A Serious Question...

[changalang]

im about to go to college and study audio engineering, should I get a laptop or mpc 2000xl? If i do get a laptop what should i get around the $1700 range thats good for production? If I do get an mpc will i have to spend hundreds of more dollars to make it work to its fullest extent?

 

[shadeed]

im about to go to college and study audio engineering, should I get a laptop or mpc 2000xl? If i do get a laptop what should i get around the $1700 range thats good for production? If I do get an mpc will i have to spend hundreds of more dollars to make it work to its fullest extent?

You don't need a laptop or a MPC 2000xl (right now)
Take that ass to college and learn how to mix and master, seriously anybody can learn to make a beat but the same 10-15 people come in and mixdown and master all the albums--
Develop your ear training, and you'll be a valuable dude.

If you feel that you MUST have equipment, go and buy a 4 track cassette recorder and start out making homemade cassette tapes and a low cost sampler or drum like a Zoom Sampletrak (I still use both for guitar practice and laying down drum tracks) If you can mix and record decent shit that is sounding straight in a car or house stereo, THEN you are ready to invest in some quality equipment. It's not like you can run a 1"4 inch cable
and save your tapes as .wav extensions once you upgrade to PC or whatever you choose to do.

You will learn that there are many ways to produce, and once you're experienced enuff, THEN invest hundreds of dollars.
Intern at different studios, and MEET PEOPLE that are doing what you wanna do and remember their names.I don't care if you gotta sweep the floor and go fetch donuts and coffee for 2 years. Puffy started out washing Andre Harrell's car, 10 years later he was Andre Harrell's boss

these producers nowadays spend 22 hours a day in their basement, missin showers and all that, all on their own nuts, when in reality unless you got some "Shadeed-type" salesman skills, you STILL will be working for free until you build up a rep around your city.

My advice comes from 99% my own personal experiences and the other 1% is the thousands of artist hopefuls that come and go in this business, follow that advice and you'll be waaaay ahead of all the peeps who buy equipment just because Kanye said so.

 

[Fury]

im about to go to college and study audio engineering, should I get a laptop or mpc 2000xl? If i do get a laptop what should i get around the $1700 range thats good for production? If I do get an mpc will i have to spend hundreds of more dollars to make it work to its fullest extent?

yo im goin to school to for that and i need a laptop to for producin..where u goin to school at???

 

[Haze47]

yo chang knows how to produce.....

check his sig, 3 pages of beats!

 

[Formant024]

4track cassette ???

Get an okay laptop, just make sure its Pentium and about 1024MB of ram, just go for 2nd hand shit if you must...$800?!Same for MPC, get an MPC2000(with 8 out) if you dont intend to use lots of midi gear..$400?! Emu 1616m...that's more than 4tracks and less static noise (dope 2 track is nice though, but same could be said bout DAT).

Ibook+MOTU(traveller is nice)

 

[x-squizet]

yea i am in the same position to i got one more year of high school then i am shippen off to college to study recording engineering either at miami of ohio or middle tennesse state universty.

but i am gonna try and save up for both right now i can get the mp so thats what i am gonna do.

 

[N.U.G.]

listen to what "shadeed" said because he dropped a LOT of knowledge right there, more than just equipment stuff too

i would personally get a Laptop, a good soundcard, a decent midi keyboard, load up Reason and some other software and I'd be cool with that

good luck with it playa

 

[Equality 7-2521]

i suggest you get pro tools LE and an mbox, since protools is the standard audio engineering software. if it really is an audio engineering course, you will likely be doing ALOT of work in pro tools.

 

[Paul_Caruso]

Changalang - just checking out your beats on dmusic.com - they are sick!!! I can't understand how you can make this shit and still be asking laptop or mpc, what are you using at the moment cause I say stick with it!

It might be useful to get a laptop though if you don't have a computer to take to college because then at least you can work from home instead of up in the big computer labs for essays and reports etc.

 

[changalang]

I think im gonna go with the laptop cuz if i get an mpc and i dont like it then im screwed. btw, im going to university of hartford and i use reason 2.5 to make beats

 

[StressWon]

i suggest you get pro tools LE and an mbox, since protools is the standard audio engineering software. if it really is an audio engineering course, you will likely be doing ALOT of work in pro tools.

word, every studio i been in has pro tools,,,except CleverWon Studios.

 

[Ema]

Just checked out your beats, they are HOT. I would try stick to the set up you have asmuch as possible. If your looking for a laptop try the powerbook with about 1024 mb ram and you cant go wrong. Its worth investing a good laptop if your on the move.

 

[Fury]

word, every studio i been in has pro tools,,,except CleverWon Studios.

lol ha ha...hey i dont use pro tools either u asshole lol....to complicated but ill learn it then ill MASTER THE ART OF ENGINEERING...or at least ill just mix well

 

[Shwaz]

Laptop, Dell, the inspiron 6000 is amazing. Get Protools Mpowered, the m-audio hardware is much better then the mbox and your going to need to have protools anyway if your going to engineering school

 

[Formant024]

I dont understand...

Why do you need PT if you have it at school already...Its all plain simpel basics eventually so why not look a bit further and try something else. I dont think that, because you dont have it at home, makes it more difficult to learn if you go to school already and have a full unit to get to work with. So at home you have room to learn all the other gears n wares as a surplus.

 

[Bonkerz]

All U need is A LAptop

Yo, I fuck with nothing But FL and A 3rd hand Comapact Laptop with a cover that leans back all the time. Thats all U need, man and probaly Vegas Video for doing vocals, thats what I use. Make sure u get a good soundcard, though

 

[Cold Truth]

why not take your desktop with you? at the very least i say upgrade your soundcard- an emu card would work wonders. basically i suggest you stick with reason, especially since you sample and unless you plan playin keys you may as well just cop an mpd or trigger finger for your maion controller. upgrade your ram and thats about it.... save your money.

unless there is a reason you cant take your desktop, such as it being your parents or something...
in which case why not just build your own?

ebay for it all.

case- 50 bucks
cpu/motherboard/fan- 150-250 depending on specs and brand, and dont get gassed by all the "must have a pentium" talk-athlons give great performance. my 2200 (2 ghz or so) and 768 ram runs cubase sx with at least 10 tracks of midi WITH heavy plugins on the outputs on each track (and some, such as kontakt or battery are using several outs on one track) and i have almost zero load/freeze/crash/playback issues.....
1 gig of ram-100 bucks
dvd drive-100 on down, shop around for this. ive gotten some for 40 bucks.
floppy....man these are dirt cheap... 20 bucks. maybe a little more...
hard drive..... shouldnt pay more then a 100 for this, 80 gigs should be more then enough if you are just sampling, and especially using the dvd drive for backups and saving.
the cheapest reason 0404 card is 100, add your 100 (give or take, depending on if you go ebay or not) midi controller, boot up mom and dads version of windows, install reason and your new soundcard (if any) and you are good as gold.

so..........

case-50
cpu/mainboard-200
dvd drive-100 (should be much less, i'm rounding high)
ram-100
hard drive-100
floppy-not even necessary, but 20 or so
find a cheap monitor somewhewre... 50
sound card-100

under 800 and you have a very solid desktop if need be...

 

[changalang]

that sounds like a good idea to build my own desktop, but unfortunatly i jsut got drug tested today and im no longer getting anything cuz i failed it with flying colors. Thanks for all the suggestions though, and if i do get around 800 bucks somehow i think ima go with building my own super computer

 

[ron herman]

I predict a serious overage of studio engineers in the next 5 years.

 

[andreas]

Hey man. Here's what I think you should do. You already use reason, swell. Then get yourself that laptop. Hook it up with an M-box or audiophile usb (way cheaper and still good). Get yourself a midicontroller and Cubase. Now get yourself a heep of VST instruments. B4 Organ, Elektrik piano, Broomstick bass, bösendorfer 290, and hook it up with an effects pack. Perhaps the waves platinum bundle kit.
Reason operates as a plugin to cubase so you already have 50% learnt. And Cubase is really good for using midi and stuff like that.. This is what I do, so ifcourse I'm favouring that for that reason.

But for real though. It's not what you produce on, It's where you produce from... The heart