Far out Stuff and the Studio

(in progress ... things will change periodically as I finally get to mp3 some of the things I have that I have not been able to share because I had no turntable. And yeah, the Stanton Turntable is excellent.)

Listing of things to start out with:

Yamaha Mixer MG102c

Casio LK 220 (Got it for free from work points in excellence)

Oxygen 61 Midi Keyboard (Small piece of Software from M-Audio that allows the Midi to be setup also available -- have no idea what to do with it, btw!)

Epiphone EB-3 Long Scale Bass (no amp at this time)

Boss ME-50B box and pedal for effects on the bass. These are turning out a bit more difficult to do and use at this time. Maybe when I know the effects and settings better, it will work better, but for right now, I can only use one effect sparingly.

Computer 1:
(Older) AGP Motherboard Asus 7VBX
GEForce Video Card 7600GS 512Mg
DDR 400 PC3200 3 slots with 1G each = 3G Memory
M-Audio 1010LT Sound Card with many Inputs and Outputs.
Windows XP-Pro SP3
F-Secure Software for Firewall. Has disable feature when doing music.

Software:
IK Miroslav Orchestra -- can not get the thing to allow me to use 2 sounds at the same time, and the option that states different midi ports, are blanked out and can not be changed. Worst support I have ever seen, and it is probably an issue with the Midi Keyboard, and its setup, to allow more than one port to be used separately ... like bass on the left and violins on the right and the like.

Arturia's Jupiter 8V Software -- love it and can play with it a lot. Richard Barbieri as a kid in the shop with this thing ... endless and fun!

External Hard Drive for Backup of stuff done on this machine.

Computer 2:
NForce 6M-A V2.0 Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual 3.01 Ghz
Radeon HD4650 1G Video Card
DDR2 PC6400 Memory x4 = 4G memory
Windows XP-Pro SP3
F-Secure Software for Firewall. Has disable feature when doing music.
External Backup Hard Drive for all work.

Network:
Both of these machines are in the Living Room, and are connected with a little switch that has a wire to the fast router (Fast Netgear) that also connects the other 2 machines in my Office (master bedroom) and the modem to the Internet with a Cable connection. In general, I tend to turn off the main 2 machines in the Office (faster and bigger than those 2 machines for now), to prevent any more network traffic than necessary.

I'm considering taking iTunes off the Computer 1 above, as it does too much bs with the Internet when it is idle .. like it has to call home every minute! Very annoying and though it eats up very little memory space, it is making the CPU work. It is the software that tries to ping home the most that I have ever seen. Even Windows is not that bad.

I use this machine to record everything. I have the choice of installing Abelton 7 Live, or Music Creator 5, both of which I have had issues with. I'm thinking of getting Sonar X2 Essential so I'm closer to what you guys all have.

Other than that, the tests that I have done, so far I have recorded in Audacity, which is rather sad piece, in that you can not see the recording peaks until too late!

Abelton has too much on the screen that is really tough for a half-blind old man. MC5 was difficult to preview the sounds that it had with it, and the ones that were bundled with the extra software that had more instruments. All in all Abelton has been easier and picks up the VST's really easy, which helps. MC5 also had some issues with the proper drivers, btw, for some reason, and was not using ASIO.

The set up:

For right now, it is just like a radio station, as you can see in the pictures.

The Mixer:
1 for Microphone
2 is Open (would love to plug the Bass here!)
3-4 for the Stereo Cassette player
5-6 for the MP3's from the Computer 1 (or anything that comes from there)(includes the software on the computer)
7-8 for the Turntable (USB to Stereo or Line to the Mixer as needed)
9-10 for the DVD/CD player

Output of the mixer goes directly to the Computer 2 sound input, and I can hear this on speakers or on earphones. I can also put the earphones on the mixer, although I like the idea of knowing what it all sounds like at the end, rather than "before" ... old radio thing, where you learn to adjust to the end, not before, since most of the mistakes are a second before or so! This can be cleaned up and changed depending on the setup.

Thoughts and Ideas here and what I would like to do:

Record a background piece.
Then bring that piece to the machine 1, so I can play it again, and then record something else over it and capture it on the 2nd machine. But there is some lag here ... and I can feel it. In one sample, I was intentionally adding voice to some parts of songs and such, and I could see that the voice was not in time or tune, though it was on the earphones off the mixer.

Options ... find a way to create the background and be able to use it by adding tracks to it, which is preferable for me. Tracks could have poetry, readings, and many other things, up to and including comments on the music and such. There are times when I will be playing parts of a play, or movie, and I will finish the sentence for it, as it comes around.

The background fades in and out as the music is played, from either the mp3's or the turntable.

I'm working on getting to know the recording levels better ... as right now they are a bit confusing, and sometimes too different. But getting blasted is no fun, at the wrong time.

Wanted to add my Bass guitar to the background piece, but that one is tough ... looks like I have to get me an AMP and then connect it to the mixer at this time ... the signal is not strong enough to plug straight to the mixer and play. Have not tried, and not sure I can plug the bass to the Sound Card at all. Afraid to try that one for some reason, since the sound card is so hard'y and flexible. This would have to get added on top of a previous record something or other.

That's about all I have at this time, and I don't know if I am over thinking this stuff or not ...

The pictures: