Requesting advice concerning equipment/techniques.

[Altair]

Greetings.

This is my second topic at this forum, I've been inactive for a couple of weeks due vacation and some other things.

I've played some piano throughout the years, but I've never taken lessons. I'm interested in ambient music, minimalistic music. Right from Biosphere to Harold Budd/Brian Eno. A year ago I bought Logic Express and I've connected it to my piano to play some tunes. I've had a lot of fun with it, but I've never really produced things I'm proud of.

I want to take my music to another level. Combining ambient beats and atmospheres with minimalistic loops and a unique piano with lots of reverb. An example would be Biosphere's Substrata/Patashnik album meets Harold Budds La Bella Vista.
I've also been inspirred by Autechre, their algorithmic beats and abstract compositions, but some of their more melodic tunes as Montreal, Krib, Pir, Dropp, Nil, Eggshell etc. is what I'm going for, it's what I like!

Now I would like to have some advices on gear. I've always liked analogue synths but I don't think I can afford expensive stuff like that.

Thanks!

[Vladimir Kozlov]

for ambient electronics I can exactly advice ALESIS ION synth, it is digital emulator of analog, but you can make huge different unique sounds on it, also I can advoce ACCESS VIRUS A, B or C. Better buy one hardware synth instead of huge amount of VST emulators. Also don't forget about rhytm machine, like, for instance - KORG Electribe and couple effect processors. You can find lot of used and cheap on ebay.

[John Koch-Northrup]

I agree with Vladimir on looking for some cheaper used equipment. One hardware synth can be really helpful - doesn't really matter what it is as long as it seems cool to you. If it feels right and the price is right - go for it. Tons of synth review sites so when you find one that looks good - hit google and see what others say.

Also - hit the thread on this forum about gear... a lot of people have posted what they use... ranging from people with huge hardware studios full of synths a rack gear... to people who record primarily with guitar... to people who do everything in a laptop - (and everything in between...).

If you've got friends or acquaintances that have some gear and will let you tinker with it for an hour - that would be a perfect situation.

If you want to go crazy analog... I love my modular from synthesizers.com - I started with the entry system and then filled up the rest of the cabinet: http://www.synthesizers.com/system-entry1.html

Of course - there's no keyboard with that option... ;-)

[John Koch-Northrup]

Here's the "what's in your studio" thread:

http://atmoworks.ning.com/forum/topics/whats-in-your-studio-the

[Altair]

Thank you very much for all the good answers, I appreciate that.

I've looked on the websites you have given me and it has enlightened me a lot, thanks!

I'd like to have some more technical knowledge concerning MIDI, synthesizers etc. John Koch-Northrup gave me a link where there was some technical information I'll look into later today.

I have a couple of more questions:

What is the advantages and disadvantages with making music on computer than with analog gear, eventually through a program that records it and where you later edit it?

What software should I use for this ambient music I want to produce? (I described it in my first post). I use Logic Express now and I think it's fine, but for some reason I feel like trying out other programs or perhaps I just don't know enough about Logic.

I deeply apologies for my poor english, I hope you can deal with it.

Best regards,

Altair

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[John Koch-Northrup]

Well - I missed this question a couple months ago...

First off - no problem on your English at all. My [ insert any other language on earth here ] is pretty much worthless. I'm eternally grateful that so many people can speak English - no matter how well.

Recording on tape / hardware vs. computer... great question. It's all about how *you* like to work. Some people grew up on tape - and love the feel of working with it. There's a bit of 'tape magic' I guess involved. The tape machine can add sound or warmth or some extra something that you might not get going through a perfect digital signal path into a computer.

However, you can't do a lot of fancy editing on a tape deck...

On a computer - you can record multiple tracks - rearrange them - record multiple takes of a recording and keep different versions seeing which work and which don't. You can control panning and volume to a detail that is amazing. I love recording on a computer - and don't really miss recording on my old 4-track recorders (I never had larger reel-to-reels).

Logic is a great program for recording. I "grew up" on pc's and used Sonic Foundry / Sony products for years. Just this year I bought a mac and Logic Studio.

Best of luck to you.

John

Altair said:

Thank you very much for all the good answers, I appreciate that.

I've looked on the websites you have given me and it has enlightened me a lot, thanks!

I'd like to have some more technical knowledge concerning MIDI, synthesizers etc. John Koch-Northrup gave me a link where there was some technical information I'll look into later today.

I have a couple of more questions:

What is the advantages and disadvantages with making music on computer than with analog gear, eventually through a program that records it and where you later edit it?

What software should I use for this ambient music I want to produce? (I described it in my first post). I use Logic Express now and I think it's fine, but for some reason I feel like trying out other programs or perhaps I just don't know enough about Logic.

I deeply apologies for my poor english, I hope you can deal with it.

Best regards,

Altair