Need some advice on how to get started / what to buy

[H20nly]

he's getting an RME interface. driver problem = overcome

[ian_halsall]

yeah - which was weird since OP did seem to want opinions on what to buy!

[TomViolenz]

3. Get an APC-40 (270 Euro, it´s a steal these days)

A APC-40 is not really all that mobile in my opinion, have you had the chance to see them IRL?

For triggering clips, I think a Launchpad is not beatable price and mobility wise (can be found for 80€ used and come with a Lite version of Live).
I don't really know what would be the most mobile solution for Faders though. For knobs the Nocturn could be one of many possibilities.

[102455]

mobile solution for Faders

Icon i-Controls, Korg nanoKONTROL.

[ian_halsall]

korg nano is cool - smaller than a regular qwerty keyboard and cheap too!

I got one

[c00kie]

Well, I´ll be traveling a lot during the next year, so I´m in some hotel for the working week and try to make better use of the evenings than blackjack, hookers or tv. Therefore, I´d like to make my studio as mobile as possible with sacrificing as little as possible. I´m a knobs fetishist, loving my old Korg Mono/Poly for example. That´s why it´s an APC instead of launchpad, I just need some faders and pots. Transport will not be that much of an issue, it´s home - hotel - home and that is done by car, so I´m okey with an extra backpack for laptop (17") plus APC.

The plan is to use the weekends polishing the audio, getting loops from the hardware and outboard effects, make samples, mix, master and what not. Then take this with me and use it in Ableton while on the road. Next weekend, the loops and sounds will be songs which then get finetuned in the studio. That´s the workflow I´m after.

Now I fiddled around a little bit with the crappy onboard of my home PC and a trial of Ableton. asio4all helped here and that´s almost usable. However, I still feel that when transferring audio between laptop and studio, ADAT would be nice, I even could use the ableton box as a vsti host and trigger things like the other MIDI hardware, then go via ADAT to the mixing desk. THat´s why I´m likely to get a Babyface sooner or later.

Thanks for all the input, I´ll keep you updated once my setup is complete.


Cheers,

Oliver

[H20nly]

^ then this could be some really good advice:

korg nano is cool - smaller than a regular qwerty keyboard and cheap too!

those things are cheap... around 60 bucks U.S. so it is definitely worth considering.