Macbook Pro Retina maxed out, any DAW of your choice,Omnisphere, Trilian, Komplete 10 Ultimate, Akai Advance 61, JBL LSR305. Thats about $6200. Usually only Apple sells the maxed out one. You can save some more by getting everything else as a bundle for local music store or a sight like AudioDeluxe.com Thats generally all you'll every need for production unless you have additional specific tastes.

 

Dude you actually had to take the time to dislike my "specific" suggestion post and follow with your vague as crap post , you could of simply posted yours like everyone else instead of hating.. the topic was hey guys what should i get, i'm pretty sure it's based on everyones preferences and experience...let's keep it real you hated on it because of the apple suggestion,next time try not to be a bitch because of a close to trillion dollar company that has nothing to do with either of us ,unless maybe apple maybe killed your goldfish or picked on you in school or something and just state your opinion and let others have their say.Peace!!

 

The best advice I can give is don't spend it all at once! Take the time to plan or test everything out before committing. Chances are your plans will change through experience.

This is good advice as well! Along with the rest of the stuff that ShadowOfTheZ said in that post.

 

It was not regarding what you wrote, it was HOW you wrote it:
http://netiquette.wikia.com/wiki/Rule_number_2_-_Do_not_use_all_caps

 

That is not a lot of money to do what I did but, IMO, I would start by investing in hardware, I know software is king for those who have a limited budget, but nothing replaces, IMO, studio hardware.

I've been making music forever and I still have all the old releases, I did start with software when I was younger, but now that I can invest, I pretty much have a few pieces to go until I can go full hardware to produce, mix and master.

To produce:

-Monitors, Synths, drum machines, fx, sequencer, etc

To mix:

mixing board, fx, tape reel 2 reel, etc

To master:

-compressor, eq, etc

If you know what kind of music you want to make, get educated on what is out there and invest in it if you're serious. Software is good, but after using both, hardware kicks software's ass.

As far as room treatment, I can say that would be very difficult to invest in something that really makes a huge difference, you can always reference with studio headphones if needed. Unless you can rebuild a room, I have yet to see a room that was affected in a dramatic way by it, then again, there are some funky rooms out there, I just have a perfect symmetrical shape on mine that I rather not mess with since I have great sound in it.

 

Hmm, 15000 could do a lot, but it's still necessary to budget with that kind of cash. Thinking about long term usage from this sort of investment, I'd have a plan of action like this. I'd set aside a couple hundred to update my computer specs. Nothing crazy, always usable. Set aside maybe 1000 for speaker equipment. I don't know that I would realistically need that much, but it would be nice to have a solid set of monitors, and a range of different headphones to compare and contrast everything with.

That's about 1300 gone.

I'd set aside another 1000 for room comfortablility. I buy used whenever I can, so I'd be able to find a solid desk for cheap (or make one for a couple hundred if needed for a full room sized desk kind of project). Would get a really nice desk chair (one I have now is fine, would get a memory foam one if I could however). I'd have two screens on the desk, and also one screen in an area for a standup desk, set up so the keyboard and mouse could be rerouted to a different set (there are wires that allow for this). That might take about 1000, if not less.

About 2300 gone.

I'd buy an audio interface, a guitar, and a midi controller with weighted keys. Would also buy a general use condenser microphone. All this would be ~1000.

That's about 3300. I'd set aside 500 for software, making that 3800. That leaves about 11,000 that I would put into a slow growth investment account. I would pull it out in 5 years or so when it's time to update my computer, buy some new software or get new equipment. Doing this, I could make the 15,000 last much longer than spending it all at once on computing and equipment that may become rapidly outdated.

 

to start you need a pc or mac if you are going to use it for audio and gaming = i7 with 8 cores and 64gb of ram gigabyte mobo = hackintosh and 690-980gtx will do for only audio and alot of power get a dual or with 12 cores or if you are heavy user quad xeon thats 4 procesors and 30 cores and ram you can add up to 250gb or more in my case i own a xeon 12cores and 128gb of ram once you have the pc you need a soundcard there alot of them and brands focus mainly on drivers i/o and make sure has adat and wordclock for expantions and external pre and ad da for later my recomendation is to focus on what daw you use if you use pro tools the hd i/o is very reliable has dsp and 0 latency and can monitor with plugins but its expensive the 8x8x8 is around 4k and 16x16x16 is around 10grand for native go with apollo quad great ad da 8/8 i/o and uad quad card inside for the plugins also get a d box for monitoring and summing and has great da for mixing or get rme fireface the newer one or lynx aurora if you want everything external also metric halo makes good interface and prism orpheus if you want clean convertion is the way to go


now the most important before getting any gear is your room once you have the pc and the card you need proper acoustics and proper monitors i prefere focal sm9 over any monitors in the market but they are so expensive around 4-5k also decent or standart mid range ones like yamaha ns10 or genelecs even the alessis are great depend on your taste you can get dual pair like krk v6 and yamaha hs80 or msp7 series

once you have that make music with what you have and start finding weakneses in the studio use this tool to help you calibrate the acoustics and how u want your music to sound like use this http://amroc.andymel.eu/


once you set get external pre amp and mics avalon 737sp popular for rnb rap and urban music neve 1073 clean big and fat sound api512c bright and clean my fav chains are avalon 737sp with akg 414 for bright guitars and rap vocals neve 1073 with manley ref for male and grit vocals api512c with mxl 67g to mic female vocals uad 610 i use for acustic guitars as well just go with a akg414 and avalon 737sp make sure you have a booth or a acustic filter

the rest is optional just buy what u need workstation synth plugins also since u work with urban get a api lunchbox and get a ssl bus g and channel strip will make that final sound sound fat warm and huge it will glue the drums and add that comercial low end in the final mix

then again is all optional and in your taste mixing is like a salad you just need the lettuce tomato and bowl then the oil and the salt is a personal taste same as music same as gear just buy what u will use everyday and stay away from gearslutz they will make u gear slutty lol

 

I feel like 64 gb of RAM is overkill for music production. I haven't had use for more than 16 gb running multiple instances of large Kontakt libraries personally, which are about the only place I can imagine needing a lot of ram to begin with. Someone who doesn't use large sample libraries might only need 8 for most uses. A solid i7 processor is indeed worth the purchase though.

If someone wants to chime in on why they prefer more RAM though, I'm all ears. I haven't personally run into issues related to RAM itself when I have between 8 and 16 gb of it, however I'm sure other people's experiences may be different. I'm not entirely sure that most software actively needs to use that much RAM.

 

You'll need a CPU workhorse. Get a powerful machine with tons of memory and large SSD drives.
Excellent sound, headphones and decent sized Video monitors. A comfy ergo chair, workstation desk and full sized keyboard midi controller.
Buy a decent multi-patterned Mic and SE Pro Reflection Filter, if you don't have a booth. Closets are great for converting in a jam.
Further dampen reflections with acoustic foam, floor Rugs and or acoustic room kit. Several manufactures have room kits. Auralex, etc.
You're just dampening some reflection and reducing hi end transmission.
Soundproofing, is a whole other animal and can eat a small budgets alive without experience and affordable to free labor.
If you're attached, say an apartment or home, REALLY look into Soundbarrier or Soundblock materials, to reduce sound transmissions or it'll be all for nothing when your neighbor calls the cops or landlord to complain. Good luck.

 

A Distressor... you'll have a lot of fun using it.

 

Last edited: Oct 10, 2015

Once you run in the league of ATC, you'd better run something a bit pricier than Blackface Apollos. Not that they're bad, it's a bit overkill for a guy who asked the initial question.

 

I am curious as to what the OP @iswingwood ended up doing/buying with his funds... care to update?

 

He probably spent it all on hookers and cocaine. Id still like an update tho.

 

lol Well his second response WAS to spend it on black jack and hookers so maybe you're right and he listened lol

 

Lol some crazy guys would spend that money paying Kim kardashian or her younger sister to play ping-pong with her clit