The perfect portable setup?

Here's my current fully portable production setup. Trying to keep it as lightweight as possible, but still have proper "hardware"-feel to it. Loving this atm.

1. mpc500 as the main sequencer. Can't beat this battery powered beast.

2. iPad mini as the sound module. There are some really awesome synths for ipad at the appstore. Also check out TwistedWave audio editor for quick sample editing.

3. Behringer UMA25S midi keyboard. Battery powered as well and is really thin and light. Has knobs, buttons and modwheel & pitchbend.

4. Yamaha ux16 usb to midi interface. Between the mpc and ipad. Powers itself via usb and ipad's fine with this.

5. Kingston MobileLite Wireless for transferring samples between the mpc and the ipad. Has its own battery. Needs a usb CF Card reader but you should have one already if you're doing any serious sample transferring between your computer and the mpc.

6. Audio cables to sample the ipad to the mpc.

So my workflow goes like this:
* I control the ipad with the mpc & uma25s. With the midi keyboard it's really easy to record CC's & automation as the 500's a bit limited in this respect.
* Sample these (sequenced) sounds to the mpc as the project progresses to allow midi control of new sounds and different ipad synths.
* If the sampled sounds need some post-processing or additional mangling I'll just connect the cf card to the mobilelite and do edits with the ipad.
* Save the ipad-mangled/-edited sounds directly to the CF and load back to the mpc project.

Nothing special really, but wanted to share it with you guys if you'd find this interesting and/or inspiring. Best of all once you do the initial hook-up you don't need to connect/disconnect anything but the CF card (mpc->ipad and vice versa. hot-swappable) so your work doesn't get interrupted.

Lampdog wrote:What physical adapter on ipad is allowing midi? You said you control ipad with mpc.

I believe he said something like this:

MPC <-MIDI-> Yamaha UX 16 <-USB-> USB Photo adapter for iPad <-Dock-> iPad


An example with usb lpd8:




And with Midi device:

i use to use ios with my mpc500 before my fairly new ipod touch bit the dust, well it was just over a year old and really hadn't used it all that much when it crapped out, **** that cheap piece of shit! im not **** with ios anymore, one of the biggest wastes of money EVER, considering ive had my mpc500 since 2008 and have put the thing to use..

Lampdog wrote:What app on ipad is doing the edits?

What physical adapter on ipad is allowing midi? You said you control ipad with mpc.

Yeah sorry that I didn't mention it before, but to connect a usb device to the ipad you'd need Camera Connection Kit (older iDevices) or Lighting to USB Camera Adapter (newer devices).

My main audio editor is TwistedWave http://twistedwave.com/mobile. I can open files directly from the CF card via MobileLite app using the "Open In"-option to the TwistedWave. Do editing and then export (selection or the whole file) to the MobileLite app which saves it to the CF card (wirelessly).

TwistedWave supports audio copy & audio paste so you can use another audio app to edit your sounds even further (like Sugar Bytes' Turnado).

Awesome fun.

Nice! I've got this...

1. MPC 500 to produce and master the music
2. Zoom H1 to sample the world either by built-in mic or a 1/8th cable
3. Sometimes I use an iPod for apps like Animoog and Nanostudio as a sound source to sample. Once the sample is in the 500, I proceed to rip, stretch, chop and mangle
4. A cheap FM transmitter so I can hear my MPC on the car stereo
5. earbuds and ATHM50s

That's it. All that in a little bag so I can take it anywhere. I've had a lot of fun with it.

I was using my Scion XB as a mobile studio until certain bass frequencies blew out my speakers Now I gotta buy new speakers. Lesson learnt, studio equipment is for the studio and vehicles for listening. Hey, the XB has a Aux In, cool right, just hook up a DVD player but no drum machines.

Anyway, this is what I had in there:

MPC 500

XR20

Tascam DP008

All battery powered devices and the DP008 comes with internal omnidirectional mics that sound good as a Shure SM58. XR20 is a drum machine and synth and the 500, well you know.

The night before I go camping into the swamps, I would feed the 500 with samples and drum breaks and then pack it in the ride. The next day, I would forget what I sampled (yes, its a good thing) and make the best with the material I had.

Great thread..

Kind of similar here too.

I've got the USB adapter from Apple's camera connection kit for my iPad2 and a $4 MIDI interface cable off eBay.

With the iPad, I've got a MIDI controller app which I think is called MIDI studio. It's got a keyboard you can set the chord scale on, sliders, drum pads etc. So with that I can play multisampled keyboard sounds on the 500, like the Rhodes and strings that come with the factory sounds. Then instead of using those sounds, I can then use the parts I sequenced, and trigger sounds on the iPad instead, like the Animoog, and sample those back in. Or just play them live without sequencing them first, and sample them in.

For playback if I'm not using my Beyerdynamic DT880 headphones, I have a Nokia Play 360 bluetooth speaker which I highly recommend. It's only a mono speaker, but for its size has some decent bass, and will easily run all day on a single charge via a normal Nokia phone charger. Apparently they last for up to 15 hours. Probably even longer without bluetooth, as I plug the 500 into its 3.5 stereo input. Sounds better than other more expensive bluetooth speakers like the Jambox. I bought it to play the music whilst shooting music videos, and although its kind of chunky, still fits in my small messenger bag.

And for recording live sound, I still use this MS57 mic. An SM57 clone I bought in Bali years ago. Has a 6.5mm plug, and the sound quality isn't too bad actually. Picks up plenty of low end, but the samples sound tight once they're trimmed, and with some high pass filtering if required.

As for using a 500 for portable recording instead of a laptop or even an iPad on its own, they still have a big advantage in that you can run individual sequences as whole songs. So up to 99 songs in memory that you can easily switch between in real time. Where as with apps or most software, you can normally only load one song at a time. And you don't need a separate MIDI controller or audio interface either.

You should post some pics of your portable setup

Aside from the monitors, everything is battery or bus-powered
zoom r8
m-audio keystation 32
numark pt-01
mpc 500

Thanks for the tip on the Kingston Mobilelite. It works great with the Ipad and MPC. The cool thing is you don't even need a CompactFlash reader. The MPC acts as a USB reader and you can access the card from the Ipad without even having to remove it from the MPC, just plug a USB cable into the Mobilelite and the other end into the MPC.

I picked the MobileLite up from Staples last night for $39. Really useful for other things as well such as loading movies, photos, .pdf files etc. wirelessly to and from the Ipad, IPhone, computer,etc.

m:t:c wrote:Here's my current fully portable production setup. Trying to keep it as lightweight as possible, but still have proper "hardware"-feel to it. Loving this atm.

1. mpc500 as the main sequencer. Can't beat this battery powered beast.

2. iPad mini as the sound module. There are some really awesome synths for ipad at the appstore. Also check out TwistedWave audio editor for quick sample editing.

3. Behringer UMA25S midi keyboard. Battery powered as well and is really thin and light. Has knobs, buttons and modwheel & pitchbend.

4. Yamaha ux16 usb to midi interface. Between the mpc and ipad. Powers itself via usb and ipad's fine with this.

5. Kingston MobileLite Wireless for transferring samples between the mpc and the ipad. Has its own battery. Needs a usb CF Card reader but you should have one already if you're doing any serious sample transferring between your computer and the mpc.

6. Audio cables to sample the ipad to the mpc.

So my workflow goes like this:
* I control the ipad with the mpc & uma25s. With the midi keyboard it's really easy to record CC's & automation as the 500's a bit limited in this respect.
* Sample these (sequenced) sounds to the mpc as the project progresses to allow midi control of new sounds and different ipad synths.
* If the sampled sounds need some post-processing or additional mangling I'll just connect the cf card to the mobilelite and do edits with the ipad.
* Save the ipad-mangled/-edited sounds directly to the CF and load back to the mpc project.

Nothing special really, but wanted to share it with you guys if you'd find this interesting and/or inspiring. Best of all once you do the initial hook-up you don't need to connect/disconnect anything but the CF card (mpc->ipad and vice versa. hot-swappable) so your work doesn't get interrupted.

Thats dope coolderb.

I've not encountered anything more portable and self-contained than the OP-1. It's amazing what can be done with it.

Coz wrote:I've not encountered anything more portable and self-contained than the OP-1. It's amazing what can be done with it.

Man, if I had 800 to burn... I'd be right there with you. That machine fascinates me.