I have been helping my friend setup and do research for setting up a first time studio. Neither one of us have a lot of experience with this.

We're starting out small, right now we just have a computer with Ableton Live 8 and a MPK49 midi controller. My question regards Audio interfaces for the PC. First off, are we better off with an internal card or external? If we go external is it ok if it's USB rather than Firewire? Is M-Audio a good brand? As far as monitors go, we'd like some 8" speakers with tweeters. But they are expensive, are they necessary? How do they sound compared to 6" monitors?

M-audio is very good. i recommend the fast track pro for the more options. 2 mic preamps with phantom power and midi i/o. if you need more, the edirol cards are great but expensive but they have an onboard compressor which can help if you suck at doing a proper sound take without clipping, it's a good crutch

as far as monitors go, the KRK ROkit2 are awesome. i have a pair and they're so flat. they rock.

the m-audio BX8A are also a favorite among customers. i've sold alot of them and made alot of people happy, i dunno about us prices, but here they run for around 500$ a pair. the krk's are more like 350$ each, but have glass aramid woofers with 1'' tweeters and are 90w biamped.

also, external cards are better for your application. if something goes wrong, you can actually pinpoint if it's the pc or the interface.

Honestly Zan, the monitors are going to be the one piece of gear that you shouldn't cheap out on. If you don't have good monitors you can't listen properly, and if you can't listen you can't mix.

Thanks guys, helps a lot! =D

Internal sound cards are better for live performances, external will work but aren't as fast, obviously. In terms of software, the more VST plugins you can 'purchase', the better off you are. Try any Native Instruments plugin, they're awesome.

hey PedHead long time!

Thanks for the input, we're looking into the Presonus firestudio box. Probably have a wide wariaty of MIDI sounds, accoustic recorded instruments and a turn table (not all at the same time) But if we did use multiple instruments and had a mixer, how does that hook up to the firewire audio interface and usb midi controller?