My vision for a perfect hardware machine... troubleshooting

hey all...

well, as my title says (and as you read you'll see the reason why it's on the 60/300 page) is that i am starting to fiddle with the idea of creating my own machine to use in my studio. the reason being is that my gear is getting REALLY old now and although i LOVE my old equipment, i'm getting tired of having to pray to god every time i turn them on with the hope that everything will work without anything breaking.

the idea is that it would be an mpc3000 without any of the sound modulation (hope that is correct), i.e. an ASQ10 with a midi type controller that uses a pc for sound interface.

my idea is to transfer the linn sequencer data from my ASQ10 onto modern equpiment, attach a MPD type controller (although i think that i can design a better one) and have it directly attached to a pc/sampler. all the best of the old, that works with the best of the new and a very ergonomic bridge inbetween (wishful thinking, i'm sure)

i can even take it a step further and use the sp1200 template as well... the possibilites are endless i guess simply because of the rate of technological growth today and the easiness and affordability of reproducing it. heck, i can even attach an emu onboard soundcard to it as well... just to prove that AKAI should get their act together!

and before anyone says about AD/DA convertors and such, please remember that i am not after the the sound, just the workflow and tightness of the sequencer... the software availablity for music production today is borderline ridiculous

anybody want to contibute here, so as to make it a community effort, i'd love some help in working on a project that may be VERY useful to us all.

i've already designed a few rough sketches that include a keyboard, datawheel/mouse, new pad designs, an onboard screen and touch sensitive plate for control.

peace!

A solid sequencing machine for me, capable of handling tight sequencing of multiple hardware units (e.g. 808, 606, analogue synths, digital synths) at once, i.e. not a PC.

I want an MPC2500 with a faster CPU, USB 3, the Akai S950 sampling engine (12 bit with variable sample rates) and better build quality, with JJOSXL of course. Gimmie that and I'm golden.

because this is a project that i am doing in my garage so to speak... my idea is to be able to midi up multpile sourced sounds into one sequencer with the idea of an audio thru function.

for example: you could have an s950 for your bass, sp for your drums, and a pc for a softwynth all connected to the sequencer, and then have audio going through the machine with a small mixer that would send the audio to your recorder/DAW.

i think this way it would actually be very buildable on a budget not having to duplicate AD/DA convertors but using the, already proven sequencers of older samplers, and also you can sample the sounds from a sampler straight into a pc and having them at your disposal never needing to turn on the sampler to make the music.

i imagine being able to push a button on the sampler and switching from a linn sequencer to an sp1200 sequencer to an mpc2k etc... i really dont believe it would be that difficult with today's technology to replicate it. and make it much more ergonomic as well

i dunno if the image will work... but the link is here... http://djalx.net/forum/index.php/topic,3346.0.html pics at the bottom

i am also keen on USB 3 but i will keep midi options as well so as not to make my old equipment obsolete. does anybody have any experience with USB 2? latency and such?

i also need to figure out if sequences can be saved either in the actual machine or if i need to get a floppy disk / sd card reader set up.

i have a computer engineer helping me with the project... time will be a major factor so i understand it will spread out over a few months.

if anyboduy would like to also add some ideas that would be great. i am not saying that this will go into full production but once a prototype is made, then cost for such a device will be able to be calculated for anyone's interested.

but ultimatly this is for my own lab

im gonna pm you, i had an idea about a hardware sequencer that has more of a daw type interface awhile ago, i tried to get this company to see if they could make one but they said they were too small to start a new venture like this. i think you might be interested.

its a little different than yours, but similar for sure.

thanks!! pm sent!

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54825&hilit=reverse+engineering&start=240

it seems like some people took a different approach to my idea... i'd rather take the positive from the past and make it work with today's technology instead of trying to fix another company's mistakes even after they aren't willing to support their own products.

i guess that's why Roger Linn is sooooo AWESOME!!!

i definatly think making this open source is the way to go! keep's everybody involved!