It looks like I am moving to a foreign country for a six month gig which includes housing on the property where I’ll be working. I’m really looking forward to it.
I’ll definitely miss my music making setup at home with all of the spaciousness and a decent amount of gear—but I’d still like to make some music on this six month stint!
Anybody have suggestions for a tiny little temporary setup with high efficiency?!
I’m thinking about maybe bringing my Yamaha CP reface (to play some paino and use as a controller), my korg volca drum, a sm58 mic, a laptop and a tiny audio interface. I’m reealllly going to miss my guitar and bass but I guess I’m looking forward to the limitation.
I usually just use GarageBand to record stuff and haven’t really delved into the world of DAW plugins or VST’s—any recommendations on software that will give me lots of options and colors? Would be willing to dive into a software ecosystem if the options were plentiful and quality enough
Or a piece of hardware that I could consider that is very small but a super heavy hitter?
Depends on your style of music-making. You mentioned the Reface CP which suggests you may be a ‘keys-player’ as they’re called around these parts. If so, your recommendations would ideally include keys, and differ from my idea of an idea tiny music-making setup!
Man, six months without a guitar… I’d go mad! Maybe grab a cheapo second-hand guitar while you’re over there and flog it before you return home to your trusty axes.
I love the CP, but it’s not the best midi controller because of the dongle and lack of mod wheel or any programmable knobs. If it was me and I was going for only six months. I’d want to take as little as possible and probably just do the laptop and a small midi keyboard like the little Akai MPK mini MK4. Super compact. If you are in a foreign country, I’d say travel light and enjoy that bit as much as possible, unless music making is more than a hobby of course.
As much as I don’t like the subscription model in general, you might dig Reason rack and it could be economical to try it for a few months before you buy (they offer flat pricing too.)
There’s a lot of really good plugins if you happen to appreciate that style of interface that look somewhat like actual hardware. People go both ways on this, it’s definitely a personal thing.
Anyways the stuff that comes with Reason Rack alone can keep you plenty busy and give you a lot of directions. I find it pretty inspiring to use. Garage Band is going to have the basic EQs, Compressors etc you need so I’d focus on the fun stuff.
Without more info on your overall goals it’s hard to recommend things.
Serum 2 or Pigments are both incredible, well featured synths that cover a lot of different sound generation potentials. Could be a good pick if you want to dive in and learn a single package inside and out.
If you’ve ever considered something like Ableton (not saying you need to), the stock devices and synths are superb as well. Same with Logic tbh. Bitwig has some really good tools if you wanted to get experimental with modulators and similar ideas. Just saying a fully featured daw could also achieve some of what you’re after. They are all great these days and come with varying degrees of useful packages that are worth learning and exploring before you add additional vsts.
My vote is still demoing Reason Rack then buying it if you like it. There’s a lot of stuff and it’s all good quality so even if only 30% of it really clicks with you, you’re going to experience a very broad span of sound generation options and leave with a few tools you find yourself wanting to pull on for future projects.
I recommend trying UA’s Luna. The free version is awesome, you don’t need a UA interface. If you’re also looking at an interface I’d suggest a right-sized Volt - they have onboard colorful pre selection and compression.
