Midi and PC Equipment - Les Gorven, owner & webmaster of MIDI Studio Consortium

Les Gorven's PC and MIDI Equipment.

My PC Equipment

With the constant growth of the MIDI Studio Consortium, one of my prime concerns was what would happen in the event of a hard-drive failure, and the associated loss of data and software used to produce this site which now has over 1450 documents.

To ensure that we would always have a current version of the Consortium files it was deemed advisable to purchase a second system, which is now our main operating PC. With the additional speed of a 1.4 Ghz. machine, I am now able to back-up first to the hard-drive, and then send copies of the back-up to CD-Rom and a second copy to my old system, the stand-by machine. All software used to produce this site is also maintained on both systems. Total time required to maintain a back-up system is now only 15 minutes.

System 1.

Pentium 4, 1.4 Ghz. cpu
Quantum Fireball 60 GB Hard Drive
256 MB SDRAM 10 ns.
ABIT Siluro 200 Video Card
48x Creative CD Rom
48x LG CD-RW Rom
Standard 3-1/2" Floppy drive
LS-120 120 MB Floppy drive
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 sound card.
Windows 2000 Pro o/s

System 2.

Pentium 4 - 1.4 Ghz processor
256 MB EDO RAM, 60 ns
60 GB Quantum Hard Drive
ATI Mach 64 Video Card
LG CD-RW Rom
Standard 3-1/2" Floppy drive
SoundBlaster Live! sound card.
Windows XP Pro o/s

My Midi Gear.

EMU Proteus 1 synthesizer.
KURZWEIL SP88 88 key Stage Piano/Synth.
ROLAND D5 Synth
EMU ProFormance 1+. Piano and Organ sound module.
ROLAND Sound Canvas SC-88 external sound module.
EURORACK mx 1604A 8 channel mixer and 200 watt stereo amplifier.
12-speaker Stereo speaker system.

For live performance the Proteus 1 synth is the main keyboard with the Roland D5 used as a keyboard controller for the EMU ProFormance 1+ external module which has 32 different sampled sounds of Pianos and organs.

For recording General Midi files, the Proteus 1 synth is used only as a keyboard controller. This unit has excellent velocity control and a touch-sensitive keyboard. The midi out port is connected to an MAUDIO Midisport 2 X 2 usb to the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 card. The Audigy 2 card is the only hardware required to record MIDI using your favorite sequencer software. My first sequencer was CakeWalk 3.0 (DOS version). Since switching to Windows XP and Windows 2000, I have found the low-cost PowerTracks Pro Audio to be more than satisfactory for my personal use.

For listening to MIDI files both on and off the web, or for monitoring midi recordings, I have a stereo adaptor cable connected from the line-out jack of SB Audigy 2 to a 100 watt Stereo amplifier. The amplifier drives a pair of Tannoy studio monitor speakers. The Audigy 2 card makes it easy to record midi files to .WAV format for conversion to MP3's or CD Audio.

E-Mail: Les Gorven