a computer and a DAW is the cheapest option to start making any music, but I know lots of
people eventually like getting some gear. By no means it this a guide saying that this is how you
should do it, but hopefully it will help in making choices about what you want to get.
** Extra little note: Budget gear rules! YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY EXPENSIVE GEAR TO
MAKE VIBEY MUSIC! Almost everything I have gotten has been on the cheaper side of things. I
have bought my set-up piece by piece over the past 18 years and have always looked for
inexpensive options. Instead of buying that $2000 synth that does 1000 cool things you can take
that $2000 and buy a mixer, drum machine, 2 or 3 budget synths, a cool pedal or two, and all
the requisite cords needed, plus probably some other stuff. It’s all in how YOU use it
**
SECOND DISCLAIMER! ~TERMS~
In writing this guide, it has been challenging to keep things clear and concise while at the
same time personal. I don’t know what your knowledge base is or how long you’ve been
producing. Maybe you haven’t been making music that long and you are interested in building
up a studio. Maybe you’ve been doing this for years and just want to read my approach to my
studio. I’m going to hopefully provide simple enough explanations of the gear I use and what I
use it for. I’m using some terms in this guide that may be new to you regardless so let’s go over
a few of them:
“DAW”
- A digital audio workstation. DAWs include computer programs like Ableton Live, Logic,
Fruity Loops, Reason, etc. They are typically used for all of someone’s computer-side
production.
“Gear”, “Hardware”, or “Equipment”
- I use these terms interchangeably in this guide to mean
anything that is not my computer: so these terms reference to outboard mixers, samplers, drum
machines, synthesizers, FX pedals, monitors, etc.
“Outboard” or “External” gear
- This is also in reference to equipment that is outside of the
computer. For example, I will call my mixer that all my gear plugs into my “outboard mixer”,
meaning it is a mixer that I use outside of my DAW.
“Monitors” speakers - Monitors are the speakers you use while “monitoring” your production
while in the studio. In the DJ world the term “Monitor” refers to the speakers that the DJ listens
to while mixing so they can get a sense of how the mix will sound in the room.
“MIDI”
- This is a digital (not audio) signal used by most instruments so that they can be played,
tweaked, sequenced, and synchronized by external equipment. If you’ve seen the term “MIDI”
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