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Hard choices. After listening to the first 3 I thought "That's the 3 I'll choose", but then the following are all fantastic noodles too! I'll have a few more listens & see what ones I hum in my head.

Oh, we vote? Cool. I'll get listening to the tracks tomorrow.

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1456854304' post='2992921'] Yeah, they're offering the upgrade from Komplete Select to Komplete 10 for £144.50 and I thought of you and your newly purchased S88. [/quote] Having spent all my pennies on the S88, I'll have to hope they keep the offer on for about 4 months, give me time to save up for it. Though I do get a bonus at the end of this month... If they give me a decent bonus, I might just manage it. Here's hoping. I've got 2 £22 evouchers, but I can only use one at a time. The only reason I chose the S88 over the other keys was that I got it at the sale price of £679. It's now £729 everywhere. At one point I was going for the Akai Advance61, but I think I've made the right choice. The keybed on the 88 is really good, I like the ribbons & the lights on the keys are cool. Even Komplete Select is a great package.

Congratulations! A worthy winner.

If you're going for a 2nd combo & you already like the sound of the one you have, get a 2nd identical one. If it were I, I'd sell it & get a head & 2 identical cabs that I like (or one good cab that can put out the dbs).

On the vocals, try a short delay rather than reverb (or even both). EQing the vocals to fit can take a little patience & a VST multimeter is your friend. It's not so much the vocal is too loud, but needs a bit of finishing. Like Mr Stone says, compression on the final mix as well as limiter & EQ to glue it all together.

[quote name='Bigwan' timestamp='1456401556' post='2988563'] Also a good call on EBS, but I'd be interested to know if you're speaking from experience with regards Ashdown or just perpetuating a myth? I've had nothing but good experiences with my ABM. [/quote] Nothing bad to say about the ABM range, it's the Superfly & Little Giant (the stereo amps) that I heard many reports of fire.

Don't EBS run to 2 ohm? Then there's Ashdown. Some of their amps are 2x4ohm channels (though keep a fire extinguisher handy).

Well, have you give up yet? Like he above says, if you really learn an instrument, you never fully give up. A couple of years ago I stopped playing bass & sold most of my gear (except a bass & some cables). No intention of playing live again. I do however have great fun recording & as I play other instruments too, never spend much time away from music. Last year a chap asked if I wanted to jam with him & a couple of others just for fun. Had a could of outings, but the last time was late November, so due another jam soon I hope. I'm hoping it doesn't go anywhere really or I might have to buy some sort of rig. Anyway, if you do give up bass, mind & take up another instrument (I wouldn't choose guitar, maybe bouzouki?).

I've been working my way through the tracks & it's gonna be hard to choose just 3! Superb stuff all round. Many of the best albums I had were in gatefold covers. I remember when I bought Marillion's Script for a Jester's Tear on vinyl & when I got home, I found that the person in Woolies had put 2 copies of the record in (they must t have thought it was a double album). Swapped the 2nd copy without the cover for Love but The Cult.

If you haven't already, then have a wee read through Skol303's "Beginner's Guide..." sticky thread in this sub forum. It's got a wealth of info. For the interface, you just need to decide how many inputs you want (2 in/out is quite common). Whether you choose Focusrite, Steinberg, Roland, Presonus or any other is down to preference. They're all pretty much up to the job (though I'd read a couple of reviews on sound & build quality if it's not one of the more popular ones that you choose). If the keyboard is for single note things, then you'll get plenty of keyboards for next to nowt. I'd still consider the Nektar ones as you can control your daw from it to quite a degree. I think the Presonus studio might fit your bill, but have a look around at your options.

Reaper is a great DAW, especially as you don't have to pay for it straight away & when you do, it's only $60. It does take a little patience to set it up though, but once you have done that & got to know the basics, it's relatively easy to use. Like Lurks says... What are you planning on doing? Real instruments & vocals with A couple of VSTs for keys & drums, all live instruments or all synths with just your bass? This is going to determine which audio interface to choose. Is one or two inputs enough or are you having musicians round to record together? If you're going for the guitar, bass & singing with vst other things, then the Presonus iTwo studio might be worth a look, especially at £139 (the interface used to be that price alone) & comes with cans, mic & their DAW - Studio One 3. And you can use it with your iPad!! I very nearly went for it, but the NI KA6 met my needs better. It was a tight call though! As for monitors. They're not really a necessity when it comes to home recording. So I'd put them towards the end of your list & don't let them stop you getting that better bit of kit just now. For keys. The Nektar LX are apparently very hard to beat for the money. Question... Is 2 octaves enough? Do you play keys or are you just gonna bash a little one fingered hook on it? I'd say go for at least 49 keys. The LX25 is £75 & the LX49 is £100, so it might be worth spending that extra £25 there. You can even get a good bundle with the LX49 & Bigwig Studio (DAW) for £249. That's saving £50 as Bigwig is £199 on it's own. You don't have to spend a lot on headphones either to get a great set. Have a look at Superlux. My route was similar to Lurks too. Got a mac, bought logic, bought an interface, bought better headphones, got a mic & most recently (as in 5 days ago) got a set of keys. Not got monitors yet, but I do have computer monitors that I've had for years that get occasional use.

I got a pair of the Superlux HD668b off Amazon on a BCers recommendation. Best £33 I've spent on headphones (& better than ones that I've paid considerably more too). They're open back, so ideal for listening to music as well as mixing & mastering, which is what I use them for. If you don't want them to bleed to the outside world (like recording with mics or irritate the Mrs), then go for closed back (open back tend to have the better sound quality). If you want the PJBs but at a cheaper price, then there's the Edifier H850. Same headphones, but rebranded (& according to Mr PJ, made from cheaper parts).

[quote name='colgraff' timestamp='1456055399' post='2984838'] Novatech have a 15.6" laptop with i7 processor at 3.1GHz, 16Gb RAM, 1Tb Hard disk, etc. For £630 inch VAT which must be powerful enough, I'd think. [btw, MacBook Pro with slightly lower specs is £1,667] [i]runs away from Apple Evangelising horde.[/i] [/quote] That sounds like a similar spec to my MBP, except for I have a 500gb SS drive. What I do get as well for that extra £1k is a solid built aluminium shell, software that works without me having to read the requirements & no viruses. Some folk prefer to spend that £1k elsewhere (like a new bass or expensive anti virus software), I'd rather have something that I know is unlikely to let me down & in 5 years time still be worth a bit of money if I did decide to sell it. I sold my 2007 iMac to a fellow BCer just last July. Still running fine & a good spec even by today's standard. How many 8 year old PCs could fetch a decent price?

What do you mean "you get paid to go away with your mates"? Is this by your Mrs?

True, you pay more for a MacBook, but you get reliability, very little in the way of viruses & no blue screen of death (noissues on any of mine in the 9 years of being a Mac user). If it's windows based, then Mr Smalls' suggestion is worth investigating. Does the £750 include the cost of the DAW? Only PC advice I can give is avoid the HP G series laptops. The fan is in the bottom corner & collects dust, which then clogs it up & causes the PC to overheat. The only way to get to it to clean it, is to take the entire unit apart (& I mean every single bit of the heap, a very poor design).

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1455925388' post='2983803'] Edit: Aaaaand I've just ran out of space on Soundcloud. Bah! [/quote] Haha. I know the feeling well. I made up a new email address just to open another soundcloud account (hence GXmix).

It is. It arrived at 5pm. First thing my Mrs said when I got it out the box was "that's bloody massive! Where the heck are you gonna put it?". Took a bit of time to download software & set up, but it's now up & running & sounds awesome. You already know about the software side, so I'll tell you about the keyboard. The bed is very much like any decent piano that I've played. Not spongy like the old fender Rhodes pianos, but well balanced. My concerns about it being any good for synth stuff has been quashed. I can play solos & hooks just fine (if anything, it's my piano skills that need to improve). I'll get back with more soon.

Practice your technique first. Then the best pedal for slap is a tuner with a mute function. Only messing. The best pedals for slap are filter & delay (once you've got your technique down) & maybe an EQ if you need to boost the lows & scoop some mids.

If you can, split your signal, have 1 side going through good fx for the low sub sounds & have the other side going through the dirt, lpf & whatever else. I had mine in a vaguely similar order to what Mr Grey suggests (though split signals) & it was great for DnB/electronica. Chorus on one of the channels is good for movement too. Have fun playing about.

Cheers. Once I've had a wee play about, I'll post my findings. I'll also compare the keybed with my dad in law's Roland HP-605 (I'll ask him to compare them too). I was more of a synth player in my younger days.

Well after much humming & haaing & listening tot he advice on here, I've bought myself the NI S88. Should be here on Wednesday. What was rather irritating is that last week there were loads of places selling it for £679. Today I pop online & everywhere I looked, it was £729. That's £50 up! My wife being the clever lady that she is, found one place still stocking it for £679 with next working day delivery.

Just tested it with my headphones. That's brilliant. Managed to calibrate my headphones to compensate for being deaf in one ear. I now have my head tilted to the left by 17˚.

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1455476704' post='2979453'] I've just recorded after spending most of the weekend procrastinating and browsing online for yet more virtual instruments! (I was good, I didn't buy any.) I need a few subjective listens, a fair bit of mixing and it'll be ready to go up on Soundcloud. [/quote] You've got Komplete 10 & you're looking for more instruments! Have a look at the u-he Tyrell N6 (if you haven't already), it's a fantastic synth & it's free!

The Roland A500pro (& A800pro) don't produce any of their own sounds. If she likes the keybed on the A500, then it's then a simple case of finding a good virtual piano to play it with. Bare in mind that the keybed on the home piano is probably one of Roland's weighted beds, whereas the controller is more like a synth. Studiologic might be worth a look. They have Fatar keybeds & include a small selection of built in sounds on many of their controllers.