Fray

Yes, they're active monitors, and they have RCA plugs too. You'll be able to run a line straight from your soundcard. They should be fine to place next to your computer or monitor, but not actually touching as that would probably cause some annoying noises from the vibration... You do want them pointing at your ears, speaker placement for monitoring is pretty touchy regardless of what speakers you have. You could probably stack up some towels or something -- the less vibration you transfer to your desk the better.

Hmm, well, what are you looking for control over? I'm not quite sure what you mean by sound environment. For all intents and purposes, what you really want out of an audio interface is: 1. Enough inputs for what you're doing. 2. High quality D/A and A/D converters (i.e. it records sound without distortion and outputs it without distortion). 3. Zero latency input monitoring -- i.e. it can route the input sound straight to the output without having to go through the OS. 4. Basic volume level controls. Your Inspire does all of those things. You really don't want any bass boost chicanery or "Surround WOW Maxx FX" or any of the other kind of foolishness you get with a SoundBlaster, because you're looking for transparency. Higher end recording cards aren't going to have anything fancier in terms of controls, just more inputs really. Bundled software is usually crap anyway. Go buy the software you want.

Not sure why you hate on your Inspire so much. AFAIK it's a perfectly good audio interface. More money will get you more input channels and such, but otherwise I see no reason for you to upgrade. I really don't think it's the source of your latency at all. As I said before, your computer is powerful enough for a DAW if it's not bogging down when you do what you want to do with it. Getting a faster processor isn't going to magically make your music sound clearer or something. It's all a matter of how much you need to throw at it. But yeah Celerons are outdated budget processors. You could definitely get something a lot faster than that.

Yeah, I basically use 5.7ms latency (with some tracks frozen/archived if necessary) when I'm recording MIDI. Otherwise I bump it up to like 50ms -- there's no point in wasting the processing power for low latency when mixing or using a mouse to edit sequences! Like others said, the 13ms latency sounds like a driver or setting issue. There's little point in upgrading your PC unless it's choking when you try to do something in particular. Have you ever thought, "I wish I could add more tracks/effects/soft synths, but my computer grinds to a halt?" If not, go buy something else or save your money 'till you actually need it. Monitors and room treatment are a great way to chew through a few thousand dollars if they're really burning a hole in your pocket...

He's not looking at the keystation pro though, he's looking at the ES. It's got semi-weighted keys, which as a general rule aren't exactly great for piano playing. If you can afford it, the 88 Pro is very much worth the upgrade. Hammer action is much closer to the real thing. http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-Keystation-Hammer-Action-Bus-Powered-Controller/dp/B000YYUTEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1197520638&sr=1-1 Don't take our word for it though, go try 'em out at a store if you can

Yep, they're loud enough to play your keyboard through. Any active monitor will do it (passive monitors require you to have a separate preamp, but those are generally higher end). Agreed with statas. You can plug your board into a guitar amp just fine, just watch the volume level, especially the bass. Guitar amps aren't meant to handle a lot of bass.

What's your budget? A pair of these (yeah they're sold individually, most monitors are) seem to be the favorite "cheap" monitor speakers: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/KRK-RP5-Rokit-Powered-Reference-Studio-Monitor?sku=602312 If you can only spend like $100, go for a good pair of (relatively) flat response headphones like Sennheiser HD-280pro or other favorites frequently mentioned in these forums. Those will be better for mixing than any speakers you can get in that price range. The Logitech speakers will be horrible for mixing. Way worse than the Studiophiles you linked. The difference is everything. The extra EQ is just going to muddy up the sound even more. Plus it's easier said than done, and doesn't account for the fact that speakers (especially cheap ones) will have different responses at different volume levels.

Yes you should try Ableton Live, many folks love it. It has a free demo. Your remix has some nice musical ideas in it, but it's pretty thin both in terms of arrangement and the synth sounds themselves. The percussion sounds really cheesy and overly simplistic. I'm also guessing it makes heavy use of FL Studio presets (don't really know what they sound like myself), which the judges usually hate But it sounds like you have a good ear for arrangement, so I hope you'll keep at it. Most ocremixes take WAY longer than 5 hours to create.

That's periodactically logalistic. Edit: and what do you know, both words actually turned up results on a google search.

Some mothers neglect and beat their children y'know... Actually as far as keyboards go you should be okay. What you pay for is kinda what you get, especially when you're going from $150 to say $500.

If you're just looking for something to diddle around on sure... If you want to do any remixing, at that price, get a midi controller and use free soft synths.

I think the Xiosynth has a builtin audio interface too (or so the advert on Novation's site said). I've currently got a Siel DK-600 in the shop (I bought it broken on Ebay). I agree that an old analog might not be a bad choice for him in the sense that they have knobs for everything. But they're generally not at all compact, and can be a huge pain in the ass to maintain, especially if you're trying to get one on the cheap. Analog keyboards in good condition, even lesser models, tend to go for quite a lot on Ebay.

Are you plugging into a microphone jack or a line jack on your computer? A mic jack is going to have a preamp in it, which you don't want since your guitar amp is already doing that job.

Dunno if you're really going to get one knob per function for $250... Usually when they're designing a budget synth the knob count is the first thing to go. You might also look at the Alesis micron. Very compact, but the interface is even more minimal than the MicroKORG. If you want more knobs, save up for something like an Novation X-Station (or the older K-Station), Korg MS2000B, or Roland SH-201.

Hale bopp maybe?

Yeah I think I've heard that effect before on stuff that wasn't mastered very well Super low freq stuff really does mess up your headroom too -- I looked it up.

I downloaded this from the remixing forum, I believe It's a fantastic remix, I knew people would go crazy for it once it was posted!

I'm pretty sure super low frequencies can mess up a mix, even if they're inaudible. If nothing else they might screw it up in the same way a DC offset would -- it would start clipping at a lower volume level than normal. I guess that's why a lot of guides will suggest you low-cut your kick drums at somewhere around 20-30Hz. For example they mention it in this one (http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov03/articles/logicnotes.htm) in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs, but no explanation other than that it decreases muddiness. As for the super high stuff... I dunno Nor will it loosen your sphincter, but it's still an interesting discussion.

It's because you can physically feel a 5hz vibration even if your ears don't actually pick it up. I don't see a purpose in going over 20kHz -- aliasing is only a problem when you're trying to digitally sample a waveform with frequency content greater than half the sampling resolution. That's not an issue with headphones or speakers, they're going to act more like a low pass filter really... The only reason I could see that a headphone manufacturer would spec at over 20k is if designing them that way made the frequencies under 20k better.

Haha, thanks CHIPP It's been crazy fun working on this remix! While I'm proud of the work I did on it, it's just icing on a really good arrangement. Btw, would you like a CD or something of the mix project? It's in Sonar 7 (I think you said you had 5, so you couldn't use it unless you upgraded). I don't think I used many external plugins, and the ones I did use were all free (Kjaerhus Flanger and Blockfish are the only ones that come to mind).

I'm getting way over my head trying to talk about psychoacoustics, but I'm not sure the ideal mixing headphones would actually lack the notches at 5kHz or in the super high frequencies... Headphones would ideally sound the same as super high end monitors (flat response) in a perfectly treated room. But when you stick the speakers with a flat response right next to your ears, you don't get the same effect. For one thing the sound would be way too damn bright. Everything from the air in the room to the shape of your head changes the sound before it gets to your ears. Point being, you can't judge headphones by looking at the graphs and grabbing the one that looks most like a straight line. But you can use it to see the difference between the headphones you're considering and top-of-the-line models like the HD650s... For one thing you will see that most consumer headphones, even expensive ones, are nowhere close! (Dannthr probably knows all this already, but as an FYI for other readers...)

Heh, he's already heard about 50 versions of it from me, poor guy Yeah I still feel the ear fatigue too. I think it's a combination of the blast beats, "crying" guitars, and my meager skills But at least it's less than before, like you said. Thanks for listening. What spots in particular?

Okay, here we go with probably the final version - Fixed the panning on the harmonized guitar solos. I completely spazzed out and had both guitars 30% left when I meant to have one on the right. Sorry about that! - Boosted the kick around 6kHz because otherwise I could barely hear it on headphones. Lemme know if it's too clicky for your taste -- I deliberately made it less so than the one on "Gods of War Arise". - Added Legion's Guitar Harmony of Apocalyptic Doom (thanks Legion!). Panned it to the opposite side of the main melody, I think that's what was intended... And for once I'm going to get the damn link right on the first try. Here goes: http://www.winter-light.net/nbmont/Valkyriemix_Fray_v19.mp3 Oh btw, let me know if the encoding is ok. I used VBR, some people don't like it.

(Waiting for Analoq to pop in here and pimp Grados...)

I saw Powerman 5000 open up for Primus one time... they had two drummers at the time (this was circa 1996). And I think I've seen or heard of other people doing it -- a lot of times the second kit will focus more on latin instruments.