Setup questions

Elektron Gear
1

I have an Analog Rytm MKII, a Digitakt, and an Analog Heat MKII. The AR and the AH are new, so I have a few questions:

  • Should I worry about stereo in a live sound context? I’ve never performed with drum machines in a live setup before, so I don’t know if I need to care about it, or if I should just go mono all the way.

  • What would be the best way to connect all these together? A Zoia and Digitone Keys are in the works as well, waiting for Labor Day here in the US to see if there are any sales. I have a Soundcraft MTK 12 mixer, I’m assuming the AH and Zoia would best go into the effects sends?

  • What cables should I get to connect all this craziness?

2

Maybe. What kind of venues do you anticipate playing in?

That depends on what role you anticipate each of the instruments playing in your setup. Will you be using one (Digitakt) to sequence the others and/or to be a master timing source?

Are you asking for recommendations for brands or do you literally not know what kinds of cables are used to connect instruments to mixers?

Just let us know and we will take you through it one step at a time.

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3

As for venues, I live in a city with no scene whatsoever. It’s probably going to be house parties, and to be honest it will probably be my own PA system.

My questions regarding setup and cables has less to do with lack of understanding, and more to do with the fact that there are so many ins and outs and combinations. What are the best practices? Could I legitimately run them all serial, line in to line out all the way through?

4

So it’s up to you whether you want to use mono for simplicity of PA, or stereo (especially if you will be making recordings for playback on stereo systems).

You could run all the gear in line, but that would vastly reduce the flexibility of your setup and would make gain-staging between each instrument a critical issue.

Since you have a mixer, I think most people would suggest using that to connect your gear. Here’s a starting suggestion for you to think about:

Connect the stereo main outputs of the AR and DT to the line inputs (1&2 and 3&4, respectively) of the mixer.

Reserve line inputs 5&6 for the stereo output of the DNK.

Depending on how you like to use the AH, you could:

  • feed it from the master stereo output of the mixer and send the output to your listening system,
    or (slightly more advanced)
  • feed it from the GRP 1&2 outputs and return it to line inputs (7&8) of the mixer.

(You could also use the GRP 1&2 outputs to send to your DT or AR for sampling.)

Reserve Aux sends 1&2 to send to the Zoia and a stereo line input (9&10) to return from the Zoia.

You could use line inputs 11&12 for playback from a recording device (like a computer) or a phone or other sound source.

These are just initial suggestions. Take your time, try one thing at a time so that you don’t get overwhelmed, and have fun.

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