One of my biggest passions is music, and in my spare time I take amateuristic stabs at creating tunes (mainly for my own listening pleasure). I’ve been working on setting up a new ‘home studio’, to facilitate my hobby needs and thought I might share how far I’d come here. The basic elements are (in no particular order):

• Audio Interface (required to get sound in and out of the computer – preferably a bit better in quality than a soundblaster)
• Reference monitors – Nearfield (Reference monitors to mix on, that work better than your typical logitech speaker sets)
• Midi input devices (Ranging from keyboards, to padkontrollers to synths to fullblown drum kits)
• Midi Controllers (Devices to use when mixing, controlling parameters on software synths)
• Digital Audio Workstation software (DAW) – (Ableton Live, Reason)
• DJ Software (Traktor Pro)

I’ve spent a reasonable chunk of time setting all this up last weekend. Continue onwards for the progress report. Read more »