What device / Daw / vsts and extras do you use

Zonular

We'll title says it all. I'm either looking at rebuilding a pc / buying a budget ipad to mess around with iOS apps and garageband or buy a Mac mini.

What setup do you guys use?
Currently mine is a very basic zoom h4n pro with a set of closed back headphones, oh and caustic running on Kindle fire 10 and a akai mpk

TheBigDipper

GarageBand and Multitrack DAW on iPadOS/iOS. Logic Pro on MacOS. These days, mostly GB on iPad and MTDAW on iPhone. 

monquixote

Currently I'm mostly using a Polyend Tracker and a Windows laptop with Bitwig.

Danny1969

I've recently set up 3 different people with complete DAW systems on a budget. None of the systems cost more than £100 2nd hand. Basically I trawl Ebay for firewire Mbox 2 interfaces which you can can get for as little as £20. These allow you to run Protools LE8 which gives you absolutely everything you need to create music, inc drums, software synth, guitar amp sims and great editing. All you then need is an old iMac or Macbook Pro which you can get for around £50 for the Imac or £75 ish for the Macbook. 
There's no drivers or anything else to worry about. You install the software and it all just works right off the bat with no latency. The last guy, a 62 year old teacher mate of mine was recording music within 15 minutes of me installing it in his man cave. 

Zonular

If you get sore me a MacBook for that money I'd be very happy, over here I'm looking at Mac minis from 2011 for 200/250 asking price

midiman1962

Danny1969 said:

I've recently set up 3 different people with complete DAW systems on a budget. None of the systems cost more than £100 2nd hand. Basically I trawl Ebay for firewire Mbox 2 interfaces which you can can get for as little as £20. These allow you to run Protools LE8 which gives you absolutely everything you need to create music, inc drums, software synth, guitar amp sims and great editing. All you then need is an old iMac or Macbook Pro which you can get for around £50 for the Imac or £75 ish for the Macbook. 
There's no drivers or anything else to worry about. You install the software and it all just works right off the bat with no latency. The last guy, a 62 year old teacher mate of mine was recording music within 15 minutes of me installing it in his man cave. 

Great advice @Danny1969 - I have a similar scenario with Cubase 9 elements (free licence with Steinberg ur22 interface) and 2nd hand win i3 laptop - ram upgraded to 8 gig - a bit more expensive circa £200 total 

spark240

Mac M1 mini, Studio One DAW, Kemper Profiler, Neumann TLM102, lots of guitars...lots of VST....most of which I dont need...I think Dans idea is best ;-)

Zonular

Ok so what MacBook should I be looking for?

Danny1969

Zonular said:

Ok so what MacBook should I be looking for?

Macbook Pro rather than Macbook as the Pro's have firewire ports. 

If you want a Macbook Pro purely for making music then an old 2009 ish will do fine running an old version of Protools using an old cheap as chips Mbox 2  ......  That's what I tend to supply .. Old Macbook Pro - Snow Lep - Protools 8 - Mbox 2  

If you want a Macbook Pro for running other stuff and a more modern DAW then you need at least a mid 2012 .... pref a 2015 to be reasonable current for the next 3 years. 

dindude

Cubasis on iPad for me. A few years ago I went down the rabbit hole of buying a Mac, and protools etc.. Just stared at a screen and scratched my head most of the time. Also came to realise that, for me, using a mouse to make music is the least inspiring thing. I love with the iPad, that once I’ve tracked, I just sit on the sofa of an evening with headphones and dick around with the mix. Workflow-mojo is what ever works for you, but don’t underestimate the link between finding it and actually making music. 

swiller

sonar (cakewalk) is now free but needs windows pc. Sonar is as good as anything else out there and comes with lots of good plugins, a full fat daw. The free vsts available for all daws are pretty much all you need these days from synths to compressors, reverbs, eq etc.

Zonular

I was afraid to invest what little extra I have in a iPad to be disappointed, I do like the idea of the eco system and apps just working for it. Apple.ie has refurb 2017 iPad (standard with 128gb) for 330, worth picking up?

LastMantra

My music laptop must be about 15 years old, maybe more. Reaper, vandal, ezdrums and an old saffire 6 USB. 

I've got some other freebie software stuff. 

marxski

If you go down Mac Mini route and don’t want to shell out for an M1 then the best deal to be had is the late 2012 i7 Quad Core. These were actually a lot more powerful than the Minis they released later on for several years. Can be found cheap on eBay these days if possible get one with 16gb RAM and two SSD fitted. These still hold up very well today and run any DAW well. Best to go no higher than Mojave OS as is most stable. Otherwise get an M1!

Zonular

Cool! Great to know. Is it wrong that I find the structure of the apple range a bit confusing or is it purposeful? 

fretmeister

System: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X. 32GB Ram

Interface: Helix rack
DAW: Reaper

Other kit and VST
Rode NT-1A mic
Helix Native
NeuralDSP Fortin Cali / Archetype Nolly / Parallax / Darkglass Ultra / Fortin NTS

Loads of compressors and vocal plugins - really liking the Butch Vig one for most things.


I think next will be a SM7B. The helix has a really powerful mic preamp in it so no cloudlifter required.

andy_k

My system of choice has been built around a late 2012 MBP 13, with 16gig ram, running off SSD. I swapped out the optical drive for a 2tb disk to store all my stuff on.
I use a focusrite Scarlett 2 I/O, but for other stuff I use a Zoom R16 for its 8 inputs.
Reaper has been the DAW for me for a few years, when I realised how good it is, compared to others.
I don't have a dedicated music room, which would be an obvious upgrade, and do most of my work on either ILouds, or a set of Sennheiser HD650s, I find mixes translate pretty well now I have got used to them- monitoring is the most important thing really.
I have the Slate subscription, which is pretty good value, every type of studio VST you could need, and I also have the Fabfilter stuff for EQ and compression/ limiting, but all the native Reaper stuff is just as capable.
I have been using a plugin called Unify for a couple of years, and have bought a few libraries for it, quite hard to explain everything it does really, pretty much everything, hosting any VST instrument on your system, has many built in, sampler features, midi FX, etc etc.
I wish I had the time to get deeper into Unify, as it replaces many other things you usually need to add to a DAW, and I find it covers everything except my own recordings.
Definitely worth checking out some vids on YT.

octatonic

Main system is a Mac Pro running Avid MTRX and Rednet PCIER.
I mostly switch between Logic, Pro Tools and Max.

Zonular

Would this be any use?
Mac Mini (Late 2012)

Processor: 2.5Ghz Dual-Core Intel Core i5

Ram: 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

HD: 500GB SATA Disk

spark240

Zonular said:

Would this be any use?
Mac Mini (Late 2012)

Processor: 2.5Ghz Dual-Core Intel Core i5

Ram: 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

HD: 500GB SATA Disk

I have very similar but with i7 and SSD...its good but I wouldn't be without the on board SSD now. 

Zonular

Grand, it's back to me cheaping out, I might pick up a basic ipad for the moment and simply use that, and from there see what makes the most sense.


iPad users, what should I go with?