Home studio setup

Ok, here’s my current home studio setup… software and hardware.  And it’s not finished yet.

The studio centers around Cakewalk Sonar X1 Producer.  This comes with a lot of built-in effects, processors, and instruments.  There are so many included sounds, loops, and sequences that it will take me months to go through and hear them all!  The workhorses include Cakewalk’s Dimension Pro synth, Rapture LE synth, and Z3ta+ synth.  There are also several other instruments, such as Pentagon I, Square I, GrooveSynth, TTS-1, DropZone, and TruePianos.  Dimension Pro also comes with a lot of built in and extras, such as the Garritan Pocket Orchestra.  There are also professional mastering plugins, which make for great sound.

I’ve started downloading some free VST instruments and effects.  I’m a big fan of Triangle I, and I was just introduced to Glitch and look forward to playing with it soon.

My computer is a 4-year old HP Pavillion home computer, with a dual core CPU and 2Gb of RAM.  Enough for my basic projects, but not enough for really aggressive compositions.  At some point I’ll have to upgrade.  Sonar can manage 32 or more cores, so I’ll probably build out a custom machine next year.

In the computer I have an E-MU 1212M PCI audio interface.  This is 2 PCI cards providing 2 audio inputs and 2 audio outputs with mastering grade 24-bit192kHz ADATs, and on-card DSPs providing 28 built in hardware based effect processing.  Their PatchMix software allows me to create many ASIO ports and route signals within the hardware very easily.

Plugged into the audio input I have my Roland Fantom Xa synthesizer/keyboard.  I can record the audio from the keyboard with nearly no latency.  For driving the keyboard from my computer, I have an M-Audio Midisport 2×2 USB-MIDI interface box.  This provides 2 independent MIDI in/out connections – I have one going to the keyboard; the other is currently unused.

In addition, I have a Korg padKONTROL (mine’s white), plugged in via USB.  I use this mainly for doing initial drum patterns, triggering loops in Sonar’s Matrix View, and mapping some of the knobs to Sonar’s mixer console.  Sonar is able to map the controller to many more functions automatically for better studio control and automation, but I haven’t delved into that yet.

Finally, there are my M-Audio Studiophile BX5 studio monitors.  These things are excellent.  The BX5 has basically been replaced by the BX5a, but mine are in great condition and, except for the blown capacitor which I repaired, they haven’t failed me at all.  Their sound is powerful and clear; I couldn’t be happier with them.

I want/need to enhance my instruments – I love Native Instrument‘s Massive, and want to also get Absynth, FM8, and Kontakt… but that will have to wait till I have actual disposable income.  I will be purchasing a couple of accessories soon (headphones and a small ASIO-capable audio interface – wish list here), so I can work without making a lot of noise in the house.

So that’s about it for now.  Now, back to work on music!