What would your setup look like if you could only spend ~300€/$

[carboncricket]

Nektar Impact GX 61 - £91
logic Pro X - £199

Total - £290

I second that bro

[ramseysounds]

viewtopic.php?f=74&t=343187
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=390110

nil cost

[paradisebunny]

great references, thanks! the article link in the first thread you linked is dead, so here is the archive.org link to the historical version! http://web.archive.org/web/201211140651 ... m/node/183

[thecontrolcentre]

Only $300? Id likely get a cheap second hand analog synth and a four track recorder. Probably a cheap old hardware sampler if there was anything left over.

[dellboy]

Only $300? Id likely get a cheap second hand analog synth and a four track recorder. Probably a cheap old hardware sampler if there was anything left over.

Ah !

Feeding floppies into an Akai s2000

Deciding whether to sample at 8 or a whole 16 bits.

Searching through cassette tapes to clear some space.

Those were great days !

[dellboy]

Any old Yamaha or Casio keyboard with midi out (must be velocity sensitive)= cheap or free.

An old desktop PC from the dump or charity shop = cheap or free

Buy Air Expand 2 when it is on offer at $1 or cheap from the market place,and then buy the whole Air package for 70$ or so.

A decent usb audio interface for 80$ or less.

A Samson dynamic mic,or a second hand Shure SM58 (posh option) for 25$ to 80$

Synth1 freeware and a few others. free

Old strat copy guitar for $50 or less (practise=free).

Paper, pen $1

Amplified monitors $150


Talent = free

I reckon I still have some change left !

[paradisebunny]

I wasn't aware of xpand!2 and the air offerings! great tip!!

[dangayle]

Double post

[dangayle]

Renoise - $70
Rogue Amoeba Loopback - $99
Used Focusrite 2i2 - $75
Used Sennheiser HD 280 Pro - $50

If you don’t want to spend the money on Loopback, you can try Soundflower or something. In that case, I’d spend the $100 on the cheapest version of Izotope RX when it’s on sale.

[funktoons]

it wouldn't look like anything as that's not even enough to buy a sequencer. much less a sound card and create a virtual studio out of freeware

[Vortifex]

..

[sin night]

As a general approach, I would stick with freeware/bundled software as much as possible, in order to free resources for a few hardware items: a midi keyboard, a pair of headphones, a microphone, a soundcard and monitors (maybe these are out of question with a 300€/$ budget). Of course, I would buy only the midi keyboard and a pair of headphones/monitors if I were going to work strictly with synths and I had no need for recording... you get the idea.

My first choice would be towards a freeware daw like Tracktion 5 (or using Garageband on a Mac, if included), then if that's not enough I would try Reaper or FL Studio.
Synths, effects and samples would be strictly freeware (with an exception for magwares and for those crazy 1€/$ sales) or bundled with hardware. If on a Mac, I would consider Logic X if I really needed it, it would be a "complete" setup, but it would steal a lot of budget, so it wouldn't be my first choice.

I would write a list of my needs and then give priority/budget for each of them (and even leave some of them out, if I had no choice).
Also, I would probably look for used items to save money.