Gear help - desktop setup + can't play loud!

[jonnytekno]

Hi there,

I want to try and optimise the environment in which I make music and get some new gear to improve the set up, but not sure where to start.

At the moment I am using Ableton purely through my PC and onboard soundcard:

AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core 5000 + 2600 MHz
2g RAM
Sound Blaster® X-Fi Xtreme Music PCI Soundcard
Fairly crappy dell speakers and bass woofer which came with the PC

Plus I also have a few MIDI controllers

At the moment I do almost everything through a pair of Sennheiser headphones, which I know is terrible but it is because I live in a flat and have a situation where I simply can't play music even remotely loudly (don't ask).

However, I will be moving house shortly and the situation will improve slightly, but not massively:

I will have a dedicated room, but it is small and a weird shape and my set-up will still need to be very much desk-based. However, I would like to sort out some proper monitors so that I don't have to mix through headphones. They need to be suitable for a small-ish corner desk placed in a corner up against the walls (I know this isn't ideal for sound). Also, I will still have to limit the amount of noise, so they need to be good at low-medium volume.

I have been looking at the Genelec 6010As - how suitable are these or is there something better?

Also, should I buy a better audio interface?? Any advice on which one would be good? It is unlikely that I will be recording instruments although I do plug in a mic from time to time, so it's mainly about sound quality and bridging to the monitors.

thanks in advance!

[necho]

I'm in a fairly similar environment - small room, weird shape.

It all depends on how much you want to spend.

But I find my Presonus Firebox interface and Adam A7 monitors are perfect.

Getting an audio interface is definitely a good idea if you want good sound reproduction. The Adams are designed for small spaces and I find them good for mixing at very low levels.