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Thread Simple keyboard/guitar/vocals to PC interface

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Topic Simple keyboard/guitar/vocals to PC interface
My 14 year old daughter is a reasonably talented musician (grade 6 keyboard, grade 4 piano) who has been teaching herself guitar for about three months. She has also started to write her own songs. She wants a facility to record these songs on her PC (windows XP). She has a MIDI compatible keyboard. She needs to be able to provide inputs from her keyboard, guitar and a microphone for vocals. It is not necessary that these inputs are simultaneous.
We are currently looking at software and will probably plump for LOGIC.
I understand that we will also need an interface between microphone/guitar/keyboard and the computer. I have been doing a little research and the Edirol UA20 looks to be the sort of thing I am after.

Does anyone have any experience of this box of tricks?
Is this going to be what I need?I
Is it going to be suitable?
Can anyone suggest any similarly priced alternatives?

Your thoughts and experience gratefully recieved.
2
Hello Michael,

Welcome to the forum on behalf of the mods.

You seem to have a handle on what you need except that I'm a bit confused. You said you have a windows pc yet you have decided on Logic which, in its present version, is now Mac only. The Logic PC version ended at 5.5 and support is now minimal to say the least.

It will definitely help us to know what specs your computer has as well as your budget for your planned audio interface. The UA-20 is ok, usb-powered, although I think the UA-25 is an updated and more capable version of that particular interface. I tend to lean towards firewire options, but that's just me.

As for software, if you intend to do a lot of midi recording with audio capability as well, might I suggest Cakewalk Home Studio V2- goes for $99 in most online stores and is quite powerful and easy to learn. I believe one of the Mods, Axeman, uses it.

If you need more info, just feel free to ask.
3
I'm afraid the UA 25 is beyond my budget at the moment. my daughetr presently has a AMD 1.8 Mhz chip with 512 MbRAM and a Soundblaster 5.1 Live sound card running XP.. However, we have had problems with this partcular set up and as a result things might change.
The version of Logic Hit Kit is version 5.5.1 and was bought from a local stall that sells old stock and second hand software.
4
I'm familiar with that version of Logic. It's the last of it's kind but hopefully, with Apple going Intel, that might change. I'm too much of a Cakehead to get around Logic's - uhm - logic, but it's a pretty powerful sequencing program.

Might I suggest looking at the M-Audio brand of cards and interfaces. The 2496 Audiophile is an excellent card that goes for $99 but it doesn't have midiports. A simple 1x1 usb midi could suffice - the Midisport Uno would fit the bill in the midi department.

Don't know why you had probs with you pc. My 2nd DAW was an AMD 1700+ working on an Nforce board and it still is pretty powerful. It just chokes on me when I load it up with softsynths, as does my present DAW, that's why I will soon be migrating to 64 bit platforms.

Best,
5
Addendum to above post:

I forgot to ask if your daughter's pc has a Via KT266 motherboard chipset. If so, there are documented problems running a Soundblaster Live on that motherboard. The better chipsets for socket A platforms are Nforce solutions. Intel solutions based on the 865 chipset are also highly recommended but that will require a change in cpu as well.

Best,