Gear Recommendations - laptop, headphones/dac, audio interface

[glober]

Finally taking the plunge into music production!
Would really appreciate some recommendations on some hardware!
DAW: most likely Ableton for now and Cubase down the road.

1. Laptop:
opened to both mac and pc. but more leaning towards pc as it's cheaper and allows for upgrades down the road + gaming. Does anyone have a particular laptop they would recommend? In addition, what cpu, size ram, hard drive should I aim for?. Start with 16gb of ram and upgrade to 32 when required, ssd hard drive, i7 ?

2. Headphones+-DAC:
I'm looking at the Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO-80 and Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO-250 headphones at the moment, but opened to other suggestions as well (the beyerdynamic dt770 pro-250 requires a DAC i think) Does anyone know any good DAC as well? Does it even make much of a difference using a DAC vs not using one?

3. Audio Interface:
Is Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 the best in the market?
What about Steinberg UR22 mkII?
I will be plugging in a guitar, digital piano, speakers, headphones, and in the future possibly a microphone.

Question:
In regards to hard drives, vst/vsti, samples, software. What's the best way to set everything up? A small ssd for running the operating system + DAW, a large external SSD for storing vst/vsti/samples, and a large storage drive data storage?

[BertKoor]

Hi there, glober. Welcome to KVR!

• Ableton and Cubase have quite a different workflow (linear timeline vs looping clips oriented). So I'd try out their demos before buying any of them.
• Why not just start with the computer you have right now, and see how far you get with that? It really depends on what type of projects you're throwing at it. Some plugins are very CPU efficient while others eat it raw.
• Headphones: always try before you buy, compare them with whatever crap you currently have. A compfortable fit is just as important as a neutral sound. Beware of boosted bass! Also just working on headphones is not recommended. Get nearfield monitoring speakers if you can! Especially stereo imaging and reverbs sound very different through headphones than through speakers.
• You say DAC: Digital-Analog Converter. That's in essence your Audio Interface! But what high-impedance headphones need is more power than average. So you'd need either an audio interface with a powerful headphone output (rarely mentioned in the tech spec sheet how many watts it is) or a separate (audiophile) headphone amp. My advice is to stick with lower impedance models (less than 100 Ohm) to avoid this problem all together, unless the higher impedance models have behaviour you really want/need.
• The very best interfaces are made by RME, but those cost serious money. When I started I had just two SoundBlasters in my PC, so using only onboard audio should not be a showstopper.

I hope that's useful to you...

[rod_zero]

For for an i7 quad core, 16 gb of RAM and the largest SSD you can afford. Get the laptop from a vendor which allows returns, the truth is that PC laptops are a lottery when it comes to DAW's performance. A subpar driver can mess with the overall performance, bad thermal design can make the CPU throttle a lot, and even USB ports can be faulty, so your best bet is to get one model and try to run your DAW and interface with it, if it runs well keep it, if not return the laptop.

As for the interface in windows, I think Steinberg is the brand with the best ASIO drivers in the low-end market, ASIO drivers allow to run DAW software with low latency and minimal drops or pops and cracks in the sound (windows isn't optimized to prioritize real-time audio DSP so the ASIO driver forces this). As previous poster pointed out RME interfaces are great (they have the best ASIO drivers in the market by far) but it is more expensive, totally worth IMHo for what you get (they come with lots of features that enable to expand them).

I use my SSD for OS, software install and as much sample libraries as I can, but projects go in the normal HD (shame I don't have a larger SSD).

[Apratim]

1.for laptop you will need shit ton of ram and now is not the correct time when the prize of RAM is high as f**k
+
as for cpu both Intel and Amd are going hard as ........ you know
but i use an old AMD quadcore laptop(not the zen one.description in the signature below)

2.get a headphone from sonarworks which has breathable earcups or buy something good open back(if you make music on the go then dont buy open back... if confused why just ask me in this thread) headphone and send it to them to calibrate

3.get something from apogee or BEHRINGER

i use two hard disks in my laptop setup in raid 0 with 500gb... no issue here for 3 years + 10 second boot up time to main windows screen and no issue with reaper
for vst see my signature + personal orchestra(its a software.. i dont have a orchestra for myself duh...)

[donkey tugger]

BEHRINGER

Bit of a mixed bag gear wise over the years with the stuff I've had, but the slightly more expensive (cough) 'Euphoria' interfaces have garnered good reviews and the 2 in 2 out audio and midi one I've had for the last couple of months has been spot on;

http://www.musictri.be/Categories/Behri ... HD/p/P0BK0

The cheaper ones don't have dedicated ASIO drivers whereas this range do, and I've had no bother recording electric and acoustic guitars and vocals with very low noise at very low (i.e. 2ms) latency.

[Apratim]

BEHRINGER

Bit of a mixed bag gear wise over the years with the stuff I've had, but the slightly more expensive (cough) 'Euphoria' interfaces have garnered good reviews and the 2 in 2 out audio and midi one I've had for the last couple of months has been spot on;

http://www.musictri.be/Categories/Behri ... HD/p/P0BK0

The cheaper ones don't have dedicated ASIO drivers whereas this range do, and I've had no bother recording electric and acoustic guitars and vocals with very low noise at very low (i.e. 2ms) latency.

dont know about the cheaper ones but i think the 202HD is the best for recording at a hella cheap prize(i use this .... ) and has asio support

[RichieWitch]

Finally taking the plunge into music production!
Would really appreciate some recommendations on some hardware!
DAW: most likely Ableton for now and Cubase down the road.

I just discovered I'm going to be on travel, living in hotels for the next six months, and away from my home studio, so my shopping list looked very similar to yours. For DAWs, I've been using Ableton Live for four years, so that's my go-to host. Here's the hardware I decided on for the road.

1. Laptop:
MusicRadar's sister site, TechRadar, rated the Dell XPS laptops best for music production. I picked up an XPS 15, i7 quad core processor, 32 Gb of RAM, and a 1 Tb SSD harddrive. Very pleased with it during my initial setup and test this week. Plugged a controller into it and after a few driver tweaks was able to play the piano like it was the real thing, even with a 3.5 Gb electric piano library. All my softsyths sounded great too without any latency, glitches, or dropouts.

2. Headphones+-DAC:
I already own a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M50x that I trust, so I'll be using those. If you're using an audio interface, you won't need a separate DAC. The Beyerdynamics you mention are good too, so take yourself down to a shop with your own music and listen to several brands. AKG 702s are worth a listen as well as some of the Sennheiser models.

3. Audio Interface:
The Scarlett 2i4 is an entry-level interface, and while it's a good interface at that price (I've owned one myself), it sounds like an entry-level interface. For the road, I'm looking to picking up an Audient iD4 that I'm hoping will sound a little cleaner without breaking the budget. Considering that you already own enough instruments to fill all the inputs of the 2i4, you might consider getting something a bit bigger with more I/O for the inevitable future gear. Focusrite's products improve in sound as you get above their entry level boxes (just like any of the other brands do really).

Question:
In regards to hard drives, vst/vsti, samples, software. What's the best way to set everything up? A small ssd for running the operating system + DAW, a large external SSD for storing vst/vsti/samples, and a large storage drive data storage?

Because I'm going to be traveling a lot, I didn't want to take an external drive--just one more thing to lug around, drop, and fail. That drove my decision to upgrade to the 1 Tb SSD, so I'd have plenty of room for my favorite Kontakt libraries. Unfortunately, my simply gorgeous 32 Gb Yamaha C7 grand piano library and huge collection of sample packs will have to stay behind, so yeah, if you need to have access to your entire collection, better get an external drive for those.
In my home studio, all the sample libraries/packs, etc are on a separate SATA drive without any issues, but all the vst's and plugins are on the same drive as my DAW. Really, your plugins aren't going to take up that much room (except maybe something like Omnisphere), but the content libraries can be absolutely huge. I don't buy a lot of them, but still I've got around 400 Gb worth on my home machine.

One last thing... I'm assuming your digital piano has MIDI out? If not, your list is missing a MIDI controller. Just a thought.

[Zexila]

Maybe start with Logic X and cheaper second hand i7 Macbook Pro, both Live and Cubase are pricey down the road and Logic is amazing bargain for what it offers. Even if Macbook is pricier than similarly speced whatever, you do get what you pay for, there's no DPC latency issues and quality is top notch, resale value is good too.

Cans, Sennheiser HD 280/380 Pro with Toneboosters Morhpit correction plugin.

Interface, Steinberg is known for solid drivers, heard good things about Audient too, also about Behringer 204 HD.

One more thing, Live is resource hog compared to both Logic and Cubase which are far better optimized, so you can squeeze more with them on same machine, even on lower speced one.

[Distorted Horizon]

Finally taking the plunge into music production!
Would really appreciate some recommendations on some hardware!
DAW: most likely Ableton for now and Cubase down the road.

Welcome aboard When it comes to DAWs, what do you want from a DAW? What you need? Personally I don't recommend Ableton or Cubase.

1. Laptop:
opened to both mac and pc. but more leaning towards pc as it's cheaper and allows for upgrades down the road + gaming. Does anyone have a particular laptop they would recommend? In addition, what cpu, size ram, hard drive should I aim for?. Start with 16gb of ram and upgrade to 32 when required, ssd hard drive, i7 ?

Basically any gaming laptop, if you have the cash for it. My laptop (which I use to make music when my pc is not available = on the road), is 2.60Ghz i5 (dualcore), 8gb, 125gb ssd. And I'm doing fine with it. Though my list of vsts is very limited on my laptop but it's actually a good thing. On mac, OS updates often break everything and every nicely named update most probably just f**ks everything up. Until your favorite dev releases an update "now also working on OS (insert name here)".

2. Headphones+-DAC:
I'm looking at the Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO-80 and Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO-250 headphones at the moment, but opened to other suggestions as well (the beyerdynamic dt770 pro-250 requires a DAC i think) Does anyone know any good DAC as well? Does it even make much of a difference using a DAC vs not using one?

Why DAC? You put your headphones to your audio interface. On the road you just don't need it
About headphones, I'd maybe go for Sony MDR-7506.

Or any of these headphones: http://equipboard.com/posts/best-studio ... production

3. Audio Interface:
Is Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 the best in the market?
What about Steinberg UR22 mkII?
I will be plugging in a guitar, digital piano, speakers, headphones, and in the future possibly a microphone.

This is purely an opinion thing. IMO Steingberg UR22 is better, but guess you can't go wrong with Focusrite either. Though considering the stuff you're going to put it, I'd go for a bit bigger interface = UR44.

Question:
In regards to hard drives, vst/vsti, samples, software. What's the best way to set everything up? A small ssd for running the operating system + DAW, a large external SSD for storing vst/vsti/samples, and a large storage drive data storage?

IMO everything on your main hd. Then external hd to backup everything if your main one breaks. Because even if you have some supa dupa hyper quantum ssd with unlimited space, it's still limited by the bandwidth of your usb.

Besides, are you REALLY going to limit your creativity by cranking up your hd full with synths and samples, which will takes lots of space and take your focus out of the most important = making music?

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Games,DAW and unnecessary stuff on one pc are absolutely forbidden :):)
Making music is easy if you know WHAT and HOW you wanna make it ...i still don't :):)