Ur set-ups, how u make it work, and how it afffects ur style

1 # microkorg>mpc500 ,
turntable>mpc500, mpc500 > akai mg614 > cubase
2 x cdj200+ gemini bpm250 > akai mg614 > cubase
I use the turntable to loop standard drum loops and just equalise em a bit... then i use my turntable to find samples and put the samples in the mpc, bassline with my microkorg, and I record it all with cubase together and then mix it


2# some midi controllers connected to reason, but almost never use it.

when I use it its just standard way of working with reason.. drums, melody, bass and just do what i feel...

Interesting thread!

My gear includes:
- Technics SL1210 MKII turntables (two)
- Yamaha Hi-Fi amp (using it as pre-amp for my turntables)
- Sony Hi-Fi amp (dito)
- Elac speakers
- MPC500
- MPC2500SE
- MPC2000XL
- Imac (with logic express 9)
- Apogee Duet Firewire Interface
- Adam AX7 monitors

That's it!

How i use it:

I listen to vinyl in my living room with the turntables, hi-fi amp... connected to whichever MPC i'm using at that time... with the Elac speakers. When i find something i want to sample, i'll sample it, trim the samples (all manually, no auto chop here) and save it all as a basic program on the MPC (samples assigned to pads, maybe already some drums assigned aswell).

Next step is to move to where i have the imac, and connect the MPC there with the Adam monitors. Then i'll start making the beat, maybe leave it for a day or two, get back to it, etc. Pretty much the whole work after recording and trimming samples is done at the desk with the monitors. Once i'm finished with a beat and am happy with the result, i'll track it out via the firewire interface into Logic. I'll add some slight compression, EQ and what not in logic, mix it a little (i'm not good at this, just an amateur) and upload it to my youtube channel.

Then it's on to the next sample...

Edited my post above accordingly!

Thank you!

MPC 1000
Sample stuff into this and chop. Running JJOS1 which has functions I haven't even got into yet. Drum tracks made in this too usually.

Korg M50
MIDI'd up to MPC so i can control the drum kits in the M50 from the pads and record sounds and modulation into sequences.

Microkorg
used mainly for a keyboard with Logic on a Macbook Pro but been getting into tweaking the presets a bit lately and will probably try and do more of this.

Mackie 802 VLZ mixer
Everything runs into this pretty much then the output goes into a Focusrite Saffire pro 24. I just got this audio interface a couple days ago and it is a huge step up from my last one. More outputs and better sound quality.

KRK RP6 (G1 model)
Pretty pleased with these monitors although one seems to make some crazy noises at times, maybe need to get it checked out at some point.

Novation Zero SL mkII
Controller for Logic and Ableton. Really flexible and getting more into using it to control live sets.

Stanton T80 turntable
This has been discontinued now but it's a really decent turntable. Just use it to get sample from vinyl and listen to albums i dont have on digital.

I am pretty happy with how I have stuff set up and connected. I can work on a beat just in the MPC if I want or I can combine MPC and Logic with sounds from other gear. Maybe look at streamlining the setup at some point, The more I use Ableton, the more I want to try and MIDI it up with the MPC to play stuff out live. Better get my practice on!

This explains it quite a bit for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEIX8rj_Fws

BUMP!!!

Bringing this one back alive because I found this a very intresting thread.
Maybe some new users can tell their stories or people can post their updates.

Bring it on!!!

iMac- this is running Ableton Live 8. I'm mostly audio based so I use this as a very elastic and free form way of building songs. Like a giant unlimited tape recorder. This is connected via firewire to...

Mackie Onyx 400f- a very useful firewire soundcard, just the right amount of ins and outs for my liking. I use this to record most of my sound sources directly into Ableton. The main outputs of this go to...

Mackie 1402 VLZ Pro- probably my favorite non-musical piece. Perfect size, and I tend to re-sample back into my firewire card (after mashing things up a little bit through the input gains to get some distortion) via the extra set out of outputs. However, the main outputs are connected to...

Genelec 8020- I've had these monitors since I started and I love them. Very small, but astonishing frequency response and good detail. Absolute workhorse monitors.

Drawmer LX20- This is my hardware compressor. She's set up on a send/return coming from the Mackie desk. I tend to use it very sparingly across a full mix, but mostly for beefing up sound sources that I re-sample back into Ableton. Having it on a send/return channel gives me a lot more flexibility for balancing the signals. It also has an external sidechain input although I've never really used it.

Now onto the more musical bits:


MPC 1000- mostly used these days for in-bed ideas.
EMU E6400 Ultra- mostly used for the Z-plane filters.
Akai S3000i- re-sampling purposes and bit-shifting.
Korg M1, R3, Montron and Monotribe- all run directly into the soundcard.
Roland D50- run directly into the soundcard.
Tenori-On Orange- latest addition to the family and I love it. Haven't actually recorded anything but when I do it will be straight into Ableton for some further processing.

MPC1000
Main sequencer, everything ends up in here and is constructed in here.

SP303
For adding grit and FX.

Technic 1200
For teh Vinyl.

MicroKorg
Synth and bass sounds, anything I don't get out of records. (Soon to be replaced by a Novation Bass Station Keyboard)

MacPro
For recording, maybe a little more compression but not much.

Focusrite Saffire Pro 14
Recording into.

Yamaha HSM 80
Speakers

Technics 1200 -> SP303 -> MPC1000 -> Sound Card -> Comp -> Speakers

Reason 6, mpc 4k, mpc 60, sp303, roberts 770x (akai m8) reel to reel, korg r3, presonus firestudio project.

works like this, mpc 4k is the master records the r3 which i trigger with the r3 keys, the 4k also triggers the 60 samples and the sp303 samples. now they all run into the soundcard to reason for processing, except the sp303, that runs into the reel to reel for texture. the R3 also triggers the keys in reason which is slaved to the mpc 4k as well. Now sometimes I create drums and synth samples in reason or the korg, effect them and then send them out to one of the mpc's or 303 to chop and color. I often chop in the 60 and 4k samples from vinyl then resample into the 303 for better effects processing and to push through the reel to reel. I have many options but I resample multiple times in different machines adding things on the way to create my own signature sound so to speak.

I wanted to start by stating that I do not use a computer for DAW or mastering. I do not have a lot of money to get the latest, and also feel I do not need one as I can do pretty much anything without it anyway. I have an old iMac and its ok for somethings but not full blown DAW and one in the future with DAW and DAC would be nice, but I do not think it is absolutely a must have for me. So I get by with some gear and am looking for more as well because we all know that gear lust feeling. So I am not into hype and see most instruments as a way to express and make noise instead. And my set up is ....

MPC1000 + JJOSXL This is the heart of the operation like a few here. Takes care of the sequencing of everything else and also its a sampler as well JJOSXL should have its own entry in my list but lets take it as a given
Korg D1200 mk2 A digital 4 track recorder. Everything gets plugged into this and i monitor and record through it all the time. CD player broke only yesterday after many years service, so pretty good.
Legacy monitors Reasonable monitors, though not enough bottom end, so sub is on the agenda. Cant make Drum and bass ect without being able to hear it right.
Roland Fantom XR a rack mounted multitimbrle synth plugged into D1200.
MicroKorg not a bad VA if I do say so. plugged into XR
Novation Bass Station Not a VA mono synth. very fat with some MIDI CC control plugged into MicroKorg.
outboard gear OK so now I got some stuff for signal processing as well. A Phonic PCL3200 compressor, which is very nice and another autocom MDX1200, a crappy Behringer compressor. Ok add a Phonic 32 channle stereo EQ and Behringer Virtulizer Pro FX rack and patch bay as well. EQ feeds side chain MPC goes through one compressor. sometimes i patch stuff differently and there is a hundred different ways I can do it, but just the shortest signal chain is what i aim for. I hae a few drum machines not plugged in. I think i might have started a collection with a TR505, SCI Drumtraks, MC303. O and dont forget the Korg Monotron as well for synth fun on the go
So there you have it. A totally hardware set up with no mastering or software involved. I just turn it all on and load a project that has saved patch changes for the synths so the hardware settings loads and is the same as when i saved it - neat. I use an old Imac sometimes for Fantom XR editing just cos its a very tiny screen on it and can be a strain to edit. So everything you hear from me is live unedited recordings that are not mastered at all. Yeah 16 channle mixing desk is next i think.

Menco wrote:
MPC:
MPC2500.With JJOS 3.09. If had some spare money I would buy a password, but for now I'm not really missing out however I would like to purchase it because I know JJOS1 or 2 allows me to work quicker and be more versatile. I use it as a sampler and sequencer.

Turntable to MPC
Through a vestax dj mixer-> 7band graphic equalizer-> mpc's rec inputs. I like to eq before I sample, placing samples roughly in the frequency range. Basslines are roughly drawn here before I feed them in one of my samplers.

Additional synths/samplers/vst's
I have the mpc midi'd up with a s950. I sample and chop with this sampler, and sequence it with the mpc. Just love the sound and the workflow. Really like the adsr, filter, and loop features.

Reason 4. As a soundmodlue midi'd up with the mpc. Sometimes I use it to make beats from scratch. A lot of time just to add some stuff. Problems with rewiring it and not liking the mpc/pc combo so a hardware soundmodule is on my wishlist.

Mixer,Speakers/monitors other outboard gear:
From my mpc's and s950's outs to phonic helixboard firewire 12, from there to a set of Edirol home studio monitors.

Post-production
I run everything through the helixboard 8 tracks simultaniously into Cubase LE. Have problems with rewiring reason with cubase (tryed any method I could find), so sometimes I do a mixdown on the mixingboard and record everything into a spare mpc.

Some things I record with EQ of the helixboard, but most FX are added in Cubase in the mixdown

BUMP.

Plus some changes after a few years.

I'd never expected this to happen, but I've starting to rely on software more and more.

MPC: still my main tool for chopping and sequencing. Ableton and Reason. Sometimes I still use it as my sampler. Also running the JJOS 1 now.

S950: only for resampling. I still love to work with this machine, but time has become more important for me last couple of years.

TT/DJ mixer/ Eq: still same setup, although I almost never use the Eq anymore. Prefer to edit my samples in my DAW.

Macbook Pro: I added this one to my setup recently. What a life saver this is. Working with Ableton a lot. I use the drumracks in mpc style. Still chop on the mpc though. Reason for extra sounds and Logic for the post production.

A 1K with jjos2xl is the core of my setup.

Everything's in the end routed into a mackie 1202vlz3 mixer, which goes to my audio interface for recording. (I do almost nothing on the computer, so I don't need to track stuff out in software and stuff)

My mpc goes into my RNC, which goes to the mixer. The mixer's aux send 1 goes to the RNC's sidechain input. So I tend to have, say, a kick and a snare on the mpc's assignable out 1 that has the aux send knob turned up, for sidechaining.

The mixer's mute/aux3-4 output goes into the input of my mpc. This way, any of my other equipment (more on that later) can be sampled into the MPC. I also tend to keep input thru turned on, that way I can get my other equipment compressed as well.
So anything I don't want compressed just goes into the mixer, without the channel mute on.


On to my other equipment:

I've got a KP3, which I haven't been using all that much recently, but normally do a lot for various fx. This just gets swapped around the setup with respect to what's going into it, I don't have a standard routing of it.
I have a digital polyphonic synth I made myself, and am still working on, based on an arduino microcontroller. I also have a normal MIDI keyboard that I'm pretty much using solely with this synth. MIDI keyboard goes into the mpc, which is set to do software MIDI thru to the arduino synth.
I have a Minibrute, which I love. Its output goes into the other mpc midi in (no software thru this time), and the other mpc midi out goes into the minibrute.
Then I have just a bunch of other random things: a mic, a monotron (lofi filter woot), this coron DS8 drum synth I made, random stuff. That gets hooked up whenever I feel like using it.

The way these tend to fit into my workflow is I'll have something patched up on the synths, controlled by a MIDI track on the mpc. Then I'll record stuff into audio tracks, afterwards muting the midi tracks, while still keeping them in case I want to go back and make some changes.
So, in the end, I mix and arrange everything out completely inside the mpc in sequences, then to record I just hit play in song mode. I'm trying to get out of this habit a bit, bring in some element of real-time tweaking into my songs, but right now I find it hard, because I'll have different parts of a song requiring different patches and routings of my 2 synths, which restricts me from having any actual real-time MIDI controlled sections of the track. That's why I tend to sample all my external stuff into audio tracks.



That's a summary of my setup, I guess.

MV8800, turntable and CD and DP01.

Just on the MV, I spend hours and hours tweaking and mutating sounds until I lay the drums. Whatever sprouts, I record on tape.

I like this set-up, its simple and gets down to the bone.