USB HUB for MPC X or LIVE

Bezo wrote:If they never leave the hub, I guess there's no worries. We all use tools differently. I'd use thumb drives for ease of swapping from one instrument/computer to another. For more permanent storage, I went with an installed SSD. You did it another way.

I would physically label each flash drive and they would never leave the hub.

lih wrote:true...why are you going this route instead of a hard drive?

It gives another option. Especially if you already have the USB Flash Drives.

Monotremata wrote:This is a nightmare for me at home hahaha. I used to work for the Geek Squad years ago so I have a **** of 16 and 32GB Geek Squad branded thumb drives we used to keep in stock to give customers copies of backups or recovery media on.

With all those cards, you better get a powered hub and RAID 0 those together.

CharlesRandolph wrote:

TheEastSideStory wrote:I use one of the cheap Sabrent 4-port usb 3.0 hubs with some sandisk cruzer 128gb usb drives. Works beautifully. I prefer this to constantly taking usb drives in and out of my mpc. I like the convenience of being able to bring my sounds anywhere I go, because my studio has an mpc x but I also have a live for travelling.

Hope this helps.

Was thinking of getting the Cruzer Glide 128GB or the 256GB. Then later on, I could RAID 0 them all together. Yes......USB A ports are not robust at all. Is your HUB, usb or wall powered?

The port is usb powered. I was initially looking for something fancy/rackmount etc, but this works perfectly for under 10$

TheEastSideStory wrote:The port is usb powered. I was initially looking for something fancy/rackmount etc, but this works perfectly for under 10$

I like it, that each port can be turned on or off.

lih wrote:true...why are you going this route instead of a hard drive?

Yeah, going the USB stick route in any capacity with a hub seems archaic. I slapped a 1 TB SSD into my Live, transferred all of my samples via my computer and any USB sticks I had laying around, once. Done.

There's literally no need for me to use USB sticks ever again at this point (thankfully).

My Car Radio uses a USB Port. Sometimes i'll mix a beat down on a Stick to see how it sounds in the car. The days of burning to a disk are long gone

EnochLight wrote:Yeah, going the USB stick route in any capacity with a hub seems archaic. I slapped a 1 TB SSD into my Live, transferred all of my samples via my computer and any USB sticks I had laying around, once. Done.

There's literally no need for me to use USB sticks ever again at this point (thankfully).

So you store all your music you create on the MPC, to a single one TB drive? So do you have 2 separate 1 TB drives for backing up that one? With any MPC with a USB or internal HD, I've never needed more than 16 Gigs.
Plus, the live/X only has 2 gig of ram and maybe 1.4 gig of that is usable.

Never keep your eggs in one basket and never put all your money in bank.

40Beatz wrote:My Car Radio uses a USB Port. Sometimes i'll mix a beat down on a Stick to see how it sounds in the car. The days of burning to a disk are long gone

That's a sound option, that's why using a hub is perfect. Also it's less wear and tear on the rear USB A port. Burning disk or recording to tap, just to test a mix in the car, was the worst.

CharlesRandolph wrote:So you store all your music you create on the MPC, to a single one TB drive? So do you have 2 separate 1 TB drives for backing up that one? With any MPC with a USB or internal HD, I've never needed more than 16 Gigs.
Plus, the live/X only has 2 gig of ram and maybe 1.4 gig of that is usable.

Never keep your eggs in one basket and never put all your money in bank.

Not EL, but I back up to my computer and an external drive with all my virtual instrument samples. 3 copies of EVERYTHING.

1TB is overkill for now, but I'm cool with it.

CharlesRandolph wrote:That's a sound option, that's why using a hub is perfect. Also it's less wear and tear on the rear USB A port. Burning disk or recording to tap, just to test a mix in the car, was the worst.

I have a single USB stick for that purpose.

Bezo wrote:Not EL, but I back up to my computer and an external drive with all my virtual instrument samples. 3 copies of EVERYTHING.

1TB is overkill for now, but I'm cool with it.

I use 3 TB drives for 8K video and 8K RAW can use 120 GB per minute. Music never get any where close to that. Inside my desktop, I use NVMe SSD. SATA is dead to me like IDE.

CharlesRandolph wrote:

Bezo wrote:Not EL, but I back up to my computer and an external drive with all my virtual instrument samples. 3 copies of EVERYTHING.

1TB is overkill for now, but I'm cool with it.

I use 3 TB drives for 8K video and 8K RAW can use 120 GB per minute. Music never get any where close to that. Inside my desktop, I use NVMe SSD. SATA is dead to me like IDE.

Yeah, I'm all SSD.

Not MPC related, but my virtual instrument samples take up about 1.5TB of a 2TB drive.

Damn and I thought the 40 something GB Kontakt basic library was huge haha. I was trying to figure out storage in my head last night. Was looking again at 5000s, those came with an 80GB standard. My sample library is about 40 of that, and right now my MPC projects folder is only about 1GB and Im not doing audio tracks, just programs/midi for now. My sample library, I could probably copy not even half that over and be fine heh. I have ALOT of crap that Ive never, and will never, use in there, but because its all broken up and organized away I have to do get rid of it on a per sample type basis (the /Basses from one pack might be awesome but the /Ambiences folder SUCKS haha). That 80GB would be just fine, plus with the fact that you can connect the 1000/2500/5000 over USB, Im not sure I would ever need 1TB. Ive got a 250GB (I think) 2.5" SATA drive Ive had for a few years now just sitting here and I think thats gonna be perfect if/when I get a Live and ditch the software.

I have the max size drive in my Z4 which I think is 80GB and it wasn't full. But most of my programs are & will be multi-layered keygroups. And with the autosampler, I could see me eating a lot of space very quickly, though 1TB is probably still overkill.

For those who want SSD HUB. Sabrent DS-4SSD or Unitek Aluminum are pictured below. There are others

CharlesRandolph wrote:For those who want SSD HUB. Sabrent DS-4SSD or Unitek Aluminum are pictured below. There are others

This is dope!!! I definitely am going to look into this.

We used those docks when I worked at Best Buy years ago to do customer backups and data recovery. Those things work great and hot swapping a hard drive is so awesome heh.

So Im curious, how does the Live's USB ports work?? I was staring at the specs again the other day and was looking at all my gear.. Right now Ive got two MIDI synths, my Microwave and Micro Q so theres the MIDI ports, but the other two I use all the time are my Microbrute and my Blofeld which can use either MIDI in or USB.. Are those both gonna work if I use the two USB ports on the Live??

Ultimately I can just daisy chain the things and pretend its 1993 again but I would love not to have to. That would still use both MIDI ports, neither the Blofeld or the Microbrute have a thru port, so the Microwave and Micro Q would each have one tacked onto their thru ports. Maybe I should just go with a 5000 heh.

TheEastSideStory wrote:This is dope!!! I definitely am going to look into this.

The Unitek Aluminum is $36 US
The Sabrent DS-4SSD is $50 US