I have a tiny studio apartment and half of it is taken up by my music setup. Finally got to the point I can start working on making music with it now, and so been messing around with it today quite a bit already since early this morning.
Everything takes 2 computers to run. I have a windows Mini PC and a Mac Mini. I run a few pieces of software. I pass everything through Gig Performer on the Mac Mini, and all my audio is going over Dante, and I use Dante Virtual Sound Card as the main audio for Gig Performer, and I have Dante Virtual Soundcard on the windows mini PC which is taking the USB audio channels from my Yamaha MODX M8, Roland Juno-X, and Roland TR-8S and breaking them down to separate channels and pushing them over Dante.
I DJ as well and do twitch streaming, so my gear setup had to accomodate both and everything.
Gear:
Main Mixer: Allen & Heath Qu-5D
Midi Interface: iConnectivity mioXL
Hardware Synths:
Yamaha MODX M8
Roland Juno-X
Novation Bass Station II
Korg MultiPoly Module
Roland TR-8S
Novation Circuit Rhythms
Pioneer DJ DJS-1000
Pioneer DJ CDJ-3000 (I use it for vocal stems and such and it is synced with everything as well)
Software Synths:
Serum 2
Sylenth1
Vital
OsTIrus
Second Mixer: Presonus Studiolive series iii 24R with Presonus AVB-D16 dante bridge (It’s only purpose is taking analog signals and putting them on the dante network and using the outputs to feed channels into the Qu-5D’s analog inputs since it is a 32 channel mixer but only has 16 channels of dante built in)
Now all audio lives on Dante and is routed through Dante to arrive at Gig Pefomer.
The Hapax is plugged in via USB to the mac Mini, and I utilize all 16 USB Midi ports on it if necessary.
Basic effects such as compression and EQ are done on the Qu-5D, special effects are done in Gig Performer.
Everything is synced to the midi clock on the Hapax over Ableton Link. For the CDJ-3000, it is using Pro DJ Link and I am running beat link trigger to connect it to Ableton Link. Gig Performer sadly cannot receive midi clock and be on ableton link at the same time, so I had to come up with a fix. For that, I utilized OpenAI’s Codex to pretty much write me a midi to abelton link bridge app on MacOS that works very well and everything plays together nicely. I did try the midi clock to ableton link by Andyland, but it was being a nightmare to setup on MacOS Tahoe as my mac mini is an M4, so I decided my best bet was the path I chose.
Now I have everything setup the way I want, its time for me to start messing around with it all, learning my gear as I only got the Hapax and TR-8S a week ago, so still learning them.
I have my main desk where the Hapax and XDJ-AZ live, and I have 2 rack carts under it that I pull out when I am playing on my synth gear. It’s fun, and I enjoy it. And once I take the time to clean it up a little more, I’ll take full shots of everything. Just been chaotic, but I wanted to share what I have right now. And cramped spaces suck, let me tell you. I can’t wait, in a year or two, I’ll have a house, and then I can have a room dedicated to my setup, and I cannot wait for that.
I can’t wait to make amazing music with the Hapax and my hybrid Setup. It’s definitely been a road to get to the point where I am, and I am happy with all of my choices. My next want is to get an ASM Hydrasynth, but that can wait until I get comfortable with what I have now.