Well, it seems I missed the replies this thread got before it vanished, so, again..heh.

Anyone have any idea what would be a good, and reasonably affordable PC set up for creating ambient music? I currently just have a stage mic badly plugged into a bog standard came with the PC sound card. And I'm using the program Cool Edit Pro 2.1.

So, any sound card, mic or keyboard suggestions?


To hear the stuff I've managed so far...


http://www.myspace.com/chrisslightmusic

just get a new soundcard

Oh yeah, but what sort are good for such things?

I heard good things abaout the M-AUDIO DELTA AUDIOPHILE 2496
unless you don't need more than 2 recording inputs.
Maybe I'll buy that one but I'm not sure because I don't know much about audio stuff.

edit: its only one input although I don't care because I use a mixer.

Hey

Yeah a good soundcard is a good start, the one mentioned above would be fine but you don't need to spend lots of money. ESI's Juli@ is cheap and good. You won't need more than two inputs to make ambient music so that would be fine.

You should look at getting a condensor mic of some sort. They will pick up far more detail than a stage mic (assuming that when you say stage mic you mean it's a dynamic) Again you don't need to spend too much because you're not recording vocals or whatever so it doesn't have to sound amazing. You'll likely EQ the fuck out of it all anyway.

SM Pro make some good stuff for the money, as do MXL. If you have that little bit extra I would definitely go for a Rode, much more value for money but yes, more expensive. Rode also do a small mic for video applications that would be great for you to take out-n-about to record found sounds.

Finally I'd scour the internet for shareware programs that you can fuck with your sounds with. There are lots of cool things out there n you need variety in your pieces seeing as you aren't going to have hooks and melodies to keep people's attention.