How do I correct my bad purchase?

[Clingy]

I had been looking at purchasing my first Keyboard on ebay for a while and eventually decided to get a Roland Juno GI. However bargains were few and far between, but I noticed a few Juno Stages at good prices....I eventually purchased a 3 month old one in excellent condition. When I got it home I realised I had made an incorrect assumption. I did a fair amount of research in deciding upon the GI, and had assumed that the Stage would have everything the GI had and more. I now know this is not true of course. A stupid mistake, caused by my impatience.

The two things I needed that the Stage does not have are the 8 Track Digital recorder and the multiples inputs (MIC/Line/Guitar). I can probably get away with the inputs, as the Juno can take a line and a Guitar or Mic, but I really need to be able to have multiple track recording.

So do I sell the Stage and buy a GI, get a laptop and software or and add a digital recorder? Sorry I am very new to all this and could benefit from someone explaining the options.

Thanks

 

[The Y_man]

The Gi's recorder is likely to be not as good as a proper DAW on a laptop/PC in any case.

There is free software such as Kristal, but you need a good low latency audio interface.

The Y-man

 

[Clingy]

Thanks Y_Man

I guess I am going to test your patience! Having googled "low latency audio interface" I can see some devices that I have been looking at. But I am confused at to what these bring to the picture. I can connect the Stage to a PC/Laptop with USB Midi connection. If I do this plus get some good software software, why do I need an interface? I note some interfaces come with Cubase AI. Is this good enough for a beginner? And if I record/arrange/sequence through this set-up will the sounds on playback be exactly the same as recorded?

I think I'd prefer to keep the Stage as it appears to be of a more substantial construction.

 

[The Y_man]

MIDI-USB won't do the trick if I am correct in assuming what you are trying to do. MIDI does NOT transmit sound - only key signals (which key was hit, how hard, when you let it go etc) - nothing about the sound.

In theory, you can plug your instrument (guitar, mic, keyboard etc) into the microphone plug of a laptop.

There's 2 (big ) problems with this:

1. it's mono, so bad luck if you have a nice stereo output on your keyboard etc.

2. it suffers from "latency" or "delay" in plain language. So let's say you record some keyboard parts ona track in a software recorder on the laptop. You then go to record a guitar on the second track - obviously while listening to what is recorded on track 1. Here the problems begin - because of the "latency", what you hear played back is actua;;y delayed from when the track is played. So whatever you play on your guitar may be a few milliseconds AFTER track 1 - ie. your recording is stuffed

I tried one of these
http://www.lightsounds.com.au/img_src_http_www.lightsounds.com.au_content_fs_red_4820_prd1.htm

It's an improvement on the built in sound card on my laptop, but still sufferes some delay (too much delay to make it really usefull so far - but I only tried it on a netbook with an Atom processor - might give it a run on an dual core machine to see if it helps.

Maybe something like this might be better
http://www.turramusic.com.au/pages/CatalogueItem.aspx?CIID=1183

The Y-man

 

[The Y_man]

I noticed you play guitar from another thread - so here's an analogy of a MIDI-USB cable.

Imagine if instead of having the actualy sound from you pick up going to the amp, all the guitar sent out was
1. which string was played
2. how hard it was plucked
3. which fret was held down.

Obviously the amp can't do much with this info (and it won't matter what sort of guitar sent the signal, whether a Les Paul or a Strat - because there is no tonal informaiton being sent.

The MIDI connector is used when you want to use your Juno as a "remote control" device to control other keyboards and "software synths".

The Y-man

 

[Clingy]

Brilliant thanks, that explains a fair bit.

I guess, through ignorance, that's why I thought the GI might be the best bet in the short term. I understand that this would be very limiting as I progress, but it has three inputs - Guitar, Mic and cassette (my guitar teacher is old school, and puts backing tracks on cassette!).

Then should I be better (if I can afford it) looking at a second hand one of these:-

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FastTrackPro.html

or

http://usa.yamaha.com/products/music-production/interfaces/audiogram/audiogram6/?mode=model

Thanks

Paul

 

[The Y_man]

Sounds about right

The Y-man

 

[goz211]

Hello there you two. My tuppence worth - you'll lose money on the Juno Stage and in terms of just playing a keyboard in a band - or recording by playing live - it's got a lot going for it.

If you're looking for an easy to use multi track recorder - Zoom have had one out for a while now that's dropped in price since this review:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep09/articles/zoomr16.htm

I'd go for that and get a musician buddy with a computer and DAW already to read up on getting the files out of the R16 to edit in the computer.

Again - just my tuppence worth - and Y-man - you're a great asset to this forum, I notice you mucking in to help out all the time.

 

[The Y_man]

No worries

The Y-man

 

[ootini]

Another piece of kit to consider is the Alesis Fusion. Basically a pretty decent workstation / sampler with a dedicated 8 track hdd digital recorder chucked in. As Y_Man says though, it won't be up to the same specification as a decent stand alone recorder, that being said the Zoom R16 isn't particular brilliant, but it may well suit your needs.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may06/articles/alesisfusion.htm

 

[Clingy]

Thanks Guys....it's getting clearer by the day

The more I look at the Stage and alternatives....the more I want to keep it.

 

[YeahDoIt]

Do you just want to make multi-track recordings?

 

[Clingy]

Yes, I'd like the ability to be able to make multitrack recordings but not simultaneous tracks at present, although that might come later.

 

[ootini]

Try finding a second hand Trinity or Triton with the HDD recording option installed.