My Portable Setup

Here it is, folks. Pictures of my wunnerful portable setup. (not including the bag, which I forgot to photograph)




MPC plays central roll in sequencing, I do about 3/4 or more of my sequencing entirely on the MPC, routing MIDI and audio into my 17" HP laptop through a MIDISport Uno 1x1 interface and an Echo indigo io ASIO soundcard and into Cubase. Got my little optical laptop mouse and my zodiac in the picture as well. I do another few beats on the zodiac using Bhajis Loops software (www.chocopoolp.com), syncing my beats into mixed wavs or individual tracks for further mixing in Cubase. My MPC, plenty of VSTis, Reason and my entire sample collection and sample generation/editing software all in one backpack. Badass.

The hardest part in selecting a bag was finding a backpack that would actually fit a 17" screen monster. Most I saw advertised actually didn't fit it, or they looked like crap. Crumpler (www.crumplerusa.com) makes some nice bags, so I grabbed one of theirs once I had some more money after the laptop purchase hehe. Buy in sections. The soundcard and MIDI interface are the new additions and I'm basically set!

Lemme know what you think, if you've got questions, etc.

Peace!
-tank.

i have the same setup except for the mpc1000. basically, that is all you need.

what kind of music do you do...? i stay out in woodbridge. you must got that jumpoff mouse if you're able to use that on the bed.

dont you need a 1 to 2 octave keyboard with velocity sensitivity??

How bout a picture of the bag?
How much did it cost?

i got me one of these to tote around.

is that a homemade battery pack???

_cc:
I do mostly hip-hop related music myself, am trying to start promoting my services pretty soon. I also do real experimental shit, I'm bout to do this collaboration with a few local guitarists and an ambient/breakbeat producer I know over the Internet. Trying to do the whole full-on producer thing, making beats but also doing double duty as engineer, songwriter and collaborator with any and all acts I might work with.

Yeah this optical mouse is pretty sweet, I never had one at home before, thinking of replacing my desktop mouse with one at some point.

ikke:
I don't need a keyboard on the go, since I'm not a keyboardist anyway. Besides, what's 1 or 2 octaves? I might as well just be using a properly set up keyboard-emulation MPC program like Stereoroid has on his site, and I do. Works fine for playing simple chords and notes, and as I said, I like sequencing my software in the MPC's internal sequencer anyway. I either record MIDI to individual tracks in Cubase after I'm done or save the whole deal to CF card and reopen the .mid in Cubase (often the easier route, less configuration hassle) The MPC IS velocity sensitive, by the way, and has aftertouch to boot. The only thing it doesn't have is actual keys.

FromthePan:
Can take a picture of the bag, it's a puke-green, black and cream deal from www.crumplerusa.com , the Team Player. They've got pics there, so check that out, if you still want pics I can get em. I've spilled shit on it and dragged it around everywhere, it'd holding up nice. Love the pads on the back and the ergonomic straps. It's not cheap, though. Like a hunnert and 20 or something.

descry:
Good goin with the RC car battery pack, I used one myself for my old ES-1. Sold it on eBay with the battery pack and didn't lose too much money! Hehe. Nice simple mod to make, just wish I had made some kinda case to cary it in or a proper frame for the pack. I always just packing taped it to the back of the sampler. Looks like you're using similar connectors to what I used! How long's the battery last? My ES-1 could run like 6 or 7 hours straight, no problem.

Just figured I should let anyone know who's interested in picking up a similar combo of laptop/soundcard, etc.

There are a lot of reports on forums of the Echo Indigo cards not working with some people's laptops and working beautiful with others.

Well out of the box I was getting mixed results with the Indigo. It worked beautiful sometimes (though it had a high noise level when the volume was cranked) and other times I'd get nothing but weird digital noise, like samples playing back at fractional rates.

I contacted Echo support (and got through immediately) after finding no links to a supposed "Echo ENE tweak utility" I'd seen mentioned on some of these forums. I also emailed them over the weekend. I got replies VERY quickly via email (early this morning) and phone. (noon, which is 9am PST, which is when they open) Both of them emailed me a link to this utility, with clear instructions on how it works.

Before installing this utility, verify that you do indeed have an ENE chipset. This can be found out by checking the name of the device in your Device Manager (right click My Computer, Properties, Hardware tab) on Windows. (I fink the ENE chips are only for Win notebooks anyway) If it says something like ENE 4790, get this util.

The utility installs a replacement driver for the ENE cardbus controller. The existing driver (which HP has no updates for, and which is not available through www.ene.com.tw, the Taiwanese manufacturer's website) has no facility for changing settings of the controller. The Echo replacement does. Run the tweak utility again and it will allow you to modify these settings or if need be, uninstall the replacement driver. To make the Indigo rock solid on the HP zd7000, uncheck both properties.

Tada, no more twubbles with the soundcard.

Perfection. Gotta love it! (well alright maybe not, but it's close!)

-tank.