Things I think we should try to get before next year.

So... If we're gonna be playing gigs or anything like that we're gonna need our own equipment. Amps, acoustic drum sets, keyboards...the works. And I think that it's very possible for us to get all of this stuff before we launch. Plus I think it's safe to say that we don't want to be dependent on the church equipment forever. Idealy, we should have our own place to practice where we're not gonna conflict with anyone, and with our own gear we can start touring and whatnot.

Anyways I was looking at guitarcenter.com through equipment and I came across ALOT of good and cheap stuff that will definitely get us through our first few years until we get some pro equipment.

For Matt, I found this nice Tama drum set... check it out: Tama Imperialstar
Like I know you got the electric drum set but those don't really work that well for gigs, as far as recordings go though, if it has a midi out we're golden. This is a 6 piece drum set with cymbals included, and all of the toms, floor, and snare has its own hardware. It's not like attached or anything as a whole set, so we're not gonna get screwed with hardware costs. Which I personally think is more convenient than having to set everything up before shows, you can just position it around you the way you want to. And down the line you can switch out the heads with nicer heads and get a really nice sound out of it. MOST IMPORTANTLY, its only $800, most acoustic sets are very basic and go $1000+ WITHOUT the hardware, and then you have to get the cymbals separately too. So this is something to try and get for starters.

For Jonn, I found this really nice M-Audio midi controller...right here: Awsomeness M-Audio

As of right now we don't have a legit key board or anything like that and if you're gonna go in dedicated to this, I think you're better off with one of these. It's not too expensive and it's an 88 key keyboard-style midi controller. It'll give you the option between playing legit piano lines or controlling VST instruments right on the computer. We WANT that sort of versatility. Not every keyboard is gonna have all the sounds you want and doesn't work as well with recording as midi does. Plus, I can basically get ANY sound we want and patch it through with this. Like legit pro sounds. for free... =]

For Ace, I found this pretty decent amp: Fender front man

- It's a $400 amp with all the effects you could possibly want. And according to the reviews it puts out a pretty decent sound through 2 12" speakers@100 watts. If you get something like this we'll pretty much be set for both small and larger venues. Most of the larger venues mic up the amps and run them through PA systems. So we can get that sound that we want no matter where we are. A definite investment we should look into.

For myself...Fender Rumble 2x10"

About the same setup as Ace's amp. Two 10" speakers@75 watts. Pumps out a clean sound apparently, and again great for both small and large venues, or even studio setups.

These are all of the major things I think we need to really make ourselves independent. We will probably also need another amp for Jonn's keyboard but we can patch it through any speakers we want basically with the audio interface we're gonna get soon. So... about $1800 total to get ourselves our own setup. I think that's pretty good. Over the summer or whatever will probably be the best time for us to get all of this stuff cause we'll have time to work and get all the money for it. Atleast that's what I'm gonna do. Leave comments and thoughts guys. PEACE

-Mike