theshaggyfreak

Doeth! I actually felt I had a decent compo last night too..although it was a bit of a strange one...then again, I'm kind of strange.

If this netbook has problems running Reason (which is very CPU efficient), I seriously doubt that Komplete is going to work either. Unfortunately a decent work station keyboard is going to be well above your $500 limit. There are some cheap Yamaha keyboards like this but I'm not sure that would help you much. At this point, you may want to start scouring craigslist to see if you can find a deal.

Basically Gearbox/Podfarm works like a plugin in your DAW. Instead of using a piece of hardware to hold all the models, it's all done via your computer. While both the Pod and the software plugin use the same models, some people argue whether or not they sound the same. I really haven't noticed any difference.

While I do agree, I've often purchased a number of instruments after just reading reviews and maybe watching some Youtube videos. I never tried a Mopho out and I bought it just on it's reputation. Then again, you can do that with certain companies.

Actually, if you really want to go the analog route (and you're handing with a solder iron), you can try building your own synth! I'm actually in the process of doing this.

I wouldn't say that a hardware synth is less powerful or versatile. It really just depends on the work flow of the user. I personally prefer to use hardware synths but they can be I admit that they can be more expensive. IMHO, though, something like the Xiosynth or the Micron is much more portable than a laptop and a MIDI controller. Here's a couple things to think about. What are your needs? Are you looking to play in a band or are you just going to record with it? What type of sounds are you looking to get out of it? If you're looking to do some live performing, any of the synths you suggested would work fine. I actually owned a Xiosynth for a short time and it was a lot of fun to use although it was a bit tedious going through the menus to create new sounds. I can't really comment too deeply on the others since I haven't used any of the extensively. Personally, I feel that if you're going to get something in the hardware real, you might want to look at something that's has a pure analog signal path. Why? As advanced as soft synths have gotten, they still have yet to completely mimic the sound of analog. It really has to do with the chaos factor that analog circuitry has. I recently picked up a Dave Smith Mopho which runs about $400. This little guy is awesome! If you're looking to get into analog, this is a great synth to start with. Granted, you'll need a MIDI controller to use it but there are tons of those that you can grab on any sort of budget. If you're really just looking to do things around the house and you're really not sure what type of sounds you want, you may want to just look into a MIDI controller and a quality soft synth. The plus side of going this route is that you can try a number of different ones until you find one that you like to use. When you buy a piece of hardware like the Mopho, you're committing yourself to the sound that it gives you. These are just some things to think about....

Hrm...no idea on that. I've installed bootcamp on a couple machines and I haven't experienced anything of that nature. I admit, though, that the WinXp disc I have comes with SP2. I'm not sure if that makes a difference for the install on bootcamp.

One mistake I made when I first tried running bootcamp was that I did NOT format the bootcamp drive during the WinXP install. The initial partition that the bootcamp software makes will not work and that is stated in the instructions. You need to format it while doing the Win XP install.

Hopefully I don't your hands to use them. Otherwise, I'm coming over with a chain saw.

I'm gona do, "I Saw Stevo Kissing Santa Claus"

It's actually pretty easy. There's a couple buttons that let you page left and right. It lets you go over to the next group of channels if there's more than 8. Now that would only become a pain if I was mixing a project with like 64 tracks but that never happens for me.

It does but I still don't find it to work well enough to make me want to use them. There's just something about the feedback that you get from the BCF that makes it a lot more fun to use. I'm not sure I could go back to something that doesn't have motorized faders at least as far as surface controllers go.

I understand where you're coming from. For a long time, I really found it difficult to get MIDI surface controls into my work flow. That changes when I got my Behringer BCF 2000. Despite Behringer putting out a lot mediocre stuff, this is probably one of the best products they sell. The biggest problem with a lot of the standard knobs/faders on most controllers is that you often have problems with value 'jumping' when said knob of fader doesn't match what's on the screen. With the BCF 2000, the faders are motorized and the knobs are encoders with lights all around them. So, most software has the ability to sync up with them really well. With Pro Tools, I set my BCF 2000 to Baby HUI mode which lets me control all of the mixing faders and panning controls. It also gives me control of the transport, etc. It's kind of handy to have that sort of thing when mixing. I don't know about you but I sometimes find mixing with a mouse to be counter productive. The BCF 2000 works really great with Reason since it automatically maps to whatever device you select. Click a device and all the encoders and faders move to the values of that particular device. The only difficult thing is remember what control does what since none of them are labeled on the BCF. The MIDI keyboard I use is an Edirol PCR-M50 and I can honestly say that I never use any of the surface controls on it. I find it's more of a pain in the ass than using a mouse to control things due to things not always being in sync as it were. Some people have no problems dealing with it but I've always thought of it as a hassle. I think it's because I came from using hardware stuff before I ever touched synth stuff on a computer. I prefer things to be more hands on with instant gratification. I suppose that's why I'm slowly drifting to using more hardware synths.

The mixing desk I have is on casters. So, it's not too difficult to get behind it if I need to without too much effort. Most of the time I don't have to, though, since I have a patch bay set up as well as a snake that goes to all of my mic preamps. I knwo exactly what you mean, though. I always had issues with accessing things when I had stuff set up in a small apartment.

Yeah, I prefer to have as much desk space as possible. Corner/L desks often don't give you much in the way of that. For my recording set up, I'm glad that I have an actual mixing desk. If I didn't, though, I'd be all over just have a nice big flat table top.

I've given up on corner desks. They're such a pain in the butt and they suck to move. I'm all about the modular desk stuff at Ikea.

Let me guess...the MidiLFO?

Considering how many version of the Gameboy have come out in the past, this doesn't surprise me in the least. There's enough collectors out there that will buy the new DS. As far as lack of good Wii games, I can't argue with that although 3rd party companies are just as much to blame. My biggest problem with Nintendo is them dropping the quality seal off the Wii games. It just opened things up to massive amounts of shovel ware.

Either people will buy it or they won't. Who cares if Nintendo is putting this out? I can't really understand why I've seen such a big negative reaction to this all over the place.

I'm a consumer whore!

Other than your typical effects, I tend to use a LP or HP filter with some sort of LFO. Bit reducers can be fun to use to.

The only 'DAW' that I know of that has a particular 'sound' to it is Record since the mixer in it was modeled after an SSL board. In the end, though, I still firmly believe that it's the person driving the machine that makes the 'sound'.

Unless you plan on recording audio, you may not need a separate audio interface since you can probably connect your Clav directly to your computer. One reason you still may one one, though, is if you want higher quality sound when listening back to things. Most people probably don't use notation software around here but I could be wrong. Now, what I use is a combination of Pro Tools (which does have notation software with it's current version) and Reason. As far as what DAW you want to use, that's kind of subjective these days. It took me a number of tries before I found the right one that jived with my own personal work flow. You may want to try a few out before you make your purchase to see if you find one that feels like a good fit. Some programs, like Reaper, are quite cheap and there's enough people around here that love it. As far as a sample library goes, there are a number of choices you can make to give yourself a good start. As I said above, I use Reason which comes with quite a bit. I mostly like it, though, because it feels more like using an actual piece of hardware due to its interface. You can pick it up for about $400 or less. There are a number of people around here that are very much into the Native Instruments stuff. Their Komplete package is around $500 and it's fully loaded. Personally, I don't like NI very much but it's probably more of a personal thing rather than a technical thing. It could be your bag, though. Hope some of this helps.

Some folks already know this but I have a few things that I sell on my website that's tied to my solo project and webcomic. Check out the linky in my sig.

I'm fairly new around here and I really haven't found it too difficult to get involved. There seem to be a decent amount of threads with open invitations to join in on a project. Also, there are things like the One Hour Compositions that are held each Thursday. Good luck!