Music Department Computers

[Maxell]

I have been tasked with spec'ing up a new computer set up for our Music Department.

 

We have ageing PCs in their classroom at the moment, with a USB sound card/mixer and USB MIDI keyboards. These are used by Cubase and Sibelius which is installed onto each PC. We have a piece of software installed onto the PCs which resets all settings back to a preset default upon a restart to stop the students from messing up the config. This setup has always been a bit unreliable and cumbersome and I am sure there must be a better way of getting them working.

 

If you have a really good set up for your Music Department, I'd love to hear what you have done and would really appreciate any advice.

 

Thanks!

[EvLPhenom]

Would be very interested in seeing how this goes...we will be looking to replace an aging setup we have here. Currently have 16 iMacs from about 2012 which are now really showing their age!

[Andycat]

We replaced 2012 MacBooks/iMacs with some refurb higher spec Dell Precision 5510 from BIST. 500gb SSD, 16gb ram. They're running Sibelius Ultimate and Mixcraft and seem to work well for the few months use they got between lockdowns!

 

A few iRig keyboards and a couple of iRig MIDI and USB interfaces and all seems well.

[paulkerton]

Thought about moving to the cloud?

 

http://www.soundtrap.com

http://www.bandlab.com

[pete]

Our lot are recent converts to Noteflight (https://www.noteflight.com/). Historically they've used Sibelius, but they greatly prefer Noteflight.

 

With regard to recording music, they use a set of iPads and some "play directly into the iPad" adaptors that I forget the name of. To my surprise, said iPads are heavily used but also well looked after.

[dhicks]

Thought about moving to the cloud?

 

I'd second that, especially Soundtrap. You might also want to look at Flat.io and, while you're at it, WeVideo. We've used all three on our standard classroom Chromebooks with no problems - the days of needing a large desktop machine with a dedicated graphics card and large amounts of storage are on the way out, at least for the kind of audio and video editing the average school pupil is likely to be doing.

 

If you want to set up some fixed workstations, a USB sound interface that can take XLR input from a mic or instrument would be useful. I have both a Behringer U-PHORIA UM2 (£30):

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00EK1OTZC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00

 

and a Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen (£120):

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Focusrite-Scarlett-Solo-Audio-Interface/dp/B07QR6Z1JB/ref=sr_1_2

 

The Focusrite is a bit fancier (they also do rackmount versions), but I have a couple of the Behringers strapped to various bits of equipment where we need a mic input and for it to just turn-on-and-work. Both devices are USB bus powered, including providing phantom power for condenser mics, and don't need a separate power supply.

 

I think you can use a USB keyboard straight from a web browser / ChromeOS these days, so pretty much just plug-and-play - again, no power or battery needed, just a £30 keyboard and a USB cable.

 

If you want to spend money on equipment, spend it on audio hardware - get a couple of nice condenser microphones for voice work / singing (I have an Audio Technica 2035, it's a good entry-level-ish voice mic) and some instrument mics for getting audio from instruments, combined with something like Soundtrap that shouild be about all you'll need. If this is in a dedicated music space you could consider adding some sound treatment to the walls to cut down on echos.

[Steve21]

Out of curiosity, what's counted as a "Seat" for Soundtrap etc? Is it a individual user, computer, simultaneous user?

 

Edit - Just it seems confusing in regard to the FAQ, which seems to suggest it might only be teachers who are licensed?:

 

Can I order less than 50 seats?

The minimum number of seats you can order is 50. However, the account and seats can be shared between teachers, as long as you’re part of the same school/district.

 

My new place has an old MAC suite that's way past renewal, and looking at options going forwards as we already have a lot of the external devices mentioned above, but software is always the big one when they're running ancient cubase/sibelius versions

 

Thanks,

Steve

Edited February 10, 2021 by Steve21

[dhicks]

Out of curiosity, what's counted as a "Seat" for Soundtrap etc?

 

Per user, a "user" being a teacher or a pupil. Has a nice "Google OU Sync" and login via Google account, so should be easy enough to manage in a school context.