Hi soft,
Many thanks for your reply. I also think it might be more proper for me to do an intro of my background first, to start things off. =) I will try to add more details so as to give you a better idea of what I know. So I beg for you and the others to bear with the lengthiness.
I had learn electone from Yamaha when I was younger, until grade 8b.
So I can read little of the simpler scores and play a little keyboard. But to be exact, I do not think I have sufficient knowledge on music theory itself yet.
Other than that I did undergo some vocal training before, and obtained up to grade 7 with distinction for LCM's (London College of Music) pop vocal performance exam. Here is the URL where you can hear 2 songs which I had on this online KTV thingy (yes, I am a self-admitted ktv junkie *sweat*)
http://tw.kara24h.com/blog/blog_kara_list_edit.asp?cust_no=92591
(IE only, BIG5)
Software wise, I had previous short-lived encounters with Soundforge, Cakewalk, and Acid back during my study days. That's how I get to know of the existence of MIDI, and the difference between MIDI and wav (laffs).
But that's about all =/
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At this current stage, I do not know what to expect out of my recordings, for my lack of knowledge. But I try not to be too vague. Hence do correct me, if I had gone way out of my expectations; or should I need to be guided to a better path.
Since I am still very new to this area, I thought I could start with some simple gears, so that I can understand the process better, and move on from there. But as simple as it is, I do hope I can get some decent sounds from the end product (No horrible synthetic sounds, should natural sounding instruments be used, quality though can be compromised)
In the short term, I hope to be able to do some
remixes, mainly
game OST remixes, though I do not rule out others.
Because one of my aim is to be able to submit to the online video game remixing communities like OCR.
Eventually in the long run, I hope to try out my hands, and be able to
compose/arrange originals, something like
Yasunori Mitsuda's/Yoko Kanno's work; celtic, new-age, or similiar.
And also your everyday
pop/rock/mainstream genres.
Having some vocal background, I would probably do vocal recordings as I progress, to be used for the remixes or originals.
Some samples from Yasunori Mitsuda's site over here:
Sailing to the World - Sailing to the World
Kirite - Tsugunai
Other similiar examples (right-click save):
Kaoru Wada - Record of Lodoss War - Prologue
ORIGA - Mizu no Madoromi
Pls do inform me if the links are not proper, and ought to be removed or handled in other ways.
I apologize in advance if things do not seem proper.
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Budget wise... Well that depends I think. Maybe from
$500 to max ard 2k. I really hope to get everything under 1k if possible. I dun mind spending more, but I hope the things that I would acquire will be fully justified for. A bad scenario will be, getting a super top-notch (and exp) equipment, only to discover it is too complicated for me to handle at the moment; or I do not have the need for all the sophisicated features it has, thus under-utilizing it. (Has occured to me too many times =/)
I am thinking,
something good would be a simple startup, which can be further expanded according to my needs with add-ons later. veralThen again I thought the experts over here might have a better idea of what I really need, hence I hope you guys can kindly feed me some inputs on this. =)
Instrumental parts would probably be done mainly via MIDI/sampling...
that is, if I finally figured out how to get them to work.
**again, NEWBIE ALERT**
I can really use some help for someone to knock the sense into me, of how exactly do sampling/MIDI function, the architect of the whole setup, why do I need this and that, and etc.
What I want to archieve now for the moment is to be able to handle everything with a DAW. The only "live" recording I would do for now, would probably only be vocal stuff. Currently I already own the following below.
1. Roland E-14 Keyboard (not connected to PC)
2. Yamaha YDP-101 Piano (not connected to PC)
3. Creative Prodikeys (USB)
4. Shure SM48s. (Plugin via normal mic-in port on my onboard soundcard)
5. PC (specs unclear, custom setup ard 2 years ago, for 3D and design purposes. Shall update with exact stats again if needed)
6. Altec lansing speakers 5.1 (using only 2 speakers now though)
7. A few headphones (Though I doubt they will be good for monitoring, will update again)
Probably one would notice that I am missing the mention of a soundcard, which I dun have! *insertscreams*
Currently I am using the onboard soundcard from my mobo. Hence there's no way of hooking up my roland/piano to the PC.
Which leads me to the question, what's the difference between the 'PCI EMU0404' and the 'EMU0404 USB', which is a MIDI interface?
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Thank you for bearing this incredulously lengthy entry!
.. check out my production webpage too : 