I've been lurking this forum for years now (or at least coming back occasionally to search for solutions when I've run up against problems), so first off, thanks for everything.
I'm posting for the first time today, as my searches (both on this forum and elsewhere) have left me wanting as I try to make a decision on my next upgrade.
[A little background: I've been playing with Live (and other DAWs) on and off since I was in high school—close to a decade ago now, which is painful to think about—but I never really had any "end game" in mind; I just wanted to play with it and figure out how it worked because I'm a big geek. I've always been a huge music lover as well, and have played traditional instruments since I was really young. When I think about it in retrospect I really should have started this process much sooner. Alas, when I was a kid and wanted to learn to play guitar I got piano lessons, and once I became a teenager, started listening to Daft Punk, DJ Shadow and old Invisibl Skratch Piklz records and decided that I wanted turntables, I got guitars. (Cue "Parents Just Don't Understand" video.) C'est la vie. Then I went to college, started to grow out of my awkward teenagedness and became much more interested in partying and meeting girls than I was in making music.
A few years and a handful of moves around California later, I moved back home to LA, started working at an Apple Store, and shortly thereafter (almost three years ago, now) a co-worker brought me to Low End Theory for the first time. From that moment forward the spark was officially re-ignited. Since then I've made a lot of progress (I hope) in my understanding of and workflows in Live, but I still mostly feel like a novice. I've also built up a small but respectable collection of gear, including an MPD32, a Monome 64, my iPad (which I primarily use TouchOSC on, but have played with other osc/midi apps), and most recently an Alesis Ion which I bought on the cheap so that I'd have something more than softsynths at my disposal as I try to develop my understanding of synthesis techniques. I was also using the worst audio interface ever (little Behringer deal) until it failed on me earlier this summer. That brings us right up to about now, and the actual content of this post...]
So I'm in the market for a new audio interface. I've done a ton of research there, and if I were to buy a standalone unit I'd likely go with one of the newer Focusrite USB models. However, I've been looking at a variety of combo units (synths with integrated audio interfaces, etc) to get a bit more functionality out of the money I'll be spending. Most recently I've been looking into DJ mixers with audio interfaces, with the hope that I'll be able to use it to control some aspects of Live that at the moment I'm either trying to get done with weird mappings on my MPD (not ideal), Touch OSC (fine, but I'd prefer tactical feedback in many cases), or a mouse (ugh). The fact that many mixers would also give me some out of the box effects and take some CPU load off my aging Macbook that I can't afford to replace right now would sweeten the deal.
The primary attributes I'm looking for in this mixer are:
- A high resolution (24bit+), preferably high sample rate (over 44k) audio interface, that has a reputation for not sounding like shit
- MIDI over USB would be nice, as even on a 4+ channel mixer routing the audio out of, then back into Live seems a little odd/daunting to me
- A better than decent, or alternately user-upgradeable, crossfader
- Well thought out interface design (crossfader not surrounded by other buttons/pots, well placed eq cut buttons so my fingers don't get in a fight if I need to press more than one simultaneously, ideally not coated with blue LEDs, etc)
- (And the kicker...) as inexpensive as possible, hopefully under $500 with tax/shipping/whatever (I'm totally fine buying used)
I know there's a lot of good stuff out there in the $700-1500 price range, but the fact is I can come up on an above average audio interface on eBay for under $200 (and a really good one for under $300), and an entry level mixer for next to nothing. I hope to find a way to get this done with one box rather than two or three, but that convenience is less meaningful to me if I'm going to be paying twice as much for the privilege.
So what do you think? Is it totally unreasonable for me to expect all these features in this price range? Can you think of any alternatives that might be a bit more expensive, but possibly have some benefits I haven't considered that would make it worth the price bump? Perhaps there's a model out there that is exactly what I want and I just haven't found it yet (*fingers crossed*).
Thanks again, I do appreciate any assistance you can offer.