davemex's Simplified S8 Setup

[ian3dge]

by the way I wasnt hating at all, each to their own. i love house music as much as the next person but i like to drop the odd indie classic amongst all sorts of other stuff, funk, oldskool, rare groove, even steve reich, basically all sorts of stuff that cant be beatgridded. if every tune your ever gonna play out can be beatgridded then this thing is amazing, for the rest of us maybe not so. anyway nice setup

[Davemex]

That makes a lot of sense then. Like I said, it's actually not as bad as you'd think using the touch strip. I still wish it was rotated 90 degrees but it can get the job done. It's no replacement for having a platter though! If you like to drop those old school tracks, I'd keep the platters close

[mostapha]

The S8 works as a scratch interface and comes with traktor scratch pro, so you just need to add turntables, buy control vinyl, and plug them in to have 12" motorized platters and pitch faders.

Considering that, having the controls on the unit would waste space and make it even bigger.

[Davemex]

The S8 works as a scratch interface and comes with traktor scratch pro, so you just need to add turntables, buy control vinyl, and plug them in to have 12" motorized platters and pitch faders.

Considering that, having the controls on the unit would waste space and make it even bigger.

True. I honestly think that was a better route for them to take to let people pick their own platter device instead of half-assing a built in platter. If you care that much about scratching or manual beat matching, you've likely already got turntables or CDJs. That means it's literally a $20 upgrade (the cost of the Scratch vinyls) to have a plug and play Scratch Pro setup.

[mostapha]

Exactly.

That kind of setup would be huge and likely not appeal to full-on turntablists, but that's not what it's built for....it's like 4 times the size of a good scratch mixer.

There are only 2 reasons I don't own one. First, the control setup lends itself to 2 track decks + 2 remix decks, and I don't know what I'd do with 2 remix decks. Second, it came out right about the time I had the money and inclination to try an old-fashioned rotary mixer. If either of those weren't true (or if I weren't enjoying my 2016 as much as I am), I would have returned/sold the mixer and bought one. It's an absolutely brilliant device.

There's also the fact that it seems like tempo control works the same way as the X1, which means you can probably make big tempo jumps by setting your software pitch fader appropriately and using sync + push&turn the deck encoder.

[Davemex]

Well I finally found a stand for this beast! This stand: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/RS9050 combined with an equipment shelf and an Odyssey laptop stand made for the perfect all-in-one setup. It now lives behind the couch in my basement theater so I can use the real speakers and not the tiny office ones. I'd highly recommend that mixer stand if anyone needs something for the S8.

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[mostapha]

That looks really awesome. I might try to hide some cables. Also, how tall is it?

What's the sound setup like?

[Davemex]

It's about 30" high. For me (I'm 6'3") the lowest buttons on the S8 are right at where my hands idle when standing. I wouldn't want to go any lower though. Yeah the last step will be cable management. The real puzzler is how I'm going to get an RCA cable from the middle of the room to the equipment closet. I'm considering wireless options but worry about sound fidelity loss.

[mostapha]

Personally, I'd worry about running an RCA that far. But, I live in a noisy area. 8 or 10 feet into an amplifier is about the longest I can get away with before the radio becomes audible.

[Hi Im Shy]

How do you like the Microsoft Surface Pro 3. I've never even thought about using one and it's about time to retire my ancient 2007 MacBook. It looks incredibly slick and compact!