Building a home project studio, could use some help

[Armie82]

Alright, my goal is pretty simple. Im trying to set up a system at home to make professional sounding recordings. I have these pieces of gear in mind:
akai mpc4000
access virus
yamaha es rack
digi 003
waves gold plug-in bundle
jbl lsr monitors
focusrite octepre
apple mac pro

Basically I want to know what I need to make sure I can get all this gear to play nice with each other (i.e communicate well) and allow me to make professional sounding recordings. I realize alot of getting the right sound comes down to mixing and mastering techniques. I just need to start off on the right foot.

Any help would be great. Thanks:classic:

[wfhscoyotes]

You might want to get the ADAT lightpipe option card for the OctoPre so you can just plug 'er right in to the 003. Make sure the Mac Pro has 2 GB of RAM for a solid performance.

[Armie82]

Thanks,

I was planning on upping the RAM a bit. How about AD/DA converters? Im not sure how important those would be for me if Im not doing any live instruments and doing mostly MIDI? Plus good ones are pretty pricey.

Do you know if people generally have difficulty sequencing on the MPC and then loading the sequence into ProTools?

[wfhscoyotes]

I'm not sure about the MIDI sequencing, but I do know about the ADA converters. The AD/DA converters are in your digi rack and also, if you so choose, in the OctoPre's ADAT card. They aren't bad, and I would have no problem using them, but they aren't top of the line. If I had the money i'd get myself an Apogee Ensemble.

[Armie82]

I heard symphony was better, AD-16/DA-16 or the rosetta series. Do you know if digi003 works with symphony pci? Im not hugely concerned with what i spend. Its worth it if I can get the sound I want in the end wihout the purchase of something I dont want/need. If I am mixing in a DAW with keyboards and MPC, do I need A/D/-D/A converters? Can you give me an example of a setup that would require them?