Old/Noob set-up advice needed

[mrblast]

Firstly, apologies for asking what has probably been asked a thousand times before but I am struggling to find a solution to my production requirements online.

 

Apologies for length.

 

Background:

 

15 to 20 years ago I used to make sample-based hip hop beats.

 

Set-up at the time was:

 

Direct drive deck

Mixer

PC

Cool Edit Pro

Acid Pro

 

This suited me well. Cool edit Pro was brilliant for editing samples. Acid Pro was amazing for building tracks. Turntable and mixer was great for recording samples from vinyl into PC and for adding cuts.

 

What I found difficult was creating decent drums and was always looking for a more "hands-on" approach.

 

Anyway, life took over, I moved overseas and it all stopped but I'm looking to get back into production now.

 

Technology has changed a lot since then so I'm finding it a little difficult to discover the best set up.

 

Also, whilst I have some experience in production, it is all self-taught and I previously found software such as Cubase and logic very difficult to use.

 

What I want is:

 

Good DAW

Wav sampler/editor

Drum controller

Mixer

Direct Drive deck

A means of being able to play music digitally from the deck

 

DAW - I see ACID Pro 8 has been released and would be happy to use this again. However, I have concerns about its integration with the rest of my set up. So I would consider alternatives.

Wav sampler/editor - is there anything like cool edit pro these days? I know there is Adobe Audition but their sub-based model is bollocks.

Drum Controller - completely open on this although I like the look of NI Maschine mk 3

Mixer - Open on this also although it should be good for cuts. Traktor Kontrol z2 looks decent

Deck - Open also. Reloop 8000 mk 2 looks good as does Rane 12. Whatever I get, it needs to at least emulate the feel of a 12" turntable. Previously I also owned the Vestax VCI 300 mk2 but struggled to get used to the feel of the platters.

Means of digital playback from the deck - I'm struggling here. What I want to be able to do is map a track or sample to the deck, and play/scratch it so that it records directly into the DAW. Is this possible with something like Serato or Traktor? Or should I be looking at an alternative?

 

No real limits on budget so open to any suggestions.

 

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

 

 

MrB

Edited March 14, 2019 by Steve
Fixing formatting

[Steve]

Welcome to the forum man!

 

I can't answer your question - there's people here that can though - but I sorted out the formatting of your post. When you use the regular editor and you copy and paste, it also copies over the formatting as well.

[mrblast]

Thanks mate!

[Guest broke]

Mixer

PC

Cool Edit Pro

Acid Pro

That was my set up as well. I still use Cool Edit 2000 from time to time because it has certain features that Adobe Audition doesn't, features that I'm used to using in my workflow. But all those same features should be in a modern DAW anyway.

 

I switched from Acid Pro to Ableton, which is straightforward at first glance but also very powerful (and complicated if you want it to be). I use an Akai MPD midi controller that has 16 pads and a few sliders etc

 

When it comes to adding cuts etc, I use Serato to manipulate digital files. You can record the digital audio directly into Ableton from Serato or you can record in Serato itself. I use a Rane 62 mixer with Serato built in. You can map the outputs from the mixer to different channels in Ableton, which allows you to record several outputs at once (channel post EQ, pre EQ, master etc)

 

Or you could go the Maschine/Traktor/z2 route, a lot of people like that combination. And the functionality will be pretty much the same.

[mrblast]

^^^^^ useful feedback mate.

 

So, you're saying that you can have a beat playing one channel in Ableton and record cuts from Serato directly into another channel on Ableton? Basically emulating recording directly into Acid Pro with a deck and a mixer?

 

And you can also do this with Maschine/Traktor/Z2?

 

Is Ableton unique in this respect, or should all DAWs have this capability?

 

I'm so out of touch.......

Thanks again

[TBearOne8III]

welcome. I also used cool edit but found that i could not load it onto windows 10. lately i've been using Pro Tools First. its free and easily does everything your used to from cool edit and more. plus there are tons of tutorial videos on youtube. The Traktor Z2 is a solid mixer. I just got one a few months ago and there are a few other members on the site that will vouch for this mixer. you can record anything that is going thru the Z2 directly into traktor. from my experience, it keeps the levels fairly even and avoids clipping. output is a wav file. also, i havent noticed any digital glitches while recording thru traktor. i've had random glitches while recording thru the line in on the laptop and using Sound Forge or Audacity. I have not recorded in Pro Tools First yet. but even if i did, I would use the Z2 as a soundcard, it sounds so much better than the line in.

[DJ Rock Well]

If I was starting from scratch now, Ableton 100%.

[danswift]

As an Analogue man lost in a Digital world,for me it can get frustrating at the best of times.

 

Heres what I do when it comes to coping with modern day recording techniques cause no fucker is happy with just being given a TDK C-60 anymore..

 

Roland SP-404...check

 

Phat 1970's cassette deck donated by Flexinoodle...check.

 

Sony MiniDisc Recorder...check.

 

Press record.

 

Smash out track on 404.

 

Find someone you know who's laptop isn't completely fucked then smack them round the ear/back of the head/across their arse or whatever it needs to get your point across and tell em' to fucking upload it to Soundcloud pronto.

 

Done.

 

Put some Cypress Hill on or the grill on if you're feeling a bit hungry after all the hard work you've just done stealing other peoples music.

 

Roll a spliff.

 

Go down to the pub..

 

Repeat when necessary.

 

Welcome to DV Mr Blast it's good to have you here dude!

[mfsop]

Hi mrblast, do you have a maximum budget in mind?

 

There's a thread on turntables in 2018 here: http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=40477&hl=hanpin&do=findComment&comment=428399

Or this one: http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=37248&hl=hanpin&do=findComment&comment=384197

You can save a lot of money here if you don't need the features of the Reloop 8000 and buy used.

 

If you want to have a controller and you mainly use your stuff at home, the NI Maschine Mikro might be alright. There's different versions (MK1,2,...) but I don't know if there a big differences between 1 and 2. That way you can get the mixer you like best. But then you need a Traktor device. The NI Audio 8 has additional input, so this might save you an external sound card in turn. So yeah, each decision is opening another can of worms, so don't rush into it!

No idea about the recording in Acid but you might want to look at one of the newest versions because it's not very expensive.

 

 

Heres what I do when it comes to coping with modern day recording techniques cause no fucker is happy with just being given a TDK C-60 anymore..
...
Find someone you know who's laptop isn't completely fucked then smack them round the ear/back of the head/across their arse or whatever it needs to get your point across and tell em' to fucking upload it to Soundcloud pronto.

Wait, you don't own a computer!? So for each and everyone of your 3257 posts you hit some stranger with a laptop?

[Flexinoodle]

Mobile (Including hardware, less than the cost of Ableton Live)

Hardware - iPad (2nd hand, up until the latest pro, they are solid devices)

DAW - Beatmaker 3

Sample editor - Beatmaker 3

Drum Controller - Beatmaker 3 if you don't mind touch, MPD218

DVS - DJPP

 

Desktop

DAW - If you used Acid then Reaper, it copied Acid and Vegas, then went extreme power.

Sample editor - Wavosaur (Free)

Drum Controller - Take your pick, they are all pretty much the same other than MPC Touch and Maschine which come with software.

DVS - Again take your pick, Serato is favoured by HipHop guys, Traktor more for EDM and VDJ is actually the best out of all of them, but not so popular.

 

Deck and mixer, buy second hand off EBay, usual suspects, Vestax PDX/Technics 1200, AH Xone 02/Rane 56/ Ecler Hak

 

I have desktops and surfaces and MBPs, most of my music is made on an iPad Air2 now haha, always with me, its perfect.

[mrblast]

Loving the advice chaps.

 

I live in South Korea at the moment so buying used from Ebay is a bit tricky. My best best is to buy from amazon.com as they deliver here and allow prepayment of duties and taxes (which is a ballache to sort out yourself).

 

I don't really have a max budget as I'm treating myself and dropping MAD PAPES. First time around I started DJing with shitty BST direct drives and a Gemini mixer and downloaded cracked versions Cool Edit and Acid Pro so this time I thought I'd actually do it properly. It also means I can take out all my vinyl from storage in Manchester and get it shipped over here.

 

So, right now I'm thinking about going the way of Serato instead of Traktor, especially as I have some previous experience with Itch and found it simple to use:

 

2 x Reloop rp8000 mk2 or stanton str8-150

1 x Mixars duo mk2 / Rane 72 / DJM S9 - still trying to work out which is best for me. I haven't cut for years, and wasn't particularly good when I did, so maybe the Duo is best?

1 x drum controller - tbd but still fancy the Maschine mk3. Will keep doing more research on this though

Acid Pro 8 - will get this as it's pretty cheap. Will look at Reaper also.

Ableton Live - will download a demo of this

Wavosaur - never heard of this but ON IT

 

Has anyone used Ableton push 2? Just thinking it might be better to get this as a drum controller if I take to Ableton Live.

 

Thanks again

[mfsop]

How about buying from Japan? There was a point in time when every house hold had like 3.4 Vestax turntables or something like that. I'm surprised that you can't get turntables built in Asia easily but of course you know more about that stuff as you live there.

[virak]

How about buying from Japan? There was a point in time when every house hold had like 3.4 Vestax turntables or something like that. I'm surprised that you can't get turntables built in Asia easily but of course you know more about that stuff as you live there.

This. You can get a PDX dirt cheap on Yahoo Auctions with some patience.100V only, though.

[mrblast]

I dont really know about ordering from Japan but even ordering within Korea is difficult because websites are rarely in English.

 

I'd prefer to order new and current as well as I'll have no recourse if the equipment has any issues.

 

Appreciate the advice though.

 

Does anyone know any other equipment websites that will deliver to Korea and calculate and pay duties at the point of order?

 

Im just about to send BHphotovideo a message to see if they can sort me out with a deal....

[Jon]

Choosing a daw comes down to personal preference as most of them do the same things but with differentl layouts, but I'd highly recommend ableton live and a small midi controller with pads so you an drum in samples.

 

It's a daw and also very useful for audio editing too. There's also a lot of free info on YouTube for learning too.

 

As someone mentioned before it can be as simple as you want from having an instrumental on one track and recording scratch overdubs or samples from your decks on another track, to making full on professional music all in the software.

 

Like most daws it comes with all the stock plugins you'd need to make beats too.

 

In terms of pad controllers there's a lot of smaller ones for not much money that would work fine all the way up to ones that have all the bells and whistles like Push. All the features on controllers are in the software and can be used without owning a controller , and the various controllers on the market just offer different layouts to access/use some of those features, so it's all down to personal preference.

[Jon]

Just saw your comment on push 2.

 

I own one and use it every time I make beats. It's great! Very inituiative layout and speeds up my workflow a lot. It's not essential by any means - as I mentioned just now, all the features are available in the software without using it, it's just a really handy layout for controlling the software. If you made music on hardware like a mpc before it'll feel great- you can control all the stock plugins with the knobs so you can control eq, automate channel settings in real time etc and the scale mode for the pads is really useful for melodies.

 

I'd highly recommend it but I'd recommend learning the basics of the daw first so you understand it and then push will make you love it

 

 

Also if you're going with ableton I think go with push over mashine. Mashine has its own software etc and while it can be used as a plugin of sorts within ableton it feels a bit long winded that way in my opinion and is better as it's own stand alone daw.

[TBearOne8III]

Pad controllers are realatively cheap. I got an akai mpk mini a few years ago for $100. I thought that was going to get into production but it never worked out. I just dont have time to get in to it.

[virak]

I dont really know about ordering from Japan but even ordering within Korea is difficult because websites are rarely in English.

 

I'd prefer to order new and current as well as I'll have no recourse if the equipment has any issues.

 

Appreciate the advice though.

 

Does anyone know any other equipment websites that will deliver to Korea and calculate and pay duties at the point of order?

 

Im just about to send BHphotovideo a message to see if they can sort me out with a deal....

Can't you just use google translate and a proxy service like https://www.harum.io/pages/buy-from-korea# to order from within Korea?

Edited March 17, 2019 by virak

[williepee]

 

How about buying from Japan? There was a point in time when every house hold had like 3.4 Vestax turntables or something like that. I'm surprised that you can't get turntables built in Asia easily but of course you know more about that stuff as you live there.

This. You can get a PDX dirt cheap on Yahoo Auctions with some patience.100V only, though.

Converting the voltage on a pdx turntable is easy if you have a soldering iron....

[mrblast]

 

I dont really know about ordering from Japan but even ordering within Korea is difficult because websites are rarely in English.

 

I'd prefer to order new and current as well as I'll have no recourse if the equipment has any issues.

 

Appreciate the advice though.

 

Does anyone know any other equipment websites that will deliver to Korea and calculate and pay duties at the point of order?

 

Im just about to send BHphotovideo a message to see if they can sort me out with a deal....

Can't you just use google translate and a proxy service like https://www.harum.io/pages/buy-from-korea# to order from within Korea?

 

 

I can get through ordering from a website but if I need to speak to them afterwards it becomes very difficult.

 

Plus most of the time it is cheaper to buy from outside of Korea and have it delivered.

[virak]

 

 

How about buying from Japan? There was a point in time when every house hold had like 3.4 Vestax turntables or something like that. I'm surprised that you can't get turntables built in Asia easily but of course you know more about that stuff as you live there.

This. You can get a PDX dirt cheap on Yahoo Auctions with some patience.100V only, though.

Converting the voltage on a pdx turntable is easy if you have a soldering iron....

 

What?! They have dual windings?

[Flexinoodle]

If I was starting from scratch now, Ableton 100%.

 

 

Been giving Ableton another workout from you saying this, I can't believe how they never change, they nail the shit out of some stuff, and other stuff is so archaic it burns you to the ground!

How exactly have they gotten to a v10 and have no keyboard shortcut editor ?

How have they released the best specific hardware controller around (Borrowed it for a few days) that has next to no control over the arranger ?

I could easily live with the rest of their archaic shite when you balance it up against the pros of how good most of it is, but those two really burnt my ass.

[Guest petesasqwax]

I'm going to echo what others have said to some degree, so apologies for that. I started with Magix Music Maker and as soon as Acid came out I shifted over to that. I used it for years and years - until I pushed it to the point that it wasn't a question whether it would crash or not, it was just about whether it would corrupt the session file when it did... finally I moved to Ableton and haven't looked back. I wouldn't consider and other DAW for a second (but that's just my own perspective). There are incredible tutorials online (check out Thavius Beck's awesome course, for example) and it works with everything I've thrown at it: outboard effects, controllers, hardware synths. If you like Maschine it loads as a plugin for Live too although as Jon said Push is genuinely incredible.

 

As Flexi said: making music on mobile devices is incredibly powerful these days too. I've got a selection of relatively old iOS devices that I use with all kinds of apps and they can all connect to Ableton on my PC wirelessly using Ableton Link. I'm treating myself to an iPad Pro 10.5" next week which I'm picking up for £540 (256gb storage version) so am likely to dive headlong into connecting all my devices up in new ways imminently. My preferred standalone app is on Android and iOS - Caustic is genuinely the most impressive app I've ever encountered in terms of using one single thing for absolutely everything (samples, editing, effect processing, FM synthesis, virtual instruments). I'd recommend that to absolutely anyone who fancied using their phone for something more fun than social media (which is what I'm weaning myself off!)

[mrblast]

Thanks for all the additional comments chaps. I've gone for the following:

 

2 x Reloop p8000 mk2s

Maschine Mk3

Acid Pro 8

Serato Pro

 

I'm now just waiting for the Reloop Elite to be released and I'll get that too plus some new monitors.

 

Once I'm set up with the above and start remembering how to do everything, I'll have a look at Ableton due to all the glowing recommendations on here...

 

I've got a couple more questions, if someone doesn't mind helping out with. I've tried searching online but cant seem to find a conclusive answer and its scrambling my head a bit now:

 

My plan was to connect both the Maschine and the Elite into my laptop so that I can use them both with the DAW and Serato. I was then going to take the line out from the laptop and connect to speakers. I don't have the Elite yet but even just trying this set up with the Maschine doesn't seem to work as I get no sound. Instead I have to connect the speakers to the line out from the Maschine itself. This is ok but it means that should I want to play anything from my laptop (sound files or ultimately Serato when I get the Elite), I have to unplug the speakers from Maschine and plug into the laptop line out. Is there a way around this so that I can have one audio output? Do I need to get an audio interface or something?

 

Can I have beat playing in Acid Pro (or even in the Maschine software) and then record cuts using a sample/track from Serato from the deck into the Elite and then into the DAW as a separate channel? How?

 

 

Thanks again to everyone

 

mrB

[mrblast]

EDIT - Ive managed to get the maschine's audio playing through the laptop and out of the line out to the speakers now by changing the driver and device in the Maschine's audio interface settings.

 

But as a result it stops me playing any audio streams (Youtube/Spotify) on the laptop. I guess because I'm fucking around with the soundcard.

 

Any advice on a better set up?