Ok, so here's the things I currently use. This page will change periodically as I acquire new things. Not every piece of equipment is used in every song. What I use depends on the needs of the situation as well as what I feel like making. Click on any of the pictures to zoom in, although they're pretty crappy photos to begin with. You can scroll down to view each piece or you can click on the links below to jump to specific parts.
Software | EMX-1 | DR-770 | Casio AP-80R | Yamaha Keyboards | MobilePre
Ok... my computer's stats aren't really anything worth mentioning, but I figure it would be good to list
the various software I use. The program I probably use more than anything else is FL Studio 5. I use this for almost everything, in fact a lot of entire songs are made using just this
program. I've been working with fruity loops programs ever since Fruity Loops Pro back in the day, so it just feels more natural to me than anything else.
I've been making a lot of beats lately in REASON 3.0, but I'm not a fan of the program for anything but beat creation. I just really can't get use to the setup. I will usually make the beats in reason and export them for use in FL Studio 5. For all my raw wave editing and recording I use Adobe Audition 1.5 (although it use to be CoolEdit, but it's really an identical program). Anyway, I think that about sums up all the software side of things. Time to move on to the rest...
This
is actually a new one for me. Bought it on December 15th, 2006. I'm typing this on December 23rd, 2006. So you can see I havn't had too much time to play with this yet, but I can already
say that it is pretty much the coolest thing ever. With this I could actually create entire songs, although I mainly plan on using it in conjuction with my current setup.
Basically though, I can use this to create synth instruments from scratch and change the effects and settings in realtime as I record them. It's great for electronic beat creation as well. I'm very impressed with this piece all around so far and it has some great effects that none of my software seem to have. This shall prove to be a mighty asset.
Another
one of my devices for beat creation. In case you hadn't noticed, beats are my all time favorite part of music to make, so I like to keep my options open. This piece is superior for getting
an acoustic drum sound without actually recording a real drumset.
It is super convenient for getting a beat real quick to play the keyboard to so I can record keyboard parts on time. It has pressure sensitive buttons to simplify the process of having accents... something my emx-1 is lacking (without a proper midi-controller anyway). It has a few bass instruments as well, but I just primarily use it for drums.
Oh, and just above the drum machine you can see my headphones. These are Sony MDR-7506 Professionals and I highly reccomend them for mixing or even just listening to music on. I've heard a lot of headphones and I think these stand out among other models in the $100 price range. They have great clarity and bass response. I use them all the time.
I picked
this keyboard up because I desperately wanted to have something with weighted keys and a decent piano sound. I've been pretty satisfied with it. Some of the NON-piano instruments
are pretty cheezy, but some of them are okay. I mainly use it for playing piano. When the headphones are plugged in the piano sounds especially great, since my headphones are far better
than the keyboard's speaker. This has pretty much replaced my Yamaha PSR-85 completely as I can now use this to do my midi controlling. It has a higher octave range as well as the
vastly superior keys. There really isn't any more reason to use the yamaha.
Both
of these have 2 purposes. One is just to play regularly with their built in instruments and the other is to control other devices. The PSR-85 has some pretty cheezy sounding instruments,
but with the right effects I've been able to get some interesting sounds out of it. Also, it has a good number of them... 100 I believe. It's main purpose now will probably be to control
the synths on my EMX-1. The EMX-1 without a midi controller is a bit tricky... forcing you to play tracks with tiny little square buttons. Fortunately, the PSR-85 has an octave shift so I can access
the 8 octaves that the EMX-1 provides.
The Yamaha SHS-10 or "Keytar" as I call it, is mainly just for kicks. Not as useful as it is just fun. I can use it to control the EMX-1 as well... but it would be kind of weird and silly in a studio setting. The instruments built into this are EXTREMELY cheezy, but I have got some interesting sounds using a distortion pedal on them... as unholy as that sounds.
This is
what I use for recording everything onto my computer. All the keyboards, drum machines, and synths go through this into Adobe Audition 1.5 and then are usually thrown into FL Studio 5 to
be arranged with everything else. I have some problems trying to record higher volumes without having it flat out, but other than that it suits my needs well. It has 2 channel inputs so
I can record my stereo audio on the EMX-1. And that's about all I have to say about that.
Copyright © 2006 Jesse Gregory, All rights reserved.