Xmas bonus is coming, what should I buy?

[JonPorobil]

I like having a keyboard with internal noises so I can fire it up and noodle around with ideas without having to turn on the whole rig.

Ditto that.

Also, I'm not sure about our friend Wages, but I'm kind of MIDI-averse. But that's a whole nother story.

[wages]

Keyboard - I'd want to full thing because I might want to use it in performing... and I don't want to mess with a whole computer while on stage. I have enough trouble remembering the lyrics and delivering the notes! Of course, a controller would be an affordable way to add keys to my recordings (and probably to help with songwriting) which I do a lot more of than performing anyway, so it's definitely still a consideration.

Riffworks - I messed around with it and actually got some drums together that fit SHE ALREADY KNOWS, but when I went to save it, it crashed. It might be Vista's fault, but it was frustrating enough that I haven't tried again. I'm going to get my older PC with XP on it setup with Riffworks and other software and it will be my dedicated recording system. Then I might just be able to use Riffworks to get my drums! It did seem pretty awesome and easy to use!

Otherwise, I've been scoping out the Rondo Music basses as suggested, and I'm fascinated by the price and the reviews are generally good. However, most of the reviews I found while positive, mentioned having to tweak the instrument in some way. Mostly, new pickups, neck adjustments, or intonation. I could probably handle changing pickups, but the adjustments and intonation are beyond my abilities. However, I believe those are issues with virtually any guitar/bass, right? I mean, I bought a $1500 Epiphone Elite Les Paul a few years ago and it still needs the intonation set (I'm pretty sure that's why it sounds a little out of tune on virtually every track it appears on). Are these assumptions true? Should I be considering the Rondo instruments?

I'll be traveling to Memphis to visit family for Thanksgiving Tuesday the 24th and plan to hit several guitar stores to (hopefully) find some lefty basses to take on a test drive (so to speak) and maybe buy. What do I need to look for when I'm trying them out? That is, how do I determine if the neck is good for me personally? Is it just a "good feeling" I'm looking for? What else should I be thinking about?

Also, will I need to buy a bass amp or will it work well through my guitar amp (Roland Cube 30x)? If I do need an amp, what are some good affordable ones (sub $300, preferably sub $200 if that exists) with a 1/4" lineout (for recording)?

BTW, I just cashed in my small change which I've been saving for about 6 months. I got $156 out of it towards my instrument! It really pays to not spend the change, ever. lol

[Rabid Garfunkel]

The SWR LA12 amp is a manageable, stable & reliable beast. It's bumping up against your top end price though, so check Craigslist too. (It was the bass amp onstage @ 2006's SFL Santa Cruz.)

[wages]

I was in Memphis for Thanksgiving and hoped to play some basses, but all I could find was some crappy Korean knockoff for $250. At that price, I'd rather get a Rogue or the Rondo.

So, this is my (final?) bass question: Given the choice, would you get a Rondo (http://www.rondomusic.com/) or the Rogue (http://bass-guitars.musiciansfriend.com ... sku=512227)?

I don't want to have to mess with setting intonation and adjusting the neck, so I'm hoping one of the above will be good for that. If not, then I suppose I can take it in and pay someone to do that.

LMK your thoughts!

[Billy's Little Trip]

I've played a Rondo guitar and I was impressed for how inexpensive it was. That's the only input I can give.

[roymond]

I've been scoping out the Rondo Music basses as suggested. However, most of the reviews I found while positive, mentioned having to tweak the instrument in some way. I could probably handle changing pickups, but the adjustments and intonation are beyond my abilities. However, I believe those are issues with virtually any guitar/bass, right? Are these assumptions true?

Yes, all guitars should be "set up" when new. They adjust the neck, frets, intonation and action after shipping. You can do it yourself, but if you're not experienced and want an instrument to play really well, pay someone to do it. In NYC it costs $60 and is WELL WORTH IT (price includes new strings). It can make a cheap, OK guitar feel and sound great.

[Paco Del Stinko]

The Rondos get great reviews, especially for their cost. And Roymond is right, a professional set-up is well worth it. Then just maintain by wiping off strings before and after use, keep it in it's case, change strings regularly, etc.

[AJOwens]

After listening to a few of your tracks, I think they'd benefit most from a bass. However, a keyboard is way more versatile than a bass. It gives you a greater pitch range, a much greater range of sonic moods, and typically a basic drum machine. You can also use it to lay down bass tracks, although they won't feel the same. Also, for learning more about music, there's no substitute for a keyboard. If you get one, you'll need 60 ful-size keys at least.

Depending on your budget, you might be able to get a keyboard and still have a usable "bass guitar". Have you considered using an octave pedal to make your guitar sound like a bass? I tried one once, not for very long, but long enough to impress me -- and I am a bass player. It wouldn't hurt to head down to your favourite music store and try one out.

[wages]

Thanks guys. Actually, I think I'm going to get it all: the Rondo bass (http://www.rondomusic.com/sjb62qmdleft.html), this bass amp (http://bass-guitars.musiciansfriend.com ... sku=482900), and one of the recommended keyboard controllers. I should still have enough $$ left over to buy a Wii and Wii FIt.

I really appreciate all the help!! Now I just have to wait a week to get my bonus.

EDIT: Looking at keyboard controllers, I checked Musician's Friend and sorted by rating. This one seems like it will be good and is rated well. Opinions?
http://keyboards-midi.musiciansfriend.c ... sku=702541

[AJOwens]

Stuff looks good. There's a very favourable review of the Acoustic B100 at HarmonyCentral.

I had an Acoustic Control Corporation Model 126 at one time. It was pretty good -- you can read my review at HarmonyCentral, under "Jim." It looked roughly similar to the B100, but it had a five-band graphic EQ. I liked the sound, but it was very awkward to move, so later I went with a head-and-cabinet arrangement (GK150MBS and a Fender 15", if anyone wants to know).

As part of the evaluation, I 'scoped the outputs wide open, and the ACC 126 would not reproduce a clean sine wave above a volume setting of about 7. However, I doubt that the circuitry of the B100 is the same.

I'm not sure if the B100 is a transistor amp or not. For sheer balls you can't beat tubes, and guitarists usually prefer them, but for a bass I personally prefer transistors -- they seem to give a tighter, crisper sound. A lot of bass players would disagree though.

[AJOwens]

One other thing -- watch for latency issues.

When I got my MIDI controller and connected it to my PC, I was disappointed to find that I couldn't play in real time. Between the time I hit the key and the time I heard a note, there was a noticeable delay. This was with an Athlon processor running at about 1.8GHz. The delay made it practically impossible to play music.

With a little research, I discovered that this is called "latency", and to fix it, I needed a sound card with an ASIO driver. The one that came with the PC didn't support ASIO, so I ended up dropping some more money on a new sound card.

This was years ago -- maybe things are better now. Just sayin'.

[wages]

One other thing -- watch for latency issues.

When I got my MIDI controller and connected it to my PC, I was disappointed to find that I couldn't play in real time. Between the time I hit the key and the time I heard a note, there was a noticeable delay. This was with an Athlon processor running at about 1.8GHz. The delay made it practically impossible to play music.

With a little research, I discovered that this is called "latency", and to fix it, I needed a sound card with an ASIO driver. The one that came with the PC didn't support ASIO, so I ended up dropping some more money on a new sound card.

This was years ago -- maybe things are better now. Just sayin'.

Thanks. I know latency all too well! I will need to get a new soundcard too, but that will have to wait. Anyone want to suggest a good one?

[irwin]

Thanks. I know latency all too well! I will need to get a new soundcard too, but that will have to wait. Anyone want to suggest a good one?

Do you really want a sound card? Or just a way to get noises in and out of the computer?

I say get an external USB or firewire audio interface. There is a lot of benefit in getting the preamp and A/D conversion outside of the electrically noisy environment inside your computer's case. Also, many interfaces offer hardware monitoring, so latency is not an issue when overdubbing.

[wages]

Thanks. I know latency all too well! I will need to get a new soundcard too, but that will have to wait. Anyone want to suggest a good one?

Do you really want a sound card? Or just a way to get noises in and out of the computer?

I say get an external USB or firewire audio interface. There is a lot of benefit in getting the preamp and A/D conversion outside of the electrically noisy environment inside your computer's case. Also, many interfaces offer hardware monitoring, so latency is not an issue when overdubbing.

I'm open to that, but I am afraid that I will get frustrated with an external device if it is not incredibly easy to record multiple takes without more than 30 seconds of down time between each take. Plus, I've heard from others (not knowing what kind of setup they have) that they have difficulty, for instance, receiving tracks from others and mixing them together; I suspect this is because they are using analog devices. I don't know if it shows, but I know nothing about the sort of system you are recommending. Is there anything I should look at (webpages or products)?

[Billy's Little Trip]

I assumed Phil had an interface. Phil, how are you getting your vocals and guitar to the computer now?

[wages]

I assumed Phil had an interface. Phil, how are you getting your vocals and guitar to the computer now?

I run my mic into a vocal preamp (ART Tube MP Project Series) into my Behringer 8 channel mixer into my computer via my soundcard (not on board, but still bad latency). The guitar runs into my amp, Behringer, etc. The acoustic guitar is usually recorded with the same mic at the same time as the vocals ("live"), but sometimes I'll record separately so I can work on better vocal takes more easily. If I didn't have the latency to deal with (having to manually adjust each take to match up properly), then I could probably make better recordings all around.

Is that what you needed to know?

[jast]

A decent DAW should technically compensate for the latency. Anyway, I'm using an E-MU (Creative Professional) 0404 PCI sound card. It's pretty good, but if 2 analog ins, 2 analog outs and one MIDI in/out aren't enough for you, you'll want a different card (maybe from the same series, though I think the next is the 1212m which is considerably more expensive). Also the driver has a few kinks sometimes, and don't expect to be able to play all PC games with this card (so far I had two games which had trouble with this card; for Diablo II I had to turn of hardware acceleration and Prototype didn't work at all).

[Caravan Ray]

I've played a Rondo guitar and I was impressed for how inexpensive it was. That's the only input I can give.

Did you ask a real guitar player what he thought of it?













ducks....

[AJOwens]

In all this discussion of latency, there's something I'm not getting here. I mentioned it because of the problem that I once had with a MIDI controller. The MIDI signals coming from the keyboard are just codes, and it doesn't take much processing speed to get them into the PC. The waveform descriptions are in the PC software, and the work to convert the codes to waveforms happens somewhere inside the PC. I don't see how an external box would help that -- unless the PC somehow farms out the MIDI conversion processing to the box. Maybe that's it?

The other issue that's come up is recording latency. I don't have any problems with recording latency, and my music workstation uses an 800MHz NetVista. The PC has an mAudio Audiophile 2496 sound card (which solved my MIDI latency problem), but other than that my setup is not unlike Wages' setup -- the instruments go into an old high-end stereo preamp (Sony 2000F) which is plugged into the line-in jacks on the 2496.

The 2496 line outs are connected to the aux inputs of a stereo for monitoring, and the tape in and out jacks on the stereo are connected to my onboard sound card (SB AC97) so that I can record from LPs, tapes, CDs, or radio to the computer.

My recording SW, Multiquence, takes either card as a source. I've had up to 8 tracks going simultaneously with no recording latency problems at all.

[jeff robertson]

In all this discussion of latency, there's something I'm not getting here. I mentioned it because of the problem that I once had with a MIDI controller. The MIDI signals coming from the keyboard are just codes, and it doesn't take much processing speed to get them into the PC. The waveform descriptions are in the PC software, and the work to convert the codes to waveforms happens somewhere inside the PC. I don't see how an external box would help that -- unless the PC somehow farms out the MIDI conversion processing to the box. Maybe that's it?

The conversion of the digital waveform (just a bunch of numbers, like what is encoded on a CD) into actual analog waves (stuff you can actually hear) is what is offloaded to the external box. I don't think it's so much that an external interface is *inherently* faster than an internal soundcard, as that most people's computers have soundcards that are not made for the kind of stuff that we here on Songfight do.

But if you've got to buy a special piece of hardware anyway, an interface has advantages such as providing mic and line inputs on the front of its box instead of having to hook stuff up to the back of a PC.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I assumed Phil had an interface. Phil, how are you getting your vocals and guitar to the computer now?

I run my mic into a vocal preamp (ART Tube MP Project Series) into my Behringer 8 channel mixer into my computer via my soundcard (not on board, but still bad latency). The guitar runs into my amp, Behringer, etc. The acoustic guitar is usually recorded with the same mic at the same time as the vocals ("live"), but sometimes I'll record separately so I can work on better vocal takes more easily. If I didn't have the latency to deal with (having to manually adjust each take to match up properly), then I could probably make better recordings all around.

Is that what you needed to know?

Ok, yeah. So Erwin is right, a USB or Firewire interface would do you wonders. Latency issues are a thing of the past. No need for on board sound card because all of your monitoring is now done through the interface. Built in phantom power for condenser mics. It pretty much covers all the bases. The new PreSonus Fire Studio Mobile is the hot ticket for around $300, but you need a Firewire card if your computer doesn't already have one (cheap) because it's not USB. It may have a USB option, I don't know.

[JonPorobil]

If you're looking for an audio interface, here's a nice thread for you:
http://songfight.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6267

I wound up going with the Lexicon Lambda. Anywhere from $120 to $200, depending on where you look, has phantom power, connects via USB, and has inputs for up to two microphones and two 1/4" inputs OR four 1/4" inputs. I like it a lot, and I associate it with a dramatic and near-instantaneous improvement in my overall production quality.

My concerns about system drag appear to have been entirely unfounded. Though it's external and functions entirely through USB, the computer sees it, for all intents and purposes, as its sound card.

Wages, if your budget is still $1,000, you could buy a Lambda (there's a used one on eBay for $70 Buy-It-Now price, so my advice would be to jump on that NOW) and still have enough money left over in your budget for a decent keyboard, bass, drum kit, or maybe even drum software.