What can I add to my setup? What are you using?

Myuugen

Hi all,

at first I am searching for something new to add to my setup.

My Setup currently:

• MacBook Pro M1 with Traktor and Maschine
• A&H XONE PX5
• XONE K2
• Maschine MK3

How I play:

XONE K2 is controlling 4 FX Units and Deck A & B in Traktor. Deck C is running my Maschine as Live Input. The PX5 as the Mixer ;)

So I wanted to add something to my setup. I thought about so many things, that I wanted to ask you if you have any ideas.

My Ideas so far:

• Buying a Drum Machine like Roland TR-8S / Digitakt and run it on the last Deck on the Mixer ( but I have the Maschine and do not think that this is really a good option or)
• Buying Pioneer RMX-1000, but unfortunately it is not working as an send and return on a PX5 ( known issue, you can only run the RMX on the master output which is not an option for me)
• Buying analog synth, but which one?
• Buying Komplete Kontrol Midi Keyboard as the M32 to use it with Maschine.

Any recommendations are welcome and maybe some of you have new ideas and other options for me.

Music: Techno

Stevan

It sounds like you are already all set. Maybe replace the mixer with Xone 96?

What mappings do you use for your K2?

JesterMgee

What kind of things are you feeling you miss? What is it you already do with this setup that you feel you lack something? Do you play live or just in your bedroom? Do you just DJ songs together, have you mastered the basics like beat matching (without auto lock), cut/fade mixing, key matching etc.

You are considering a drum machine, or a synth, or a sampler or a MIDI keyboard which are all way different options and workflows so seems you really don't know what you want and that kind of hints that you are more into playing around randomly instead of focusing on a certain skill or setup?

Nothing at all wrong with just playing around but usually once you have a setup and you have spent time learning your gear and setting a bit of a workflow you kind of should have a bit of a feeling of the next thing you feel you want to do. So you may be feeling you want more of a drum machine to program sequenced beats on the fly, or a hardware sampler to live sample and mangle things, or a MIDI/Synth keyboard to play basslines or progressions along with what you DJ.

As an example, I started DJing back in the 90s using tapes and CDs with a hand made DJ mixer, no beat matching or anything and using just household CD players because, well, poor teenager. I learned to calculate beats using the clock, wrote all this down for hundreds of songs and learned to beat match songs that had the same BPM on paper. I first knew I wanted a real mixer, then better CD players, then as digital files came about I wanted software driven system, then I wanted to incorporate scratching effects but I had no vinyl so I invested in a Numark CDX (which I still have and love to use). This was over 15 years of slowly learning one technique then progressing to the next, however I always knew exactly what the next step was until I eventually had a full setup with lights and controllers etc. Almost nothing I purchased was without thought and planning, right down to selecting each different lighting effect to cover what I wanted.

May pay to spend time really figuring out what you feel you want since adding something because you have money and think that would make things better is likely just going to be a distraction and eventually another piece of gear you add to the shelf. Many of us over the years actually start getting rid of gear because having too much to play with can be both a distraction and overwhelming or "guilty" you are not making use of that expensive purchase.