Xonetacular's Setup

[Xonetacular]

Yeah I'll do some sound research and keep a look out for chairs on craigslist, maybe I'll find an office going out of business selling their stuff and get lucky

As for sound cards…in the $200 range…umm…

If you could find a Presonus Central Station or Monitor Station used for that price, that might give you all the functionality you want…but you'd have to keep using your Audio 8 (or whatever). I actually use a cheap little FOH mixer for that the vast majority of the time. It works okay, as my room isn't good enough to master in anyway.

As for actual sound cards in that range, I see Mbox 3 Minis for around $200. They're probably going to be the best you're going to get, though they're only 2x2 and would be limiting in the long run. Musician's Friend and GC are selling the Preonus Audiobox USB for like $150 right now, which seems okay for the price if you're going to upgrade later anyway.

i made a thread in general, any experience with the NI Audio Kontrol 1? There is one for $115 buy it now on ebay right now thinking of grabbing it. I'll look at those others...

[mostapha]

No experience at all. It might be worth it for that price, but IIRC, that was from NI right before they started really taking themselves seriously and started making an impact.

It's either their first serious card or their last joke. I'm not sure how to tell which, but for $115, it's probably not too bad.

I'm actually about to be in the market for a cheap-ish card soon too. Apparently, my old card half-dropped one of its mic input connections, so everything it records is noisy as shit and has a DC offset. It kind of ruined a recording for a video I had to do last week. Whatever…made it work. I need to figure out how much I can devote to it, but my first choice is probably going to be the Mbox Mini or a used Apogee One if that means anything to you. The One would probably sound better and be fine for what I'm doing, but it wouldn't be balanced, so I need to check my cable runs first.

[photojojo]

If it's really a problem, I'd probably start by wadding up old clothes or blankets and shoving them in the corners…

So what you're saying is I should move any production stuff I might have into my kids rooms?

[mostapha]

No, 'cuz then you'll start getting confused when you realize that your keyboard is missing the blue moon button that made that awesome 8-bit synth noise and not realize where the hell you put it.

[Patch]

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10168720/

Nice find!

[Xonetacular]

I caved in and bought a new chair today at office depot, it's pretty nice and makes a world of difference and is all leather and has great support on sale for like $120 from $220. I still am not thrilled with dropping over $100 on a damn chair but it's worth it I guess if it means I can sit longer and much more comfortably producing.

Komplete Audio 6 is scheduled to be delivered on Monday which I think will serve me well.

I've really dropped a lot of money in the past few days on odds and ends. I was thinking I would save up for CDJ-2000s but it's just not going to happen. As much as I would love to not have to use Traktor a new pair at $3250 is just absurd and I would blow all my hard earned money after saving for months in one shot and not have anything else to show for it. I'm much better off getting the more practical things for my setup.

Really the only thing I'm looking out for right now is another KRK 10s subwoofer and maybe doing something about this desk. I also kind of want a second ipad to run two instances of touchable or the Lemur app but I'm sure I don't need it, actually I might grab the lemur app now.

[Xonetacular]

Also I'm finally sitting down with maschine since the first time I bought it months ago. I got it on impulse like 9 months ago and never had a production work space setup and never dived into it.

This thing is incredible I just press buttons, stuff lights up, and techno comes out.

[mostapha]

I've really dropped a lot of money in the past few days on odds and ends. I was thinking I would save up for CDJ-2000s but it's just not going to happen. As much as I would love to not have to use Traktor a new pair at $3250 is just absurd and I would blow all my hard earned money after saving for months in one shot and not have anything else to show for it. I'm much better off getting the more practical things for my setup.

Yeah…same here. At the moment I'm deciding if it's going to be better in the medium term to go back to Live and un-retire my VCM or buy a sound card that will run Traktor and Maschine into my mixer.

I'd love to switch back to all hardware, but it's just not going to happen any time soon. Even DVS seems too expensive to be worth it at this point.

[Xonetacular]

^my votes for the soundcard for traktor and maschine. There are way too many annoyances to positives djing with ableton for my tastes.

Maschine is so damn cool you were completely right about putting it front and center, I now have it in the middle of my desk with keyboard to the left and mouse to the right. I was just jamming on it for like an hour it's so much fun and good sounds just come out. I used to program drums with a mouse in ableton and dreaded it, this is completely different and I haven't even scratched the surface and hardly know how to use it. I'm very glad I bought the edu now which stopped me from doing something stupid and selling it.

[mostapha]

Yeah…it's weird about sequencing a whole song, but all groove boxes are. The thing is awesome. One of my friends is a drummer and is in love with the pads. Frankly, I'm in love with the step sequencer and the fact that I don't really need a keyboard if the parts are simple.

About Live…if I'm not sure I have a preference between Live and Traktor at this point except that Traktor is easier to actually spin with and Live is easier to incorporate Maschine. Ugh…choices.