This.
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yeah I don’t see any need to “right size” my setup. unless I need to for space or financial reasons. I use what I want to when I want to. sometimes things go unused for months at a time. that’s fine. when I use 'em again, I still love 'em (or if not, they get sold). you don’t have to use everything all of the time.
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We bought LaserCubes Shop the LaserCube WiFi and LaserCube Pro for use by our Creative Computation students at the university where I work. Good solid 2.5W lasers, easy to use and integrates easily with MadMapper.
This is precisely how I’ve boxed up my stuff on the occasions I do. It helps tremendously.
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YES!!! I’ve had my eye on these for a bit!
Thanks for reminding me
Make sure to start with the purpose, rather than the gear, otherwise you can justify anything 
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Haha I’ll take the spicy moniker of “Gassy Hoarder” lol if that’s what my setup indicates, but I think it’s tough as a relative newcomer to electronic music (being focused on guitar, piano, voice for 15 years) and there’s a combination of needing to learn the components of setups broadly that can only really be done by trial and error in my experience, and unfortunately the most significant differentiators between HW options rarely emerge on paper the way they do in your hands, but the trade off is then having to manage the inertia of “okay so now I have these and not all of them are perfect for me, what to do” so, yeah 
Indeed, good advice! I realized I don’t like making drums, so I don’t need a dedicated drum machine, even with the affordable 60809 clones/emulations floating around. I’d much rather chop up some loops and be done with it. If I feel the need to program drums, I’ve got some grooveboxes that can pull double duty. Though I always have to remind myself of that after watching Rytm videos 
Looking at your setup, I see the aK is positioned to possibly be the setup’s controller as well, but aside from that what about the ak do you like so much better than the a4? I have an ak and I too love it, I’m just interested.
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It’s just the few extras.
The Joystick, the multiple outs, and a drive circuit that works both ways.
Plus it has a keyboard, and multi map, I wanted to integrate a keyboard into the mix without taking up too much space
First thing I did was getting rid of the laptop in my setup. Then got rid of the mixer: using my soundcard (MOTU UL Mk3) in stand alone mode was key to this.
Got rid of TR-8, Tanzmaus, Novation MiniNova, Deepmind 12, AS-1, Microfreak, Streichfett, Blofeld, Subharmonicon and DFAM. Also sold Mackie 1402VLZ, Midas Venice 160 and a MODEL1.
I then looked at fx pedals (Analog Drive, Doctor A and Specular Tempus) and decided to use my current boxes’ effects though I will not sell these 3 pedals. The reason for not using these at the moment is it seems to give my tracks more “consistency” using the on-board (DT, DN and OT) reverbs/delays overall. And the reason for not selling is I might send a Cue from OT to Doctor A and Specular Tempus to my MOTU. One day
In the end, I have been happily using and making music with the following setup:
OT as sampler/mangler/mixer/fx box
DT as drum computer
DN for leads, pads, basses, perc, Arp…
DB-01 for lead/bass
Hydrasynth (not sure I will keep it)
FMR RNC at the end of the line to glue it all.
MIDI controller: Kenton Freak Live
As it stands, this is a lot of gear to manage at the same time. Though the logic and workflow behind Elektron boxes being very identical, the muscle memory is less of a brain wreck.
I am really pondering the sale of my Hydrasynth though. Have a Perfourmer waiting to be delivered and will see then what goes or stays.
I could really do with just DN and DB-01 as “synths” plus OT and DT.
What I have learnt so far:
- I love physical mixers (analog) for their versatility and routings but I don’t need one.
- I am keeping my fx boxes/pedals
- Getting rid of the laptop was a game changer
- I like to use on-board sequencers (Elektron and DB-01)
- I HATE cables running all over the place
- Would love to buy again a MIDAS Venice mixer but as it stands, I have only one pair (L/R) going into my MOTU
- Not sure I need an analog poly
- Not attracted by Syntakt (yet) at all
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Wow — appreciate all this detail. Thank you so much for sharing! Out of curiosity, what about pulling the laptop was game changing for you?
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My setup centers around the digitakt and digitone. I also have a zoia, prophet rev2, and Korg prologue. I do also use hainbach’s gauss iPhone app as a field recorder for sampling. For my own music i don’t want to bring the big polys to shows so I only perform with the digis and zoia. My overall philosophy is to use the polysynths through the zoia for effects and then sample into the takt. I try to get the takt to have as much of the music as possible and really mangle the samples. I use the zoia to get either crazy reverbs, Lofi tape sounds, or glitchiness on my sounds as I’m recording them in. I’ll flesh out the rest of the track using the digitone.
I also have another project where I play with a friend. He plays bass and keys. I’ll usually sample some of his bass lines plus he has a Yamaha reface cp we use sometimes. We haven’t played live yet but we’re going to run his bass live through amplitube 5 on my MacBook Pro and also run his vocals through some vst effects. I’m debating bringing the prophet or the prologue to play live as well because I don’t do as many pattern changes and live tweaking on this project’s material so I may want to play some keys on some songs.
Helped a lot with options/choices paralysis.
With the laptop, there is always a latest fw update, a driver update, samples to sort out, a podcast to download… And the YT tutorials 
In the end my attention is now more focused on using the tools at disposal.
I did notice a big change.
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So you can use that interface without a computer? Does it basically become like a mixer, or is there other functionality? I’m curious, because I’ve never used an audio interface without a computer and lately I keep my computer powered off unless I’m recording into it.
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Yes
I use some of the on-board DSP
HPF@14kHz
LPF@30Hz
Little bit of compression
Main goes into a FMR RNC to glue it all.
The only way for the moment is to record to laptop (Reaper) but I am pondering the purchase of a Zomm F3.
Why that specific model exactly? Only stereo in, and while the 32 bit resolution is aces, it’s not really needed for direct in line recording.
I have a Zoom h6 and it’s really nice to have 6 separate tracks (with the add on that converts the stereo mic port into two line ins).
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I had an H4 until now, but have been using the F3 for the past couple of weeks. Form factor, user interface, sense of ruggedness, battery life, USB data transfer - about everything is simpler, more compact and appealing for me on the F3. Also, not having to worry about gain/clipping of the recording is nice. But I had been looking for a new, simple recorder anyway and do not need any integrated microphones.
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This.
And the fact that most of what I do is jamming, I would feel more comfortable recording to one of these rather than the hdd of my old MBP
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