Simple Home Recording Setup

[Mr_Yogi]

Looking for a bit of advice, from someone how knows what they are doing?

After watching a video on the Universal Audio Arrow, I’m quite keen to have a go at recording some simple (electric) guitar. I’m sure my son would love it too. So I have been looking at interfaces and software (DAW packages), specifically the Forcusrite Scarlett Solo and 2i2.

I love the idea of the Arrow’s plugins for desks and compressors, etc. It looks like the Forcusrite Scarlett products come with a version of Pro Tools (probably the free version, but that’s fine for me) and few plugin’s(RED) similar to the Arrow which could be fun to play with.

I then remembered I have an old (nearly 30 years old!) Yamaha PSS 780 keyboard which has MIDI ports. Assuming the MIDI standard hasn’t changed could I plug my keyboard into a MIDI interface and use it to record keyboard and, drums?

Now you need to step up to the 2i4 (nearly twice the price of the Solo) to get a MIDI interface, so could I get a cheap (possibly used) MIDI interface and use that with the Solo together in Pro Tools?

I have a Windows 10 PC with and i7/ 8GB RAM so judging by the requirements that would hopefully be powerful enough.

[JLC25]

Mr_Yogi said:

After watching a video on the Universal Audio Arrow, I’m quite keen to have a go at recording some simple (electric) guitar. I’m sure my son would love it too. So I have been looking at interfaces and software (DAW packages), specifically the Forcusrite Scarlett Solo and 2i2.

I love the idea of the Arrow’s plugins for desks and compressors, etc. It looks like the Forcusrite Scarlett products come with a version of Pro Tools (probably the free version, but that’s fine for me) and few plugin’s(RED) similar to the Arrow which could be fun to play with.

I then remembered I have an old (nearly 30 years old!) Yamaha PSS 780 keyboard which has MIDI ports. Assuming the MIDI standard hasn’t changed could I plug my keyboard into a MIDI interface and use it to record keyboard and, drums?

Now you need to step up to the 2i4 (nearly twice the price of the Solo) to get a MIDI interface, so could I get a cheap (possibly used) MIDI interface and use that with the Solo together in Pro Tools?

I have a Windows 10 PC with and i7/ 8GB RAM so judging by the requirements that would hopefully be powerful enough.

System should be fine for basic projects - you won't be creating 80 track symphonies on it though

I would just go for the bigger Scarlett - more outputs, pad switching on inputs and midi.

Pro Tools can be had on a Monthly Subscription - £25 or £20 if you commit for 12 months. Stick with the free version for now. I also found Sonar very easy for starting up, and Reaper is ace (and free/cheap) as well.

Monitor wise, the KRK series are easy to mix on - I love very neutral speakers like Yamaha NS - but they can be a challenge at first!

[thebraketester]

Focusrite sapphire does midi I think.

Speak to getcarter on here. He’s the man.

[Mr_Yogi]

Thanks for the replies, after reading them, I was thinking about the 2i4 with MIDI. I then got a message from Amazon offering a £10 discount. Did a quick search and they already had nearly £30 off, so it seemed like a no-brainer

[anonymous-user]

You can get a midi to USB cable pretty easily. Just go straight in.

[Eddie Strohacker]

I have a simple set up with a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 & it's excellent. Practically no latency which is the point of it, obviously & handles MIDI perfectly. The sky's the limit with these things but for reference, I use the Focusrite into an Acer laptop running Mixcraft, a one octave MIDI slave keyboard, a MIDI touchpad, KRK Rokit monitors & an SM58, pretty much as low as you could go in gear terms & it all works beautifully, the main limitation being my creativity!

[Mr_Yogi]

Thanks, good to know the interface is a good one. I haven't had time to play with it yet. It took an evening to install the drivers, sign up to all the affiliated companies and download and install all the software and plugins. It must have been about 50 separate downloads lol. I not even sure I remember what half of what I was downloading and installing was! Mustn't complain though as it was all included free

I did have a problem with pops and clicks at first with playback. Didn't matter what the source was every 30 or 40 seconds the sound would drop out, and cut back in with a pop and click. I followed the (frankly ridiculous) optimisation guide on the Focusrite website to no avail. The idea of disabling firewalls, anti virus, etc. in 2018 is absurd. Anyway moving USB ports on the PC did the trick, think it was initially connected to a port provided by an additional controller on the motherboard rather than the main chipset.

The only other issues were using Pro Tools (adding drum loops, and other included content, figuring out whether to use Pro Tools or Ableton, etc.) so I'll have to spend a bit more time watching some of the (very good) tutorial videos on YouTube.

[sp222]

I don't know your Yamaha keys but you'll probably find you get better results by using virtual sounds (VST Instruments) than trying to record back in the output of your keyboard..

You can use the MIDI from the yamaha to control them and record via whatever daw you choose..

[andy-xr]

Mr_Yogi said:

Thanks, good to know the interface is a good one. I haven't had time to play with it yet. It took an evening to install the drivers, sign up to all the affiliated companies and download and install all the software and plugins. It must have been about 50 separate downloads lol. I not even sure I remember what half of what I was downloading and installing was! Mustn't complain though as it was all included free

I did have a problem with pops and clicks at first with playback. Didn't matter what the source was every 30 or 40 seconds the sound would drop out, and cut back in with a pop and click. I followed the (frankly ridiculous) optimisation guide on the Focusrite website to no avail. The idea of disabling firewalls, anti virus, etc. in 2018 is absurd. Anyway moving USB ports on the PC did the trick, think it was initially connected to a port provided by an additional controller on the motherboard rather than the main chipset.

The only other issues were using Pro Tools (adding drum loops, and other included content, figuring out whether to use Pro Tools or Ableton, etc.) so I'll have to spend a bit more time watching some of the (very good) tutorial videos on YouTube.

On one of my Presonus interfaces, it ties the driver to the USB port that was used at first setup. That to me sounds even more absurd than disabling AV/firewalls, but that's apparently the way it goes. Also it hates the latest update to Windows 10.

I spent a few weeks testing different DAWs for workflow and available add ons. For some reason PResonus charge extra to use VSTs, so that went out the window fairly quickly as an option. I settled on Reaper.