Reply to Brand New Studio/Rig/Setup

Hi everyone.

I have been off the community for about 6 months thanks to a sudden, involuntary loss of all of my music kit and DJ stuff. I moved cities for work over the Christmas period but due to catastrophic flooding cutting off the route between my old city and my new home, the moving company couldn't transport the container of my belongings.

So they left it sitting in their storage yard, which was about 50 metres from another waterway which proceeded to flood thanks to another bout of 30 year flooding.

So basically in January, I lost almost everything I owned including keyboards, controllers, mixers, computers, etc. Here's a picture of the previous setup.



Now at the end of May I have finally finished the warranty process with the transport company and am about to receive a payout from them, and will be dropping a tidy bundle on new kit.

I have been researching this pretty heavily for a few months because it's not too often you get handed a bunch of cash. Plus, I am working on tune production with a friend and he has some kit as well which will be going into my spare room (soon to be called "the studio"). I rent an apartment, so I will also be doing some acoustic treatments (which will NOT be 'installed' as my landlord won't even let me hang pictures, let alone bass traps).

I thought I'd start a thread and document the process and ask some questions about some things I'm not familar with, as well as share some expertise I do have through 10-15 years of music and event production.

Yes, this is kind of bloggy but I figure some people here will be interested and I can ask/answer questions about the logistics of this whole sh'bang.


Gear Shopping List

There are two rigs to be put together: Production Rig & DJing Rig. And then there's some general studio kit, and the stuff we already have.

Production Rig

• Apple Mac Mini (2.66GHz Intel Core 2Duo/8GB/320GB)
• 2 x 24" LCD Widescreen Monitor
• Logic Pro
• Nexus & Vanguard
• Keyboard w/Numeric Keypad & Magic Touchpad

DJing Rig

• MacBook 13" (2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo/4GB/500GB)
• NI Kontrol X1
• NI Traktor Pro
• Pioneer DJM-800

Studio Kit

• 2 x Yamaha HS 80M Monitor
• Mackie Big Knob

Existing Kit

• 2 x Edirol Speaker
• Access Virus Indigo v2
• Novation Nio 2|4 Audio Interface (for DJ rig)
• Moto 828 mk2 Audio Interface (for production rig)
• M-Audio 49 Controller Keyboard

QUESTION : Is it possible to run my Traktor library off a laptop's 5400rpm internal hard disk? I used to used Ableton to DJ with but because it streamed off the drive, it wouldn't run properly off the internal without glitching.

Anyways, that's the first post. Next post is going to be about the room itself, and what we've got to do about the sound in it.