I am by far the least technical person when it comes to musical talent and or musical knowledge but love tinkering with gadgets. I own a Microkorg, Kaossilator pro, launchpad, and a nanopad. Is this enough to get me started? I'd love to learn how to make music such as Trance and or synth type (like Depeche, Mesh, etc). I use a mac with ableton live and a number of plug ins but in the end just end up making noise.

 

what you have is more than enough. if you don't know where to start, just
go on youtube and start watching tutorials like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gISzeFMr4F8

http://www.youtube.com/user/cosmcosm#g/u

just type anything you need to know, for example "kaossilator pro" or "making a trance
track with ableton live" and you'll get an idea of what's what. Even if you're not a musical
prodigy you need to know what your equipment is capable of, so the first step would be to RTFM.

Hope this helps.

 

This.

These tutorials are pretty damn good. I've only watched a few bits but I really need to sit down with them one day and just go through Live properly, from what I've seen though they look excellent.

 

Have to agree with both Saint and Van on this one Sonic Academy especially for live anyway....the ask video tuts for cubase 5 are pretty good too....You Tube You tube You Tube anything and everything on there.....@Saint this is true you could and would pay thousands and even then you'd only learn what they want you to learn....@abepop I've always tied to learn something new about my DAW every day, however small as i've found it's the little things like keyboard shortcuts and such things that speed up the flow and get the tunes finished (or as finished as a tune can be anyway lol)

 

oh and the groove 3 and macvideo tuts are pretty good too...there's a good one for kontakt 4 from both of these anyway

 

I would buy a decent pair of monitors or studio headphones ( open ) and a good soundcard.

Otherwise you have more than enough to start.

 

Same as. Sometimes I wanna slap myself for taking so long to discover these little shortcuts.

This. You have plenty in the way of toys, a good interface and monitors are a must.

 

So I just got myself some M-Audio AV-40's and now need a sound card or Audio Interface. I imagine Audio Interface since i am using a mac book pro. What audio interface do you all recommend that is under or around the $150 range to support my current equipment listed above in my original post? I would also like for sound to output from my mac to the AV-40's as well. or do i need a mixer?