NickD

The Alesis I got my boy was one of the DM range, and I didn't pay a lot for it....£120 s/h, mint & boxed. The brain is less featured than the Roland, 16 kits IIRC, but the sounds are good solid drum sounds, Rock Kit, Jazz Kit, etc, plus a few crazy African/ Indian/ Hip-Hop type kits. It's responsive, ie, no noticable latency, and has the things you would want like record, aux in, metronome, etc. Maybe a bit light on features, but quality, and useful.

It's the pedal noise and the cymbals that is the worst. There's not really much can be done about the cymbals, but we've got the kit downstairs where the floor is more solid, on a pretty dense rug, with some really heavy underlay under it, and that's minimised it to quite a degree. For our purposes, everything is through headphones, if we were to amplify, it'd have to get fairly loud to make it worthwhile. Luckily the neighbours haven't been round yet, our walls are paper thin and I can hear conversations happening next door... Hopefully their TV drowns it out. Having said that, when reskinning the acoustic kit for the studio recently, just fairly gentle hitting while bringing them up to pitch, in the same room the difference is massive.

I'd agree with this. My partner is my drummer, and while her stage stuff is Yamaha, for practice, and our demo stuff, she uses a fairly long in the tooth Roland TD8 kit, and it's still excellent. A couple of years ago I picked up a relatively cheap Alesis kit for my eldest, and she put it through it's paces when we set it up for him, she was impressed considering the money, but it wasn't quite in the same league. We've upgraded her cymbals as time has gone on, and advances have been made, but from the POV of the module and pads, improvements have been more incremental than revolutionary so we've not bothered. From a young beginner perspective, I think they're a good bet, as aside from the traditional learning thing, you've got lots of creative flexibility to distract yourself with when you fancy a change. Old drum machine sims (808 & 909), percussion kits, synth and sample kits... basically the equivalent of us messing round with pedals when real learning is too dull for a while. With good mesh heads there's not much you can't do compared to an acoustic kit. The only real sticking points so far are the heel toe jazzy hi-hat thing and cross sticking, they're both tricky. Her teacher is a Roland endorsee and he has on loan the top spec VAD kit, and even on that those 2 things are a pain.

Oh yes! This month it turns out I'm a beardy, middle aged rapper, despite no experience of that genre.... You know like that Scoopy Snoopy Dog-Dog Fella!

Schrodinger's strings!🤣

The best has to be the Helix LT that I picked up from this very emporium a couple of days before we were locked down for the first time, it made the months fly by. The worst (or to be more accurate the most pointless) was the TC Sub'n'Up mini that I had delivered the weekend before spotting the Helix deal. It's fine, but the Helix does a very similar thing in a very similar way, so it's kinda redundant.

I can't speak with any authority about the tiny one, but I'm a fan of the horn in the 'h' model. I went that way after reading of people disconnecting the tweeter in the smaller model. I don't know how the crossover is set up, but it just works, loud and clear. It does the modern thing very well, and I find if I set it right I can get it transparent enough to put the Helix between the bass and the amp. When running straight in though, I can easily get a more old school sound by dialing in the VLE. It is bigger, but it's a dead easy one handed carry. Having said all that, a local jam night I used to go to use the 121p, I never spoke to it's owner, but it sounded great, and I never noticed any hiss.

That keeps coming up... It is, apart from an instrument, the one essential thing. Once you can get your sound, properly, into your computer, then you can choose what to do with it.

Have a look at somewhere like looperman.com/freesfx, etc. You need to register, but can download (and upload) royalty free loops, rhythms, samples, sound effects and stuff, them import them into your Daw, mix in your playing and build tracks that way. Experiment, mess around, have fun, and you'll be learning accidentally while you do.

It's got way more user friendly since the old days.

Honestly, if you just mess with it for a few weeks, you'll look back and realise how quickly it came together.... I did, and I'm as thick as mince! 🤣

They look it at first glance, but when you realise that you're using very little of the functionality to start with, it's not so tough. Plenty of tutorials for all DAWs on YouTube, just search the specific thing you're trying to do. By the time you need to learn something more complicated, you've been using it for a while and it's easier by then. Without an interface first I think you'll struggle though, if you can't get the signal in there without latency, recording will be tough.

..... and there'll probably be a few decent Black Friday deals coming up!

To answer the other part of your question, for a keyboard I picked up just a cheap midi controller keyboard (in my case an Acorn Masterkey 49), using that I plug it in directly via usb. The VSTs I use, drums, strings, keys, whatever, are all bundled in the DAW.

Cost depends on how many inputs and output you want usually, they're usually just plug and play with a usb. If it's just you, one instrument at a time, There's things like the focusrite solo (which comes bundled with Ableton Lite Live), and my first interface, the Steinberg U12, which comes bundled with with Cubase AI. Both for around 80-90 quid.

Usually, the way it's done is Instrument - Interface - DAW of your choice. The Interface is usually connected via usb to the computer, and you plug your instrument into that, it acts as a analogue to digital converter, soundcard, pre-amp, etc, so your computer doesn't need to worry about it, no adjustments necessary. My laptop is pretty rubbish next to yours, but it doesn't need to be any better, because the input and monitoring are dealt with by the interface.

There's your issue! If you were using an audio interface, among other things that would effectively replace the soundcard. Most audio interfaces come bundled with a DAW too. for example., Steinberg interfaces come with a version of Cubase.

Latency is usually a property of the interface/monitoring situation, Your computer should be fine, it's better spec than mine. You say plugging your bass into the computer, how?

Nah.... Just behave yourself a bit in the studio, and hammer it live! 🤣 Seriously though, We've just done the rhythm tracks for 8 new tunes in the studio, and I started off trying to behave myself, smaller movements to reduce string noise, a gentler more considered approach, and the takes were missing something in the mix. I reverted to playing like the cack-handed, subtlety-free chimp that I am, and everything sounded just as it should.

Obviously, the bass and pickups in the original post are long gone.... But I seem to be alone in loving the Delanos. My Elwood L5 has the Haussels and a Glock pre, and it sounds great, but the Delanos in my passive Jake are something else. From a clarity and dynamics point of view (not to mention a raw output point of view) they blow the Haussels out of the water. Every touch of skin, every clank of fretwire against the string is just clearly reproduced, and I love that. If I need to vintage it up (let's face it, it just means make it duller and warmer), that's easily done after the bass, but I like having all that information there in the first place so I can choose to let it through or not as the job requires. In fact I'd go as far as saying I prefer them to the Ken Smith clones in my Sei.

I bought the CMD121h a few years ago while playing in a loud, drums, bass, 2 guitars, flute & electric violin band. I figured it would be fine for rehearsals and the quieter stuff I do with other people, and I could put another cab under it for bigger gigs.... I've still not bought the other cab, and I've not really had it over halfway either. It's a little monster.

I always loved how this was shot, the chiaroscuro style, the face on face projections, just mood of it, and how it fits (to me) with the tone of the vocals. Sure there's clichés, but hey, it was that era. I'm guessing it wasn't a huge budget either. On an even tighter budget, I've always loved this one. Mostly filmed in an old Land Rover. It was the first thing that sprang to mind when I first saw @Cat Burrito's awesome budget vid. Both show that it's more about taste and imagination than big bucks.

I've had the later 121h for a few years now, which I believe is the same head. I couldn't tell you when or if the fan comes on, either at home, at rehearsal or gigging.... and I think the fact that I've never noticed is probably a good thing.

It's gonna be the toughest yet for me, picking just 3. I'll have to draw straws. 🤣

Is it still Cubase AI they ship with it? I found it great for my purposes and used it for a couple of years before they sent me an offer I couldn't refuse to upgrade to Cubase Elements. I'm still not sure what the benefits are as the old version was always enough anyway.