Good Choice for Gear?

[BoxDJ]

I've been doing my research for the past while and I've came up with this:

Ableton Suite 8
Akai APC40
Kog padKONTROL

MOTU Ultralite-mk3
Sennheiser HD 25
KRK Rokit Powered 5 Generation 2 Studio Monitors

And I already have the Microkorg

Does this sound good? The reason for the APC40 was because of the crossfader and the faders. I really need those for DJing. I'm also producing. Is this setup somewhat future proof or is there something out there that may replace or may be better for my setup?

[BoxDJ]

Does this sound like a good setup to anyone or any suggestions on different products? Any help is very appreciated.

[trikster_b]

Seems good to me; however, what's the deal with the headphones? If you're going to use monitors mainly to listen and produce your music on, isn't $200 kind of overkill for headphones, or are you planning on using them a lot?

[BoxDJ]

Seems good to me; however, what's the deal with the headphones? If you're going to use monitors mainly to listen and produce your music on, isn't $200 kind of overkill for headphones, or are you planning on using them a lot?

I also need them to DJ.

[trikster_b]

Ah ok. Hadn't realized that. (only a producer here) Your setup looks good to me.

[BoxDJ]

Question about faders on the APC40: What happens when you move out of your 8 tracks and change the volume? Does it jump to 0 when you move it?

**EDIT**
For example you move your bank to the right on to say the 9th column and you change the volume. If the fader was left at max volume then what happens? Does the volume jump up to max?

[leedsquietman]

Very decent setup for a starter/intermediate operation.

The only thing I'd look at again would be the Ultralite if you are running a PC. The Ultralite has much better Mac drivers compared to PC.

[BoxDJ]

Very decent setup for a starter/intermediate operation.

The only thing I'd look at again would be the Ultralite if you are running a PC. The Ultralite has much better Mac drivers compared to PC.

I'm running Windows 7, but I've heard that their drivers work great on Windows 7. They're not bad on the PC its just that people don't know how to use them.

**EDIT**
I may buy a BCR2000 in the future if there are not enough knobs for me on the APC40.

[mholloway]

The Apc 40 faders only take effect once the physical fader value bypasses whatever the value is set to in the Live mixer. Ableton even conveniently gives you a little message in yellow at the bottom of the screen telling you how much further the physical fader needs to go before it 'matches' with the previous setting.

Your proposed setup looks great. But I think you know that already. I like the NI Audio Kontrol 1 personally but MOTU seems to make good products.

-M

[leedsquietman]

MOTU are a very Mac centric company, even though their audio interfaces run on both platforms, the recording software that comes with it runs on Mac only (although the cue mix software works on both), they make the DAW Digital Performer which is Mac only and the latency using the Core Audio driver has always been lower and more reliable than their windows drivers.

I'm not saying their windows drivers are horrible, they just are not as good, performance wise, as their Mac drivers. The performance is good rather than excellent - the likes of RME and Echo write drivers for PC which run lower latencies and with less issues. Although I couldn't comment on their win 7 drivers - if this has improved then it needed to.

Cross platform is rarely truly cross platform. ProTools is cross platform but generally performs better on mac, Cubase is cross platform but generally performs better on windows. Live and Reason are 2 exceptions which seem to perform equally well on both.

[SubFunk]

what leeds said!

well, we did had a lot of real big problems with motu under windows XP. none ever under OSX, though...

but his statement about motu under windows vs OSX is generally true.

[BoxDJ]

Anymore more comments other than about the Motu Ultralite?

[BoxDJ]

I'm now also considering the OHM64 instead of the APC40. Any comments on that?

[lee1]

apc 40!
I got my apc 40 last week,
well over due to be honest.
I was debating in some other controllers but made the decision of apc.
I have one big gripe with the apc!!
my five year relationship could well be coming to a end because of it!!

hehehehehehehehe

[jsn]

good headphones and monitors ARE a great thing to have in the same setup. sometimes it is easier to hear where things lie in the stereo field in a nice pair of monitoring phones. it depends on the environment you are working in. no, no further suggestions. if you've done the research then you must know that you have found something you can work with. Best of luck