How should I spend my $250?

[Kill Me Sarah]

I was thinking "bass" as well, although I think you got a useable bass sound on "I Don't Want to Be Your Friend" with whatever you used there...

That would be the cheap Casio I guess I shouldn't knock it so much. I mix in my office on some 2.1 Creative's...decent sound, though with the separate volume for the woofer, I often have a hard time determining where adjust the bass, since I can make it as loud or quiet as I want by turning the woofer up or down. Has anyone actually used a Daisy Rock guitar/bass? They actually have gotten endorsements by the likes of Veruca Salt and Butthole Surfers.

Ken, your suggestions were great as well. My biggest complaint with the Squier is that it comes out of tune (usually on the G string I believe) when I use the whammy, so that's something I'd like to fix before replacing pickups, though I do like the idea of an electronics project I'll also have a look at those plugins. And are you saying my loveseat isn't a good enough acoustic dampener?

[Rabid Garfunkel]

This Alesis NanoPiano is a nifty little bit of MIDI hardware moduleness that you can drive from your keyboard (if it's got the ol' MIDI out) for getting some tasty-to-freaked out sounds from.

In the <$100 range, actually, despite what the web page says. Picked mine up for $50 thru craigslist.

::edit:: re:Daisy Rock guitars, from our resident whatever-the-hell he is http://www.songfight.net/forums/viewtop ... 0819#30819

[ken]

Guitar Fetish also sells tuners:

http://store.guitarfetish.com/festsonsi.html

If you are looking for a bass, check out SX from rondo music:

http://www.rondomusic.net/bassguitars4.html

Ken

[Kill Me Sarah]

I know very little about MIDI (which is partly why I'm interested in toying w/ it). My old keyboard has a MIDI out, it also has a power cord that has to be duct taped just so to keep the power on and that tends to cut out at random times during my playing...hence the reason why I'd like a new keyboard/MIDI controller.

I was also eyeballing this. Don't know much about them (and it's slightly over my budget...but it looks tasty.

[Kill Me Sarah]

Guitar Fetish also sells tuners:

http://store.guitarfetish.com/festsonsi.html

If you are looking for a bass, check out SX from rondo music:

http://www.rondomusic.net/bassguitars4.html

Ken

Oh wow, have you played any Rondo instruments? My friend showed me that site a long time ago and said someone had recommended their stuff and then I forgot the name of the company and couldn't find it again. I notice they also have a $200 drum set which sounds too good to be true. Can anyone recommend or not recommend their stuff?

[Rabid Garfunkel]

My old keyboard has a MIDI out, it also has a power cord that has to be duct taped just so to keep the power on...

Ahahahahahahaha! Casiotone CT-640? I feel your pain.

[king_arthur]

Okay, then, if your old Casio has MIDI out and you're not infected with the earliermentioned mad keyboard skillz, then a "MIDI Controller" is probably NOT what you want.

Quickly, and probably not perfectly accurately: "MIDI" is a protocol for passing "performance information" from one device to another. MIDI messages are, like, "okay, he pressed the middle C key... now he let it up... okay now he pressed the high C key..." A "MIDI controller" is a keyboard (or other instrument) that lets you generate those sorts of messages, but it does not generate any SOUNDS itself.

A MIDI synth or sound module takes MIDI information as INPUT and puts out sounds. When your sound module is notified that you pressed the middle C key on your controller, it puts out a specific sound (based on what patch and other parameters you have set). Most cheap soundcards have some sort of MIDI sound module built in, but it won't sound very good. I.e., the same set of MIDI information (contained in a MIDI file) can sound awful when played on a cheap soundcard and quite good when played on a high end sound module.

A "synth" is generally a combination unit - controller and sound module. Since your cheap Casio has a MIDI out jack, it is presumably passing around MIDI information internally.

So pressing a key on your cheap Casio could make some very nice sounds if connected to a suitably good sound module, and feeding MIDI information from an external controller into your Casio (presumably you also have a MIDI in jack) will make those same bad sounds the Casio can make all by itself. So, again, you probably want to be looking at SOUND MODULES rather than CONTROLLERS.

The nanopiano was similar to the nanosynth, except that the nanosynth gives you all 128 general MIDI sounds (pianos, organs, strings, horns, etc.) while the nanopiano gave you 128 different piano/organ sounds. My guess would be that the nanoSYNTH that gives you the full GM set, would be of more use to you right now than the nanopiano.

Charles (KA)

[Kill Me Sarah]

Thank you, that was a very enlightening description. So tell me, couldn't u use a MIDI controller in something like Fruity Loops (which I have)? Or would it sound too crappy w/out upgrading my soundcard?

[ken]

Oh wow, have you played any Rondo instruments?

I've played a number of Agiles and SX basses. They are very good instruments for the money. They are made in the same factory as Epiphone, so you get the same quality without paying for the name.

Ken

[king_arthur]

Somebody who knows FL will have to answer this definitively, but I suspect that one of the things you could do in FL is to record _MIDI_ data on a MIDI track instead of sound data. You would still be dependent on your soundcard or an external sound module to provide the MIDI sounds, unless FL has some sort of built in software synth (which is the whole other option for turning MIDI into sound that I didn't mention before). The cool thing about that would be that you could come back in five years when you have a better MIDI sound module and re-mix it using the new and improved sounds.

Maybe somebody here who uses a software sound module can fill you in on the ins and outs of those - basically, it's another way you can turn MIDI data into sound, by having a program on your computer generate the sounds using .wav samples or other methods. Mixing a s/w synth with audio tracks runs into a whole other set of issues (latency) that can be a bear if you're running an underpowered computer...

So, yeah, in sorta contradiction to what I said before, if you have a good software synth set up on your computer, then a MIDI controller might make sense as a way of creating MIDI data that would be played by the computer...

Charles (KA)

[bz£]

So, yeah, in sorta contradiction to what I said before, if you have a good software synth set up on your computer, then a MIDI controller might make sense as a way of creating MIDI data that would be played by the computer...

Hm, and you can get software synths for free, like VST effects. They even work in similar ways. I think the point for this thread, though, is that you already own a MIDI controller. Not a particularly good one, of course, but if your piano skillz are at the "noodling" level then you'd hardly notice the missing features.

[jb]

So tell me, couldn't u use a MIDI controller in something like Fruity Loops (which I have)? Or would it sound too crappy w/out upgrading my soundcard?

Once you stop playing with stupid loops, that is basically the whole point of Fruity Loops. It is a "soft-synth."

[obscurity]

Once you stop playing with stupid loops, that is basically the whole point of Fruity Loops. It is a "soft-synth."

Really? I've never used it, and I'd kinda got the impression it was basically a tool for making loop-based music. How does it stand up as a softsynth? Is there anything in particular about it that sets it apart from the gajillion other softsynths out there?

[jb]

I find it fairly easy to use.

I create a synthesized track full of loops or synth lines or whatever, export that to WAV, and import it into an audio recording app like Cubase or Audition to do vocals and other acoustic instruments.

I used it for "Science" and "Systematic Panic".

[blue]

lessons and a tuner.

[Kill Me Sarah]

Ok, this looks irresistably tasty. Anyone seen/heard/otherwise have thoughts about this?

[king_arthur]

Two quick observations - one, it looks like it's trying to reproduce the sounds of various 15+ year old synths. While it may do that very faithfully, that's not necessarily the same thing as current state of the art sounds...

Also, it appears that the keyboard that comes with the unit is "mini keys," i.e. it's not a full-size keyboard controller. The keys themselves are smaller and closer together than a "standard" keyboard.

I have no experience with this unit myself, I'm just reading what the ad says. I have a Roland XP-10 synth which is about 15 years old, and when I was starting here, I got several negative review comments about the "out of date sounds" I was using. YMMV. It could still be a very cool unit to play with.

Charles (KA)

[starfinger]

also, I think that fancy controller is just a midi controller. it makes no sounds by itself.
so you will have whatever latency-related issues (not to mention plugin-hosting issues) that you have now.

That said, I want one too

-craig

[j$]

Yes. Who cares what it sounds like when it looks so damn cool? *slobber*

[starfinger]

How does it stand up as a softsynth?

It does have a few native sound generators, but it is really more of a host than a softsynth.

You can run it as a VSTi, but I can't figure out why I would want to do that. I've only used it like JB does.

-craig

[Kill Me Sarah]

also, I think that fancy controller is just a midi controller. it makes no sounds by itself.
so you will have whatever latency-related issues (not to mention plugin-hosting issues) that you have now.

That said, I want one too

-craig

My PC is a Dell Dimension, P4 3gHZ, w/ 1g RAM. I use the TonePort UX2 as the soundcard (I've disabled the onboard sound). Is that going to be enough to get me away from latency issues for the most part? Secondly, my TonePort doesn't have MIDI inputs, but I'm assuming these USB MIDI controllers work via the USB w/out having to use the dedicated MIDI in/outs?

[starfinger]

USB midi devices do not require other midi ports, so that's cool.

Regarding latency, do you know what the toneport is giving you now?
What driver are you using and what is your buffer size/length? FL Studio can give you this information on the Audio Settings page

-craig