$2000 Rig Suggestions & Questions

[apextrooper]

Hello all,

Long time lurker, first time poster here.

I am looking to spend around $2000 or so to upgrade my studio. This will be a PC based studio used for hip hop (a la Atmosphere, Living Legends) as well as some acoustic mellow rock and metal. Im hoping to get a step up from lowest end to low/mid end. I'm not ready to invest in high end stuff yet. The main thing here is I want it to be versatile. I dont know how many of you listen to the aforementioned artists, but basically I want to make similar sounding beats and have similar vocals to them. And, if possible, be able to switch over to heavy metal/rock when I want to. The studio will be moved from my bedroom where it is now (because of the small amount of equipment) to the garage on a slightly raised wooden platform to make room for the rack and to have space for a drummer when the time comes.

So far my core studio consists of:


AMD 64 PC (high spec) desktop
dell inspiron 6400 laptop (took vista off and put on xp)
ART TUBE MP preamp
Presonus Firebox
reason 3, fruity loops
maudio o2 midi controller
mxl v63m condensor mic
shure sm57 (doesnt work well with firebox pres)
pair of yamaha cans
cubase le, sonar 7, reaper

As you can tell its pretty basic. I was hoping to buy some outboard gear. I had the following in mind:

art mpa gold 2 preamp
art pro vla II compressor
antares avp vocal processor
presonus firepod
krk rockit5 monitors

all in a gator rackmount

Now a few questions.

1. Should I go with a protools or m-powered setup? It seems like I have experience with every sequencer BUT protools. I know a lot of hip hop artists use it. Is it worth it? I'm not sure about it because of driver issues (amd computer) and is it easy to use compared to reaper or the like?

2. Is there a guide telling me how to hook up my outboard gear to my computer and daw? Do i just daisy chain ins to outs all the way down the rack and then out to a computer? I have no idea what cables would go where and what kind (xlr, trs, balanced, unbalanced, etc.) I read some guides on cabling and stuff but it still seems unclear. maybe a picture of a back of a rack would help or a diagram

3. Should I invest in another area? Such as getting an akai mpc1000 or beat machine? I havent really used one, most of my stuff comes from reason and fruity loops and I still have some trouble getting more complex beats out of them.

One last thing. I know I will be doing music for a long time, as far as recording my own stuff and I am very serious at opening a studio in the far future or at least go to school for audio engineering as a possible major. With that in mind, should I just save up more and go high end or stick with mid end?

Thank you all for your help. Have a great day

[apextrooper]

Anybody out there? Anyway, I've decided an MPC-based studio would suit me best.

Will this gear play nice together?:


Akai MPC1000

Studio Projects VTB-1 Preamp

KRK Rp5 monitors

Behringer VMX300 Mixer

NUmark Axis 4 CD Player


1. Will I be able to use the CD player to sample in sounds to use in the MPC?

2. Also, what kind of cables are used? Are they 1/4" to RCA to go from the MPC to the mixer, etc.? I will be using the mics I have now for vocal samples if possible.

3. Do I need a power amp or anything for those monitors? Or do I just plug them directly into my mixer?


I would really like some input on this. Thank you.