs well on os X (which i cant say for the studio package pro), and isnt limited for 24 tracks..its up to 32, which is more than enough..24 is right at my edge.

I dont do a ton of midi, i do a lot of tracking though, so protools will work beter for what im wanting to do..if you are looking at midi, then something like logic or DP would be great for you.

unresort wrote:

spend double what you think you should on the microphone(s).

^^^^Listen to this fellow.