So, the planned upgrades didn't go as planned. Among other things, we adopted one of the dogs my wife rescued in January. Her name is Ronnie and she's amazing.
So...change 1. I haven't bought a new laptop. I've spent way too much on vet and medical bills over the last couple years to care, and I'm at least
months away from gigging if that even ever happens. So, I moved my hackintosh into a rack case so it wouldn't be an eye sore in my dork cave.
It's kind of funny how little space it takes up in that huge rack case, but the 4U cases make sense because they can use full size cards and ATX power supplies. Anyway, it's an i7 with 32 GB of ram, 128 GB of SSDs in a RAID0, and a 2TB hard drive for local media storage (with an 8TB usable NAS for backup & archives). It'll do just fine for my purposes.
Full setup:
The big upgrade is all the treatments from GiK Accoustics. I'm very very very very very pleased with them. They take up a lot of space, but both sets of speakers actually sound very decent in that room.
Still those same RP5 gen1s that were floor models in 2005. I guess I didn't frame it right. The hackintosh, my daily desktop (running linux), and my NAS are in a rack case off to the right. Daily driver uses the Klipsch Promedia 2.1s that I don't remember buying, and the hackintosh and DJ setup use the KRKs. The DJ table has casters on it, so it rolls out of the way, and the actual desk is the Ikea motorized sit-stand jobbie....which I have mostly for my trick back. It could use better cable management, but that actually takes planning and buying as opposed to just using things I threw together. The main computer monitor is a 40" 4K Seiki thing. The colors are a bit extreme, but it works well. I guess I could run the hackintosh into it as opposed to having an extra monitor sitting around, but...traktor would probably be fugly on that screen. And I remember OS X having issues running 4K. I got it to work before, but the video card that did it is in the other computer, and I don't feel like buying another one. I'm more likely to remove it and just use the smaller screen. I'm not coding professionally anymore, so I don't really have that much of a use for the huge screen except leaving things I want to get to eventually all over the place.
I forgot to take some pictures of the setup with my 1200s in place. But...I'm pretty sure I'm not using them. I did set them up as an experiment to see if I could still beatmatch without aides....which apparently I can. But, I just don't enjoy it the same way I used to. At this point, for me, turntables are 100% aesthetic unless I decide to start spinning vinyl again. But, that loses keylock...which IMHO is the killer feature of all of the digital systems. I thought about building the top of that table as a NY-style console (e.g.,
https://farm1.static.flickr.com/176/...6c10fe52_b.jpg), but to also fit the controllers I want would make it pretty big and a fairly complex build. Plus, it wouldn't look right without a 3rd turntable....which I also don't want to spend money on, since I would probably never use it.
That being said, I'm having trouble deciding to sell them. Looks like they'd go for around $400 each based on condition. But, if I sell them, I'll never own another one. I guess it's just a matter of whether I want to keep them "just in case" or let them go to someone who would actually cherish and use them. The later makes a lot more sense. And if it's just going to be aesthetic, there are other turntables that I think look better (especially compared to my beaten up mk2s).
Anyway, here's the fun part...
Putting the 2nd X1 on the right was an experiment that I don't like.
I have no
planned upgrades at the moment.
At some point, I'm going to build a real wood tabletop for that frame and actually do a good job of sinking the mixer in it. Eventually, I want decent meters. But, I'm still just using the record in level meter in traktor. Standalone meters that are good seems insanely expensive. And the one I have is worthless...it actually doesn't have an audio signal running to it right now, and it probably won't.
I can't seem to find my X1mk2 mappings. So, everything is mapped 100% stock. I don't like the quirks of the F1 in step sequencer mode, so I'm just using it the same way I used to. I'm probably going to go back to the extremely limited EQ thing at some point (one X1 will get dedicated HP filters and xone high-mid EQs on it's knobs, the other will be delay and reverb). But, I can't really arse myself to do it. The xone-filter effect can do all of those things, it's just a matter of more buttons.
I have flirted with the idea of going for XDJs. But....to get where I am now, 3 XDJ-1000mk2s and a DJS-1000 cost around $4800....which would also buy a pair of KH120s, a KH 805, and a MBP. And when I was last shopping for monitors, those KH120s were the most impressive things I demo'd short of a huge 3-way midfield system.
I've also thought about a pair of D2s. But....the fact that they require power and force you to use layers bugs me. I'd like screens so I don't have to look at the computer as much, but...I don't think they fit as well as the X1s and F1. I've learned my lesson with layers and would have to think
very hard about that. To do things the way that makes sense for me, I'd still have an X1 and an F1 on the other side....which seems a little ridiculous. And all it really
adds is the screen. Maybe it's worth it, but for how I want to work, they're essentially single-deck controllers.
And I still have that DDJ-SX. It still works just fine, and I can still mix on it. But, the layers are stupid. If I can find the traktor mapping I used to use with it, it would make a convenient rig to drag around for house parties.
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