Gear Advice For a High School Hip Hop Club

[dirtydelta]

Whats up yall,

I am relatively new to producing and very new to this site. Just this year I began teaching in a high school in rural arkansas and started a hip hop club with about 15 or so kids. This year the kids did some real good work on fruity loops and actually put together some beats that were real impressive (considering their experience and the program). However, for next year I am trying to get some grant money to buy some more serious gear (hardware or software). Right now we have a weak PC (school issued from god knows when) and my 1200's and djmixer. I am hoping to raise some significant loot (5000 plus) so we should have some cash to drop.

any advice on what we would need would be great. also any donations of mpc 4000s, g5s, tritons, etc would be appreciated. (it doesn't hurt to dream right).

get back to me with any ideas about gear or where to get it.

peace

mk

 

[Fade]

Well if you're looking to spend that much cash on gear....

Of course lots of people will tell you to get the MPC2000. You can if you want because it's a very good machine, but there are other alternatives such as the Yamaha RS7000. Or, another option is keeping everything computer-based and getting MIDI pads like the Akai MPD16.

When it comes to keyboards, you can either get a basic MIDI controller, there are a few from Midiman. Or you can get a keyboard workstation such as the Triton, although you'd probably be better off getting the rack version, and using a basic keyboard to control it.

I could go on and on but I'm sure there's lots of guys on here that can give you some good input on the hardware that they use.

You can also check out Musician's Friend, it's a great place to check out all kinds of gear:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com

 

[light]

Computer with Protools setup. m-box? somthin like that will not be too expensive. It will give alot of versitility for kids who are interseted in learning mixing techniques, recording, performing, sampling, producing and also help some kids who are not as adept on computers a good reason to learn more.

 

[Copenhagen]

Just one question. Do you want one main setup or several small ones? Just curious with all those pupils...

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

1. If you possibly can, stick with PC's. They're cheaper, they run almost any program, and they're just as good as Macs. Sure, the G5 is a nice machine, but you will probably never even come close to tapping its full potential if all you're doing is making tracks with students.

2. Research and find a sequencer program which suits your needs best. Good ones have audio and MIDI together, as well as virtual sound modules, synths and samplers. My favorite one is Cubase, there are others like Logic and Sonar to check out.

3. A source of sounds. A sampler is probably something you'll want to look into as it is the tool of choice for 99% of producers. Finding a hardware sampler new nowadays is difficult because software samplers are taking over slowly, I think the only ones left are the Akai Z-series.

Sound modules are good, my favorite is the Emu Proteus 2000 ($500) because it's easy to program and has a TON of sounds on them. The Triton of course is very popular, I don't think that people use it to its full potential though and is therefore a waste for most.

4. Controller. You have to get the information into the computer somehow, right? There are a lot of good controllers out there, a new generation of controllers exist which have all sorts of knobs and sliders on them which you can program to control your synths/modules and sequencers. For MPC-style drum programming Akai makes the MPD-16, stores are blowing them out at $150 right now if you look around the net.

5. Wave editor. My favorite is Cool Edit, there is also Wavelab, Samplitude, Sound Forge, Peak, Spark...think of these programs as 'Photoshop for audio', you can do really detailed editing and mastering with them that you can't do in a regular sequencer.

Take care,

Nick

 

[dirtydelta]

good point copenhagen

Now that I think about it it might be nice to have two stations that kids could be working on. it did get a little crowded on the one comp i had in my room this year.

any ideas on how to get the most for my money with a goal of two set ups?

thanks

mk

 

[dirtydelta]

Thanks everyone,

Your advice was great and I ve done some research and wanted to bounce some ideas off of you. first of all i talked to the grant foundation today and it looks like a might have enough money to do 2 setups. i thought it might be interesting to have one mainly on software and 1 mainly on hardware. so check it out,

Soft Set up 1: Computer (PC of some sort) ,Sequencer (CVubase, i have some experience with this) Software Sampler (MOTU, or others), Soft Synth (not sure which one), Controller (midiman radium, maybe Akai mpd-16 as well?) and Cool edit

Hard Set Up 2: Computer (PC of some sort), Same Sequencer, Sampler (Akai z8, or other?), Rack Synth (proteus or Motif), same controller and Cool edit.

I think this might give the kids in teh club more ways to work. some might like software and some hardware. please make recs for whatever part of a setup you think could be improved.

A few questions as well.

Do you think one of these setups would be easier to learn and work with for beginners?

If I have money left over, do you think it would be wise to get an mpc? or should I get one to replace some of the hardware stuff (sampler, sequencer???)?

Finally, what would you recommend for mics, amps and monitors?

Thanks so much

I can't wait to have some of my kids beats up on the sight later in teh fall.

peace

mk

 

[Copenhagen]

I'd perhaps include a program like e.g. Reason in the soft setup as you can do alot with the program alone and easily expand the soundlibrary for small amounts. You can actually replace the software sampler and synth with e.g. Reason and use Rewire to run it via Cubase too.

Also, I'd buy ProTools & M-Box for the hard setup (just run your mic via the M-box). Even though ProTools isn't the best, it's still used in most studios today and will give good experience for your pupils.

 

[Some Guy]

Sup DirtyDelta, make sure when you buy your gear you look for educational discounts. A lot of companies give special pricing for students and especially teachers. As far as a set up, I would go with a PC, ProTools LE 001, and Reason. Reason acts like a virtual rack so its perfect for learning about patching cables and mixers etc. And Pro Tools is always a good program to know in the music biz. The new version of ProTools LE is Windows XP compatible and has Rewire so they would work perfectly together. I would go with a PC if money is tight. You can get a nice Pentium IV 2.4ghz or 3.0ghz for pretty cheap nowadays. Especially if you have somebody build it for you. You may even have enough loot for some RTAS plug-ins for ProTools.

 

[vitaminman]

Hey,

If you're looking to save money, go with the software setup, you can get some pretty amazing software which will do just about everything you need. The drawback to software is compatibility and stability: you have to make sure that the softwares all run happily with your computer, OS, sequencer and soundcard. With hardware you don't have to worry about this as much because hardware tends to be more stable than a computer running a whole bunch of programs.

My suggestion would be to get a little of both. Hardware modules don't look like they're going out of fashion just yet, maybe get one of those and a software sampler. That way your students will have the chance to work with both, just like in real studios.

Some Guy is 100% right in getting software at a discount from an educational reseller, you can get some SMOKING deals from these guys, sometimes up to 50% off. Also Ebay is a great place to look for modules, although your school mightn't think so.

Keep in mind as well that you are the teacher and you will have to know more about this stuff than your students, don't get stuff that is over your head or else they will be teaching YOU how to use it...

Take care,

Nick

 

[Barock]

I'd get a MPC2000xl with the 8 extra outs, combine them with a 8-channel mixer and a nice recording setup on a computer with wavleab or whateva and you can make nice beats, train your rythm (mpc) mix (mixer) and master (wavelab)

 

[Some Guy]

Originally posted by Barock
I'd get a MPC2000xl with the 8 extra outs, combine them with a 8-channel mixer and a nice recording setup on a computer with wavleab or whateva and you can make nice beats, train your rythm (mpc) mix (mixer) and master (wavelab)

Great so he spends all his budget and still has no sounds? He would need another 5 g's to make any decent music. What exactly would he master with Wavelab if there is no sound?

 

[Barock]

if he gets 5000, he wouldn't spend all his budget by buying MPC, mixer etc. at least he would get the money to buy some old record-collections on garage sales....

 

[bigdmakintrax]

Hmmm damn oh well I will put in my suggestions...since it is a club and you have like 15members you know they wanna have their hands on something at all times........I would get 2 MPC's possibly new 2000xl's or either 2 new 2000's that are old stock somewhere ( or used good conditon) they can can be found....that would eat up like 1200-2200...the rest I would get my hands on an old Roland XP 80 synth-...then I would get protools LE...6-800.......That's at least 4g's right there give or take a few hundred.....the rest I would definitely get a pc.....or used MAC....and if I had any change I would buy some kick, snare and bass samples...that might be about 5200........then have some music stores donate some software...I wouldn't buy any expensive software.....Fruitly loops would be the only choice if I did because that is less than 200 bucks...

 

[Cold Truth]

hmmm. i think that realisticly you would want to expose them to both hardware and software, i would recomend first, that you do check out the companies that offer the software at a discount for it being an educational program, and use that as your basic setup. mabe something along the lines of reason or whatever... i'm not too caught up with the software world.

then with the other half your best bet would be one of the emu command stations and a good hardware sampler. the plus side of having a setup such as this is that you can integrate the emu command station with the included software and show how you can use them together. also be mindfull of the "extras" involved- 8 outs if you go mpc vs the 6 already on a mp-7, which wouldnt cost extra, plus you have hardware expandability with that with the roms. plus you have cables and all that stuff and with hardware you will definitely need a mixer as well....

question- where is the money coming from? and who gets the equipment if this donst work as planned? you might want to think about those things as well. get good equipment that wont brake the bank and then if it is a success, then you can always look to expand everything and upgrade. i hope my two cents counted. (pun intended!!!!! cheesy, i know, but iculdnt resist.)