Hi all,

i am hoping for a bit of newbie advice on the productuib scene if possible. I have got vista which i think could play a key role in what i can have, and i am looking for help on what to get to start producing my own tracks. I have already managed to get hold of a copy of Reason 4 and should be getting Cubase 3 shortly. I was a bit stuck now on the hardware like midi keyboards etc i have a small budget so looking for cheap end if possible

thanks for your time

grazier

mmm if your running vista mate cubase 3 might not work. i know alot of people who have had trouble. Reason should be sound though!!

ok cool, reason should be enough really though shouldnt i think, u got any ideas on what keyboards would be good for around £60 for vista? i am wary of compatability issues such as what you mentioned with cubase 3

m-audio's axiom range are great and pretty cheap, I dont know of any good ones in the £60 mark? Try eBay...

Yeah, the axiom range are pretty good... but for around £60ish, you'll be looking at the Oxygen series

e.g. dv247.com

Cubase and Vista are pretty much sorted now so you should be cool... Some of the plugins aren't compatible yet though so you'll need to look at the spec before you install any extras. If you can get hold of XP it might be worth getting that on there instead if you want a really stable system.

ok thanks guys will have a look through

you don;t need a midi keyboard n you don;t need monitors, just wire up some crap speakers when you start, get tons of samples,do tutorials on youtube, once you get good buy your monitors and midi keyboard then, until then just use software, I'd go with Ableton though - it;s easier than cubase

buy future music and computer music

I disagree with darko bout the keyboard, I've found it really helps when jamming out ideas, even if you do eventually draw in the notes it really helps spur your creative ideas... as it'd be well annoying having to click on the keys in the sequencer window to come up with riffs lol.

CM - top mag that's helped me out loadsa times, as well as youtube tutorials

I agree with zeppelin its alot easyer to be creative with keyboards , the M-Audio oxegen v2 is retailing for around £50, its a good start. iv been using reason4 for about a year now and it is a wicked program for starting off on there is shit loads of tutorials on youtube and its pretty easy to get samples and patches just by searching for reason refill in google.

dont waste money on monitors just invest in a decent pair of headphones to start with i find you get more detail in the sound when tweeking but some half decent stereo speakrs are a good start too.

Buy computer mag and future music and read every page most tutorials on there can in some way be applied on reason.

Cubase is a bit of a headache for me, iv tried it a few times but now i got reason 4 there is pretty much no reason to.

get a midi keyboard and learn how to play it. get a basic understanding of how music works , what notes work together ect . rhythm, harmony , melody, structure, and texture.

get back to basics first. comes in handy for making your own sounds and you dont have to rely on samples that others have made, as you can make your own.