Your Setup (Hardware Headz) 5 points

[bigdmakintrax]

We always talk about our setups, for software users it's pretty much laid out in a nice console to do everything in one place, however, if you have at least a sequencer/sampler (mpc, mv8000, spXX or whatever) and at least one keyboard workstation as outboard gear, there are a lot of things to consider, anyhow for my own and other gear users purposes or information I came up with 5 questions to kick around, pick one and expand a few sentences on your process.


1. Midi or usb configuration (simple or complex, do you have problems with configuring channels when it comes to producing tracks if so what are your biggest issues)

2. Outboard mixers or processors, where is it in your process ( hardware compressors, enhancers, mastering gear or EQ , is this done before you record (pre mix) or do you do everthing in your DAW after ? what is the best place before or after the dump)

3. Power source (clean or dirty, how have you gotten this perfected, did you know that any small bit of noise on 1 track is amplified and added by each track you dump ? cheap cables can also be a culprit )

4. Efficiency of printing or multitracking (going into protools or other multitrack DAW to mix do you find the process you use easy ? are your mixing results good, bad or ugly?)

5. Location and placement of equipment (how does this affect your production and thinking process, does this impact your ideas or can you produce with your setup in any location regardless or where your gear is.


With these 5 points I would like some feedback on the most important to you.

Take 1. of the points above only give some feedback on the level of importance on your lab production process if you can in a few sentences.

 

[MarkN]

4. i picked this one as its pissing me off a bit at the moment i make all my beats on hardware at the moment, so once ive got the basics down i have to track to pro tools ! im pretty good on pro tools now but it still takes a little while to track all my sounds out and get the mall lined up an sequenced and i never looks forward to doin this so i throws me off creatively a bit, so i try to get everything i can think og down in my MPC before i start tracking ! as for mixing pro tools is great and i don't have any complaints about it !

 

[Blue77]

3. I'm very interested in this.I have heard about having a clean power supply and how it affects the sound and all that ,but what exactly can I do about this? It's something that I think about.but it just escapes my mind and I sleep on this particular issue.I guess I need to buy one of those special power surges huh ?
-

 

[Big Tone]

3. I run everything thru a battery backup now so all my clean power issues are gone.

 

[Ash Holmz]

4. i picked this one as its pissing me off a bit at the moment i make all my beats on hardware at the moment, so once ive got the basics down i have to track to pro tools ! im pretty good on pro tools now but it still takes a little while to track all my sounds out and get the mall lined up an sequenced and i never looks forward to doin this so i throws me off creatively a bit, so i try to get everything i can think og down in my MPC before i start tracking ! as for mixing pro tools is great and i don't have any complaints about it !

haha .. ditto ... thats why i dont even multitrack my shit unless someone wants to buy it .. that shit is annoying as hell... i just 2 track my beatz for the most part ... even some of the ones i sell i just give them the 2 track lol .... i hate tracking..takes way to much time... thats the biggest perk about using all software is the fact that u dont have to track all that shit out lol...

 

[50 cal]

5.

In my own lab that I'm currently assembling in my crib...I'm mad picky with the placement of equipment...and the furniture things are on, i have to be comfortable....and when i am i can work for a long ass time and just enjoy myself better.

I've noticed when I'm out, at another lab..it really doesn't matter that much if its not set up how i usually like it....theres usually alot more space, and better than i would set it up myself anyway...so i just adjust almost instantly

 

[MarkN]

haha .. ditto ... thats why i dont even multitrack my shit unless someone wants to buy it .. that shit is annoying as hell... i just 2 track my beatz for the most part ... even some of the ones i sell i just give them the 2 track lol .... i hate tracking..takes way to much time... thats the biggest perk about using all software is the fact that u dont have to track all that shit out lol...

lol definately thats what i loved about reason is that you just click and save job done i could two track i spose but how do you go about tracking them later on if you wanna track them out ? or don't you lol ?

 

[Ash Holmz]

lol definately thats what i loved about reason is that you just click and save job done i could two track i spose but how do you go about tracking them later on if you wanna track them out ? or don't you lol ?

i save my sequences and save my settings on each piece of equipment with the same name ... the issue with that is that ive run out of storage on all my equipment! .. so in some cases im assed out .. sometimes i just gotta remake shit cuz a beat somebody will want i wont even have anymore! .. but honestly i dont really tweak my synths like that so alotta times its just a matter of finding the right preset to fit the sequence! ... i make too many beats to track them all out ... i work crazy hours and live with wifey ... if i tracked all my beats out i wouldnt make any lol.. im suprised at how many cats go right off the 2 track though .. alotta cats dont even want the beat tracked out! ...

 

[Formant024]

ash, ever looked at librarian software like sounddiver, its a way to edit samples offline but also to make banks, save banks, dumps receive n send etc.

 

[Ash Holmz]

naw man whats that? .. sound cool .. but how does it work with hardware? .... i can save my files on my computers hardrive with mpc , and there is a way to do it with the motif( gotta read the manual again) ..... but im assed out for the pk6 i think .... and for the ion...

 

[Formant024]

it reads/writes your presets,sets, bank, all the parameters and supports a lot synths, make snapshots of your gear's configurations, all midi and sysex stuff.

good news, sounddiver osx public beta here, so you can try it and see if your gear is supported.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sounddiver-users/

 

[MarkN]

that looks pretty interesting formanat !

yea ash thats the problem i have im either at uni or in work and i can't be fucked to track stuff out so a lot of my stuff never gets recorded ! i could save the stuff but ive never really bothered doing that im guna have to figure out the best way to get stuff recorded !

 

[bigdmakintrax]

Sounddiver is very dope, I had that with my old kawai k5000, I used to edit my waves and create sound patches, it has the ability to connect to a wide range of samplers and workstations, pull the inner workings up, do editing etc on your pc then save, I am not sure if they still have it or what the most current version would be, but since I sold my kawai i have not used it since.

 

[DJ Xsinna]

Man, I'll say #1. MIDI is my biggest issue. It's like a puzzle trying to get my set-up configured. I recently added a an E-MU Mo' Phatt to my set-up and I can't seem to get the right MIDI config!!!

 

[Formant024]

what is your setup ?

 

[DJ Xsinna]

MPC 2000XL that controls the ASR-10. I've got that MIDI'ed up just fine but I've also added a E-MU Mo' Phatt to the lab. So what's the midi config to play it via the ASR-10?

 

[MarkN]

MPC 2000XL that controls the ASR-10. I've got that MIDI'ed up just fine but I've also added a E-MU Mo' Phatt to the lab. So what's the midi config to play it via the ASR-10?

if you using sounds in the ASR which i presume you are then do this


MPC MIDI IN TO ASR MIDI OUT
MPC MIDI OUT 1 TO ASR MIDI IN
MPC MIDI OUT 2 TO Mo'PHATT MIDI IN

then you just choose midi A - 1-16 which will play your ASR sounds
and midi B - 1-16 will play your Mo'Phatt sounds

 

[Daikomo]

Thanks Markn this helped me out homes.

 

[DJ Xsinna]

Cool!! Thanks MarkN. Big help!!