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using the rack enclosures used by rock bands for their pre-amps and effects processors. They are a bit pricy, but usually are air-frieght certified which will help when you move. We built a 2 pc system for a customer in one of these and they love it!.

here is a link to one

I found a barebones 37 key mini-keyboard for $50, but it looks like a throwaway.

If you can explain to me why this keyboard is a deal, i'd love to hear about it . . .

If you can explain to me why this keyboard is a deal, i'd love to hear about it . . .

It wasn't for computer equipment but for audio equipment. It's all standard 19" equipment though. I bought my 19" rack rails at Musician's Friend and then built a plywood box around them to house the equipment. They are quite sturdy and should perform to what you need. In our rack, we had about 100-150 pounds of equipment in our 8U rack and it holds up great! Good luck!

ikeya

I had been looking at Minidisks for recording, and while its nice that they are so small, i just can't stand the idea of waiting around to transfer two hours of recorded sound to my computer. I still might buy one (a sharp model), but i'm looking at these alternatives instead:

The MR-8 8-Track Digital Recorder "Genuine 16-bit/44.1kHz uncompressed linear sound quality. 2-track simultaneous recording and 8-track playback is just the tip of the iceberg. 38 self-illuminating keys, 13 knobs, and 7 smooth-moving faders combined with a 128x64 backlit LCD make it way easier to operate than any other full-featured digital recorder. Onboard guitar distortion, amp modeling, built-in mic, mic modeling, digital reverb and delay section, plus advanced editing and archiving features make stellar demos a breeze. Mastering effect for stereo bus, USB port for WAV transfer to PC, and optical S/PDIF out. Battery or included power supply operation."

SME Marantz PMD222 " Portable 3-head, 2-Speed Cassette Recorder with XLR"

NOMAD Jukebox 3

" # 20GB storage space holds up to 8000 songs encoded in WMA at 80kbps or 5000 MP3s encoded at 128kbps. 40GB of the storage space doubles that!
# High audio quality: 98dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio Playback
# Frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz
# Maximum output 100mW
# Analog/Optical Line-In for direct high quality recording from external audio devices
# Firewire (IEEE 1394) and USB 1.1 Transfer
# Second Battery Bay: Up to 11 hours of continuous playtime with one lithium-ion rechargable battery, up to 22 hours of uninterrupted playback with both batteries
# Quick and easy navigation Scroller to find songs in seconds
# Smart Volume Management (SVM) for normalization of audio output
# AudioSync to synchronize your PC music library to the NOMAD Jukebox 3
# Anti-skip protection of up to 7 mins for smooth listening
# EAX-enabled
# Time-Scaling - Speed up or slow down audio playback without distortion
# Creative File Manager - Use the player as a portable storage device
# Personalization features: LCD color, faceplates, accessories, startup logos"
(according to some sites, i'd need a mic preamp to record with this)


Theres a whole section dedicated to "uploading facilities" here: http://www.minidisc.org/

And for all you non-musicians out there who are getting irate about this, well I have news for you. There is no such thing as a music recording without some kind of artificial processing done by electronics to make the instruments and/or vocals sound better. Whether its reverb, compression, or vocal processing, everyone, and I really mean everyone "cheats" when it comes to recording(or performing) sounds electronically. Hell, look at guitar distortion, without which there would be no hard rock or metal music. That's gotta be one the most processed sounds ever, when you compare the original guitar sound with what's actually coming out of the speakers.

If you need to keep it pure, I suggest you listen only to all acoustic music that is not mic'd or amplified in any way. If it has been recorded, it has been altered.

This is an interesting idea, but probably not feasible with 802.11b using the high recording settings. As someone else pointed out in another thread, 24bits x 192 KHz x 2 channels = 9216 Kbits/sec = 9.216 Mbps. While 802.11b can technically go to 11 Mbps, it rarely reaches it. Just like standard 10Mbps and 100Mbps ethernet, the rated speed is merely theoretical. In actuality, 802.11b often gets only 7Mbps. That would simply be too slow to support the full rate of this device. If this idea was used with a faster connection, such as 100Mbps ethernet, it could be feasible.

Now, regarding the streaming media server, the techie in me wants to applaud the "free the music" idea. However, the recording engineer in me wants to smack you for suggesting that my expensive new 24 bit at 192KHz mix be compressed (especially given the oh-so-natural sounding Real Audio history that has permiated the industry). But it does seem possible if one invested the money in a seperate streaming media server, and a fat pipe to stream it.

But my main reponse to this is these solutions it that they are expensive. Many commercial units out now, like this one, come with 20GB+ integrated hard drives, among convenient options like integrated CD burners and digital effects. If one isn't going to pay to go into a studio, it's probably cheaper to buy some mid-line recording equipment than to modify a PDA for "professional quality recording".

what about line6's Variax. Doesn't it have an rj45 port on it?

Since music gear also uses standard 19" racks, a big music store will have all sorts of stuff you can probably adapt. If you search for "rack rails" on musician's friend's site above, there are all sorts of products. You can also find open frame rack kits, desktop rackmounts, etc. All you have to do is figure out how to mount them.

... or downward pointing lightbar to illuminate controls)...

Go to Musician's Friend and search for Racklight. You might also look for rackmount power conditioners - most of the good ones have lights as well.

...the fretboard is too much...

Very much agreed. Why do they keep doing stuff like this??

I'm just running a SoundBlaster on a dedicated PC. I've got my old Digitech RP-1 preamp/multieffects running into a Behringer mixer (four mono and four stereo channels) which cost me about $200. If I ever get around to it, I intend to add a Line6 Bass POD to do my bass effects, and a Roland V-Club electric drum kit.

Oh, and of course, I've GOT to have a Gibson Les Paul Custom to replace my old Ibanez 350EX.

I've also got an old Peavey microphone that does a pretty decent job with vocals (maybe $80) - but since I don't sing, that hasn't been a problem.
I'm running Cool Edit Pro on the PC. Great for multitrack recording, but don't rely on it for effects.

All in all, it's a pretty decent setup for the almost-nothing it cost me to put together. It's certainly not a professional solution, but it's probably more along the lines of what you're looking for.

Seriously, whether you buy a $16 sound card with SPDIF jacks and a used Minidisc recorder for A/D, or a full fledged USB outboard A/D and mixer (another link in case ebay flakes), that is the single thing you can do to most improve analog recordings on your PC.

Physically isolating your PC to reduce fan noise is also something you need to do if you're doing something with a microphone. But as soon as you get your signal into digital you're free of generation loss and noise. I can't emphasize the importance of outboard recording enough.

You could try Musician's Friend and search using the string 'blem'. That brings up a list of all their cosmetically flawed/returned items, you might have some luck with that.

If cooling might be a problem there is a model with "shock protection" where the rack is mounted on special springs which are supposed to protect your rack gear for roadies who drop your stuff, but they double in purpose and add extra space and allow air to flow around the gear, keeping it cooler. Look in catalogs like Musician's Friend (although I'm told they're a tad expensive...) for such items as well.

Musician's Friend sells small SBK portable rackmount guitar effects cabs. I'm not totally sure if they are the same size but could prolly be modified.
I actually have an SBK guitar case for my strat. For about 5 years of playing local shows it took a pretty good beating. So I'm guessing that the rackmount cases are of the same quality. I saw a guy drop a 4U shockmount cases at a bar in Cleveland and though nothing of it. Just picked it up and put it in the bus. I'm not to sure if I'd do that to my puter.

I got a 3' rack about 5 years ago from AMS for about US$200.

-Brett

You should make sure that you have adequate ventilation though (add a fan or five if necessary) - these are generally meant to be enclosed, and I've seen LCD displays (the small type on audio gear) go bad just from the heat generated by the equipment.

Also - check the depth on the rack before you buy... most audio equipment isn't as long as some of the computer gear you might mount.

Or, make your own. Watch the weight though!

You should make sure that you have adequate ventilation though (add a fan or five if necessary) - these are generally meant to be enclosed, and I've seen LCD displays (the small type on audio gear) go bad just from the heat generated by the equipment.

Also - check the depth on the rack before you buy... most audio equipment isn't as long as some of the computer gear you might mount.

Or, make your own. Watch the weight though!

You should make sure that you have adequate ventilation though (add a fan or five if necessary) - these are generally meant to be enclosed, and I've seen LCD displays (the small type on audio gear) go bad just from the heat generated by the equipment.

Also - check the depth on the rack before you buy... most audio equipment isn't as long as some of the computer gear you might mount.

Or, make your own. Watch the weight though!

You should make sure that you have adequate ventilation though (add a fan or five if necessary) - these are generally meant to be enclosed, and I've seen LCD displays (the small type on audio gear) go bad just from the heat generated by the equipment.

Also - check the depth on the rack before you buy... most audio equipment isn't as long as some of the computer gear you might mount.

Or, make your own. Watch the weight though!

You should make sure that you have adequate ventilation though (add a fan or five if necessary) - these are generally meant to be enclosed, and I've seen LCD displays (the small type on audio gear) go bad just from the heat generated by the equipment.

Also - check the depth on the rack before you buy... most audio equipment isn't as long as some of the computer gear you might mount.

Or, make your own. Watch the weight though!

You could also check out Mouser, Digikey, Allied, or Newark for some open racks. A bit pricey, though, and not nearly as sturdy. The closed cabinet racks are horrifically priced.

These three companies are in violation of patent # 4,309,234,398 that is currently held by me.

This patent covers the use of using tabs at the top of the page in order to allow quick navigation to major portions of the site.
See for yourself at amazon, barnes & noble, and Musicians Friend.

Micro$oft is also violating one of my patents.

I currently hold patent #3,456,232,632, which covers the production of shoddy products in order to shaft greedy and ignorant investors. Unfortunately I can not give you a URL for either of my patents, because my webserver, which is running $H1t-OS, has crashed.

You can listen to it through the included stethescope headphones, but what you really need is this slick little amp from Danelectro (I have one, and it sounds pretty amazing for it's size), about $30.

Now if you wanna play, but have no patience, here is a cool thing I saw in the store the other day, called the Strumstick. It is essentially a 3 string dulcimer, designed to be so easy to play that anyone can pick it up and start playing. I tried one out, and it was pretty magical how you could get decent tunes out of it with no practice or lessons. Goes for around $100, a little more if you want fancy inlays around the soundhole.

So your friends are even less talented, you can always buy them pre-played music. But in light of the way the big labels are holding the money while the artists fight for every penny, why not check out the little guys? Rather than buy commercial CDs for your friends, how about checking out some of the fine talent on mp3.com or other online places. You can buy CDs for between $5 and $10 that have both CD audio and mp3 versions of the songs. Makes for good gifts, and is a good way to promote little known, but talented musicians (the artists get 50% of the purchase price, a pretty good deal).

Disclaimer: Sarge doesn't work for any of the companies pointed to in this post, they were just convenient URLs. Also, extraneous semicolons and spaces are slashdot errors, I don't know why it keeps inserting those things at random in my html

Since everyone is in the mood to sue of stupid, lame, idiotic stuff then why isn't amazon suing musicians friend? if you go to the sites you will see what i mean.

The whole point of all of this is to prove that none of these lawsuites that are going around over patent infringement have anything to do with the design of products or copyrights.

The only reason Macromedia is being sued is because they make graphical design programs, as does Adobe. Adobe is only trying to hurt one of their biggest competitors, and if they keep them from using their precious widgets then that is just a bonus.

Musicians Friend has remained untouched because they sell musical instruments and do not represent a significant threat to amazon's book sales, in fact amazon sells far more music books than musicians friend.

One more example of this practice of hurting your competitors with stupid lawsuites is that between Barnes and Noble and amazon a while back. (Read the Slashdot story here.) The only reason amazon started that lawsuite is because B&N is their biggest competitor and once again, if they could keep B&N from using their precious 1-click crap then they were all the more happy.

When will the Courts handling these cases wake up and smell the mud?

This is not, and never has been about either rights or censorship. It is about money. Most people don't understand how this works. If you write a song and it gets recorded on a label, you get paid $0.0755 for each record sale (single or album; CD, cassette or vinyl) containing the song. If the record sells a million copies, you make $75,500. Actually, the $75,500 is split between the song writer and the music publisher. While $75,500 is a nice sum, it doesn't really make you rich. The real money is in performance income...primarily radio airplay. A hit song can easily earn $300,000-500,000 from perfomance income. So, what all the music biz folks are worried about is losing out on performance income. If you download MP3s and listen to them, the song writer doesn't get paid. Now, we can (and should) discuss whether the system is flawed. For example, when I pay $15 for a CD, why do the song writers only get $0.0755 per song? But within the context of the current system, you have to admit that music biz types have reason for concern. Don't you think if you write a hit song, it should be worth more than $75,000? Lots of us geek types make more than that annually. There are far fewer people capable of writing hit songs than there are people capable of writing Java code. You can read more about this at Musicians Friend.

For mixing and audio editing at the computer, I have a Behringer MX802A Eurodesk that I bought from musician's friend for about $200. The quality of its components are comparable to Mackie's, but the Mackie equivalent is closer to $500.

I have been doing a lot of mixing and pre/post-production on computers the last few years. Check out Water on mp3.com , if like what you hear give us some feed back we could use it. Check out Musicians Friend and look at the Berringer line of mixers, a lot cheaper than the nice Mackie brand, but just as good if not better.