I think you can bypass the "Tubpre". It's just not worth it. The Preamps in the Firebox are fine and the "tubepre" is only a tube preamp by name. Use the extra cash to add to your microphone fund.

Having read this entire thread, I think you're in a good starting place.
The machine you've built is pretty similar to the beast my partner is building. Mighty powerful.

Somewhere on here there's a thread by audiokid about drives and software, audio, and libraries -
it would serve you well to read it as you may want to add another drive or two.

While I have suggestions for improvements in interface, preamp, and mic(s), I own a lot of what you have (or same-branded, heftier version), and they will do you well as you figure out what you REALLY need. That will come w/ trial and error.

Solid choices all around, but how are you going to monitor the audio?
I don't see you mention a studio monitor system (speakers) or headphones?

I was going to look into headphones.

I'd skip headphones and get monitors, you get very tired using headphones for a long time.

[="http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/KRK-Rokit-Powered-5-Generation-2-Powered-Studio-Monitor-Each?sku=482825"]KRK Rokit 5 G2[/]="http://pro-audio.mu…"]KRK Rokit 5 G2[/] are very popular and are IMO the best bang for the buck, 150$ each!!!

If you go with headphones, [[url=http://="http://pro-audio.mu…"]Sennheiser HD 25 II[/]="http://pro-audio.mu…"]Sennheiser HD 25 II[/] would be my choice.

Thank you, I'll look into it.

Monitors for anything long term, definitely. KRKs are well respected. Headphones + sweat + ear infections + .... But there are times when headphones can isolate you from an otherwise noisy environment and let you focus on what you're doing more. The interface probably isn't that important since most of your usage will be output(synth), not input. If you want to skimp, that's one place to do it.

Software... If you're majoring in that at your college, see what they use / might require you to use on that particular track. Just a thought. I have a hard time buying software at those price points. As two or three years later a new $500 version is out, and your previous $500 burned on the BBQ for all intents. If it's not paying for itself at that point, money wasted. The price of education not withstanding. But software is good way to burn $100K of budget and not really have anything to show for it in five years. Where hardware has value, even half a decade later. You obviously need something, but I'd explore your options and needs a bit further before jumping on that bandwagon.

This is all for school, so I need it soon. I've already ordered all the parts. As far as software goes, I don't think I really need to update it that often if at all. Just enough to get a portfolio together and hopefully get work within a decade haha.

Ok. The thing is, if you need this for school and the school uses ProTools as a DAW it would be a lot easier for you to import files into your DAW if you are also using ProTools as well. Which means an Avid/digidesign interface. Still only around $300 for an interface.

My school uses mac and logic. The idea was to compose a midi file and import it to logic for my projects.

Then you're fine. I just had to put it out there.

H0bgawblin, post: 351669 wrote: My school uses mac and logic. The idea was to compose a midi file and import it to logic for my projects.

You could do a lot of that with an ubuntu studio dvd. It might require some techy skills to make things work for your hardware and intended usage, but there's tons of FREE / OSS software to do the basics in terms of MIDI and stuff. Muse, Rosegarden, Lilypond, Timidity, yada yada yada. Not the most user friendly or fully featured software, but in terms of making a decent base at home to import at school into something more featured, capable. Costs whatever internet usage is to download a 1GB to 4GB file, and the burning of a single DVD. It's actually geared for this usage (afaik) and can run from the DVD without installing anything.

Perhaps not the best use of time or efficient method. But it should do most of what you need. Linux has come a long way in recent years. You'll still lack a few common extras like normalizing velocities over a selected range, or changing note durations for stylistic things without actually changing the notes notation. But you can get all the same notes in a midi format just fine. And generate a WAV or MP3 of those general midi sounds from your midi file.

As far as two track interfaces. There's lots of cheap ones. One way to skimp there is to use a two channel stereo field recorder. Fostex, Korg, Marantz, tons of options these days. You can record on it and power your mics with their preamps, then use the field recorders output to feed a cheap two channel interface. Record on both the field recorder and cheap interface. Then slide and dice and swap the field recorders quality track for the ones that you recorded on the cheap interface. Again, not the best use of time, but a way to squeeze some quality out of relatively cheap gear. Relative to say a sound devices 788T. And you pretty much have to slice and dice as most field recorders lack the ability to multi-track. But not all, zoom H4n can and works as an interface too. Lots of neat gadgets out there these days at pretty much any price point.

All due respect Shadow_7. I appreciate your desire to promote open source but I think having to learn an entirely new OS with all it's quirks and coding is a little too much to ask of someone who is going to school for music composition. I use some open source software but none of them are as robust as the paid for options, with the exception of Open Office. I've tried Rosegarden and Ardour and as much as they are functional, they are not to the same standards as say Logic or Cubase.

The advantage that paid software on an established paid OS is that there is a large budget for R & D. They have the ability to build on an already established standard. This makes the functionality more accessible to those of us who are less tech savvy. Everything is point and click. No coding. Sure this can be restricting but that's not always a bad thing.

On the other hand what I should have said and what should have been the direction of this post from the beginning is BUY A MAC. Logic ONLY works on OSX. You can get your hands on a Dual CPU G5 Powermac for under or around $500. A good used MacBook can be had for between $700 and $1000 depending on the model and CPU speed.

The other option, though I don't recommend it. is to buy a copy of Leopard and have someone who knows how, to install it on your PC. A "Hackintosh". It's not entirely legal but if you buy the OS, at least you've done that.

hueseph, post: 351679 wrote: All due respect Shadow_7. I appreciate your desire to promote open source but I think having to learn an entirely new OS with all it's quirks and coding is a little too much to ask of someone who is going to school for music composition. I use some open source software but none of them are as robust as the paid for options, with the exception of Open Office. I've tried Rosegarden and Ardour and as much as they are functional, they are not to the same standards as say Logic or Cubase.

I never said that they were as robust. The thing with software is that it IS in constant R&D. If you buy protools version X today, by the time you graduate you need version Y or Z, and don't have any budget left to buy THAT one. If you can eek by on the cheap stuff, you'll have more resources later, when you actually need them / know how to use them. Or if you change majors to not music / composition which you are likely to do if you like to eat regularly. You didn't waste all that money. That was/is my point. OSS does have it's limits. But it is capable of generating a basic midi file and most of what you can do with a midi file, you can do in OSS. $500 is lot of beer, don't just write it off because you're on a diet or something. If you have a good paying job, by all means take the quickest route. Buy that plane ticket, not the bus one. If you have NO job, money is a little hard to come by.

I agree with his order of items to purchase...

1. Get a good computer... lots of memory, fast processor.

2. Get a good interface. The interface will be what is external from your computer and processes the information into your computer. A lot of interfaces are USB, some of them are Firewire. Firewire is faster than USB, so make sure you have a firewire port on your computer. I don't have a firewire port so this interface is out of the question for me without buying a new computer :(

3. After you have the computer and the interface, you can choose a DAW (a fancy abbreviation for audio mixing software). As he said, Cubase is one of the more popular ones. I personally have never used Cubase although I would like to try it out. I have used Ableton Live and Acid 7 Pro.

4. Have fun learning how to use the DAW.

EDIT: I just noticed that this thread had 6 pages... i'm sure everything I just said has been covered lol