garageband starter hardware ??

[wrinkleygit]

hello everyone, I see there are a few gb users on the forum & having had a mac sat on my desk at home with gb installed & more time on my hands these days I thought it was time to put it to use (running osx 10.7.5, not sure what creature it relates to tho'). After some homework it looks like I will need a usb input interface 1 x line, 1 x mic wil be ample & a simple usb/ midi keyboard (25 keys should be enough for my dodgy digits), bad news is I have a budget of about £150 ish at the moment, my gut feeling is to spend biggest part of the budget on something like the new focusrite scarlet or a tascam unit & try & pick up a s/h m-audio, alexis or akai keyboard, hopefuly somebody has trodden a similar path, my initial aim is simply to record some 4-8 track rehearsal tracks, any info or advice welcomed, mike b.

[TomWIC]

A Line6 KB37 would tick all of your boxes (http://line6.com/legacy/toneportkb37). 37 key MIDI keyboard, with instruments inputs and mic inputs. You'd be able to grab one second hand and have cash spare I imagine.

It's not a perfect interface, and you might encounter some issues with latency every now and then, but it should be sufficient until you want to try something bigger. Failing that, you can get a cheap USB MIDI keyboard from Amazon for less than £30 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Akai-LPK25-Midi-Keyboard/dp/B002M8GBDI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364984378&sr=8-1), and you could pick up an Alesis MultiMix (either 4 input or 8 input) for between £50-100 second hand. These little USB mixers are fantastic, me and my guitarist swear by them.

[Mornats]

If I were starting out again I'd look at getting one of these as the audio interface: [url="http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/focusrite-scarlett-2i2-usb-audio-interface--90034"]http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/focusrite-scarlett-2i2-usb-audio-interface--90034[/url] their pre-amps are rated highly and the guy from Focusrite told me they have the same pre-amps as their high-end gear.

So that's £120 out of your budget and you still need a midi keyboard. I'd recommend one with 49 keys or more. I use the M-Audio Keyrig 49 but I tried Pinball's Alesis QX49 and thought it had a better feel to the keys. Not semi-weighted but they felt better than my M-Audio's: [url="http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/alesis-qx49-usb-midi-controller-49-note--82748"]http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/alesis-qx49-usb-midi-controller-49-note--82748[/url] and the extra controls for synths and your DAW could come in very handy. But that blows your budget a bit. And I've just read that 25 keys would be enough for you (I thought that too actually, then got the 49 key one and I'm eyeing up 61 key keyboards now!). [url="http://www.dv247.com/search/2977/0/ProductPrice/Ascending/-/1/"]http://www.dv247.com/search/2977/0/ProductPrice/Ascending/-/1/[/url] - I can't recommend any in particular from that list but you're looking at ones that will just fit in your budget. Of course you can go second hand too

[wrinkleygit]

Hello, thanks for advice so far I think the scarlet is the way to go, that will allow me to record guitar & bass tracks for starters, I also have my trusty old korg pandora for effects, a midi keyboard can wait for a bit until either a s/h unit appears or the budget grows a bit more, mike.

(I was in bristol on sat but sadly couldn't get up to clifton to have a look around dv247)

Edited April 7, 2013 by wrinkleygit

[xgsjx]

Have you tried plugging the bass/guitar straight into your mac? You might get a surprise.