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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.

[quote name='Cameronj279' timestamp='1455471295' post='2979379'] Yes. however it turns out I'm even worse at that. [/quote]

[quote name='Coilte' timestamp='1455468487' post='2979338'] Agreed..plus as the inner core is steel, even if you [i]think[/i] you have allowed them ample time to dry off, they are still prone to rust. [/quote] Would that not be a good thing if the band's genre are "post metal"?

[quote name='Cameronj279' timestamp='1455467713' post='2979331'] Yeah...the reason I was boiling them was because they sounded like flats instead of rounds. The moment a string loses its zing I feel the need to replace it [/quote] Have you considered guitar? Strings are zingy & cheaper.

If I go for keys, it's most likely only ever gonna be for home use. If I got the Rise, I'd more than likely take it for a jam as well.

This sort of thing tempts me the other way though... http://youtu.be/UxSdq7lsPa8

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1455448426' post='2979109'] Get both. </THREAD> As I assume you're much aware, it's about prioritizing and about your own technique and in what direction you wish to develop it. It's very hard to exactly and [b]dynamically[/b] control the dynamics of plucking and hammering sounds like pianos with a semi-weighted. For people without good technique, it's also hard to do dense pads with quick chord changes on a weighted keyboard if it's a rather heavy one. Wait! I have great technique, and me too, I find it hard to do this. However, one solution might be in one of the weighted ones that need very little pressure. IMS Fatar do one or a few. Problem with Fatar is they do so many different keybeds, that it's hard to get an overview of which models use exactly those keybeds. I remember having been much charmed by the action of an Orla stage piano with such a Fatar keybed, but as this is several years ago, they may use different keybeds these days - even if they're supplied by Fatar. Also Yamaha do or have done one that was very light on the touch, and which resembled the light Fatar one very much. I'd believe it was a Fatar one, but reportedly, Yamaha almost always do their own keybeds. This may have been the exception, Idunno. Another solution might be in tracing a shorter, and thus cheaper, weighted one and add a synth bed or a short semi-weighted later. Short fully weighted keybeds are almost as rare as hens' teeth though. Roland did a 64-key one, but it may be unfindable these days. Just trying to hand you some thoughts. Sorry that I can't provide a shortlist of keybeds to go and try. One last remark though: if you're on a tight budget, you can do worse than with a semi-weighted M-Audio KeyStation or KeyStation ES. They come in all lenghts. [/quote] The advice you've given is really helpful. I'm not really looking for a shortlist, as I'm trying to decide if I should go for the NI S88 or not. The Akai Advance 61 is top of my list for 61 keys & although space isn't an issue, I'd rather have one keyboard. For pads, I suppose as it's to be used to control soft synths, I could easily adjust the velocity so notes stay at a more consistent volume. I used to be a keys player, but stopped many many yonks ago. Over the past few years, I've been playing other folks keys (for fun, not in a band) & it's been a mix of pianos & synths & like the keys on both. It's trying to decide what I'm gonna get the most use out of.

if you're gonna boil your strings, either wrap the ball in ducktape or keep the ball out the pan (it's probably clean at that end of the string). Next time you have a little money for strings, try flatwounds. They don't suffer from this issue. Though they don't sound like roundwounds either.

I'm still being tempted by it. It can be played quickly, just watch some of the videos for it. Chap from Dream Theater is not bad at playing it. Got another dilemma now... 88 weighted or 61 semi weighted keys if I don't get the rubber thing? I play a mix of everything.

I like remixes. One man's noise is another's music. A dubstep remix of Metallica can only be a good thing (I like both).

Brilliant. I miss my 101.

The piano sounds in Garageband are really good too. If she's got a Macbook, then Garageband is a fantastic place to start (& it's free). If not, then there's loads of free piano VSTs (virtual instruments). Many controller keyboards have some sort of software with them (either on disk or as a download).