Bergen's rapid setup evolution
Hey guys! First time posting my setup on here. I've been a lurker for years and dabbled in Traktor through out the years, but finally decided this year to really dive into mixing as a hobby. Moving to Berlin has been a big influence in that, so much happening here music wise, especially in techno and the deeper, heavier areas of house music.
I've always loved looking at people's setup, so I hope someone will enjoy looking at mine.
I wanted to get up and running fast with something that would teach me all the basic skills needed to be ready for any setup in the future, so I went with some monitors and an S4:
http://bjorgvinfridgeirsson.com/Setup-1.jpg
I setup in the beginning at my office, it was nice to be able to blast music as loud as I wanted in the evenings when no one was there. I used it without all aids in traktor, turned off phase meter, bpm, all such stuff, because inevitably I wanted to get some turntables, which I did a few weeks ago when a friend was selling a pair in nice condition! So I set them up at home with my S4 (limited space at the office for turntables):
http://bjorgvinfridgeirsson.com/Setup-2.jpg
Fantastic! Bought some timecode vinyls, ordered my first batch of real ones and off I went. Well, it didn't take me long to get annoyed by the whole S4/Turntable setup.... needing the computer on the desk to play anything at all. S4, you served me well, but let's get real here and find a proper mixer. Which I did last saturday...
http://bjorgvinfridgeirsson.com/Setup-3.jpg
Wooh! Now we're talking. Why the 4D you ask? Well, I wanted a traktor scratch certified mixer, because I hate unecessary cables and I didn't really want to shell out for a mixer, soundcard and an x1 anyways, so I felt the 4D was perfect. Soundcard, midi capabilities to control whatever I need in traktor, and I like the option of using the bpm clock in the future. Also, it has the same nice filters as the xone:92! I got it for a good price used, and for much less than I would have had to spend on a 92, soundcard and x1. Ideally I would have liked to buy the Rane MP2015, but that would have been madness at this point in my hobby.
Oh, and I also bought some new Ortofon systems. The needles in the ones that came with the turntables were giving me lousy output (and these look so much better. I'm a sucker for looks).
Next steps - buying stands for the speakers to get them to a proper height (I did raise them a bit from where they are on the pic but not enough), and maybe building a custom desk (would like to have it a little higher + a raised level for the laptop, which could also include some cable management. Oh, and some storage for my vinyls maybe...
That's it for now! Sorry about the rambling. Off to practice!
