monstrejumo wrote:8O wrote:MacBook Pro - wonderful workhorse, almost perfect, which make the little niggles even more annoying, still working fine after getting half a pint of beer spilled on it
MOTU Ultralite - no broken knobs, no driver problems, works beautifully, carried it around a lot and still no problems, love having so many inputs and outputs, still working fine after getting the other half pint of beer spilled on it
Genelec 8030 - wonderful, clear, in your face transparent and revealing, only upgrade I'd make to them is to move apartment to give them more room for perfect placement
Waldorf Pulse - my first hardware synth, still my go-to synth for basslines, matrix editing is a pain, but you get used to it, small enough to get into a bag and take to jam sessions, looks ugly, but less ugly than the...
Waldorf Microwave XT - my second synth, a knob for every occasion, getting some wonderful, unearthly sounds out of it and have barely scratched the surface of its capabilities, looks ugly
M-Audio UC-33e - in wood-effect vinyl, what can you say, the classic, trustworthy controller, disadvantage: no endless rotaries or motorised sliders like the Behringer BCR/BCF, advantage: not a Behringer.
M-Audio Keystation 61-ES - purchased out of frustration due to not being able to find a nice compact 25-key controller with a nice key action, but now I'm completely used to 5 octaves
Stylophone - cheap Chinese copy, played live through piles of reverb and delays and resonators, love the clunky lo-tech interface
Hoefner Shorty electric guitar - the travel guitar, complete rubbish, but still less rubbish than my guitar playing, any thing better would really be wasted on me, could take it as hand-luggage on business trips and practise guitar in the evenings instead of wining and dining clients, passengers on the planes look suspiciously at you as the guitar bag looks vaguely rifle-shaped
There you go... Interestingly, all of those items I would definitely buy again...
wise choices made.
the stuff i still own and all use:
macbook pro: runs OSX, no explanation needed.
genelec 8030s, only get replaced if i move into a bigger room that needs the power of the 8040s or 8050s, best investment ever made. i love them to death!!!
presonus firebox: suits my set up (quality of signal chain) i hardly do recordings with it, mainly recording my EA-1 and ER-1 sounds with it, occasional a mic recording, it's enough for that,
and it's a hell of a reliable workhorse, and an 'issue' to me a 100 timers more important then only the factor sound quality. if i would do more mic or acoustic material recordings at home, i would buy another interface, surely. (i usually use a different facility / gear for that)
korg EA-1 / ER-1 got them both when they first came out, was my first 'live gig setup' two midi cables and a dj mixer and of you go...!!!
still love the EA-1 sounds and use it, also the drum machine for programming beats and then recording them (midi) into live or logic, i love the swing of the sequencer, drum sound wise rarely in use.
lexicon mpx-100 serves well for electronic stuff, mainly for the rotary cabinet emulation.
korg kaoss pad -1, still in use, loads of great low-fi effects and crunchy sampling.
roland XP-30: well a classic, beautiful keyboard (physical feel of the keys, one of the best synth keys i came across and the main reason i bought it)
plus the legendary JV sound module engine built in having over 1500 standard sounds that still stand the test of time... in use.
tons of external drives, for backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, and backup.
a plextor 716. no comment. you know or you don't why.
and my yamaha SU 10 pocket lo-fi sampler, i don't use anymore, except for the buttons for triggering midi, but i can't get rid of it, it was my first ever item i bought to make electronic music at home... and i used that and a simple tape deck to sample and arrange tracks. (so much to: 'what you need to make music')
korg padkontrol, my favourite midi controller and used permanently for nearly everything, clips, beats, melodies, basslines, etc. etc. (if i only could have one controller than it would be 100% this one) i also used to DJ with it, it's perfect for it, especially in addition with farmpad.
korg nanokontrol, i got it as a gift, love it, use it a lot and it replaced my padkontrol for DJ-ing, just because of the size...
sennheiser hd 280, great cheap (incredible bang for the buck) headphones for tracking, very happy with them... when they die, i get sony mdr 7506 instead.
sennheiser hd 25 mkII, got em for free, great ear destroyers, the loudest headphones on earth for the deaf, got 'em therefor i use them for DJ-ing, would not buy them myself. they fuck up your hearing. would get 7506 instead.
quality cabling throughout, no nonsense, just sensible quality and good plugs.
i figured over the years a perfect interaction and signal flow... this setup now has not changed a bit in over 2 years.
i don't mention all the little periphery, like USB hubs, etc.
software, well i did not bought much, i am in a lucky NFR situation... Live i bought, tough... and is actually the only audio apps i ever spend money on.
some of my most used ones: live8 suite (no M4L, yet!?!), logic pro8, bias peak pro6, the whole AAS bundle, bias masteringperfectionsuite, traktor pro, crystal
it's my perfect setup, i might consider changing the soundcard and a good private mic collection in the future... i used to have access to about 200 different mics and several preamps, interfaces, etc., etc. at my old employer... some of that i can still just borrow for a bargain if i need it, so as long as i don't use any of it very regular there is no need for it.
basically tried to strip everything down over the years to an absolute bare minimum, which i could do even further and would be a good thing, but i have an emotional attachment to some of it... like the SU-10 and XP-30...
i like the idea of having only a good computer (laptop), my 8030s, a soundcard and one controller and make track after track after track.*
*well i am getting there to just chuck stuff out and out and out.
EDIT: i forgot, i have a scratchamp2 i also got for free, i use it for DJ-ing / live performances, great, great interface, way underestimated, it did not had much of a chance to see the light of day, because FS2 died shortly after that came out... it was sold separately as well and is a killer. however, if i would be in need of a new performing sound card, it would be most probably a NI audio DJ8.
cheers.
NOT via VM
GAFM ***
