Unreallystic's Red Room

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Unreallystic’s Red Room

It’s still a work in progress.
I do a bit of everything, some better than others. Started out as a rapper, got sick of waiting for beats, got into production, wanted to be able to scratch and started getting into DJing, though admittedly I’m really just performance and am not ready to pop my internet cherry. with such a range of interest, my setup is pretty piecemeal as I’ve changed focus over and over again. All my relocating made me switch to smaller gear, and I recently stopped using Propellerhead Reason as my main DAW and switched to Ableton 9 Live. Theme is ‘red’ obviously - no affiliation.

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Desk in typical production mode. Customized Ableton Push because the all black was tiring after the first day.

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When I fire up reason to rewire or for comfort (been using it for over a decade…like Ableton more already, but something to be said for ‘home’. KMI QuNeo & QuNexus.

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Been working on various finger drumming routines, but its low on the priority scale. The MIDIFighter series I use in both Reason and Traktor. Never tried them in Ableton. right now my go to setup for them involves two kongs and a thor (sometimes maelstrom), with the knobs allowing me to change settings on thor…which is run to one of the Kongs.

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DJ setup. Traktor S2, F1, Twister, MF3D, Numark Orbit for actual DJ gigs. I’ve been apprenticing under a local DJ, and was able to find one of these so cheap I had to jump at the chance at a wireless controller. Not going to drum anything on it, but for things like weddings or moments where you may want to move away from the decks, its like a safety blanket.

I don’t know if I can use a Launchpad for a remix deck to show all 64 pads if you will, that’s my next interest…possibly replacing the F1 with that. Was also eyeballing the D2, but even on sale I can’t justify the cost just for stems when if performing for a wedding or something I’ll never get to use stems, and if doing a performance routine, I’ll be doing more with the remix decks.

On the side I’m actually working on an art piece to go on the right hand side - a mpc1000 (my first piece of real equipment) wall decoration. I’ll update when I finish it.

And yes, I will paint the room red, waiting to sell the eBay stuff that’s flooding the rest of the room, and get some money back in the bank (son’s almost to kindergarten…counting down)
-Unreall

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Very nice, I do like the red. What monitors are you using? And what are they sitting on?

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Thanks, they are M-Audio AV-40s, I just took the cover off and painted them red. I like black actually more than the next guy, but when all the gear is black it just lacks that personality ya know? As for what they are sitting on
:laughing:
trash cans…

It has actually been trial and error, I was going to build stands, but cost and time are a factor, then I was going to just buy some stands, but they were all overpriced or fugly frankly, and being in Raleigh, the closest Ikea is 3+ hours away, so going inbetween the two didn’t work. I tried to find different things that might work, especially since I’m tall and wanted them close to the same plane as my ears, and kept striking out. Was at Walmart and randomly saw these black trash cans with a clear ring aroudn the top. Idea struck but was concerned about ‘rattle’. Went ahead and bought them and kept the reciept incase they did rattle. cranked it and there was none. I still plan on adding some dampening at the bottom anyways, and increasing the dampening under the monitors (just using the pads they came with right now), but its of little concern ‘at the moment’.

But yeah trash cans…

  • Unreall
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Haha my set up pretty much all black and can be a bit depressing at times lol. Thats cool about the cans, I myself was looking for makeshift stands for awhile until I said screw it and bought monitor stands from GC, they were having there year around clearance so I got them for a good price. But I was thinking about decking them out with some color and randoms that are more me.:smiley:

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Yeah, I bought my Push and when I sat down with it, I was caught off guard by how ‘dark’ it was as the finish isn’t shiny or anything, it was very matte, and that made me look at all the other gear I had and realize “Damn, short of my Spectra, everything I got is black”. My fav color is purple, but it just doesn’t feel like a good color for equipment - without some details added like a second and third color, maybe some designs, so I went with my color of the moment - red. took gear apart, and painted with a high gloss red. Felt sooooo much better after that.

Spray painting is easy for adding color, so if you are thinking of doing it to your digs, go for it man!

  • Unreall
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I do like that white Spectra. :wink:

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Yeah I’m not a huge fan of the Push’s finish, the flat black shows dirt and finger prints like no one’s business. Purple is my fav to but would not look good. I was thinking something around Graffiti or abstract art. :slight_smile:

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It just sucks taking the Push apart because of how many friggin screws there are. There is the plastic plate, then there is the metal plate, then there is the main PCB, then there is the PCB for the LCD screen, then the encoders are all affixed with nuts ‘on TOP’. then after all of that, because there are so many pads, and they are THICK, each pad is like 3/4" thick. its a pain in the butt to just get them BACK through the appropriate hole. It’s not impossible, but with out guidance there was a lot more trial and error than I thought there would be. The hardest though was the speakers - its a giant magnet, so it was real easy for the internal screws to ‘find a new home’, and awkward to get them off.

  • Unreall
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fill the cans with expanding foam from home depot

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GOOD IDEA! 7 bucks for a can from Home Depot. Make sure you get the BIG Gap filler.

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I’ll look into it, going there this week to get some stuff for yard work - can’t hurt (and even if it does, the trash cans were cheap (+1).

I can’t lie though, the more time I spend in there, my priorities are shifting a bit on what I want to do next. I REALLY am wanting a second set of stronger drivers w/ sub, along with a mixer specifically to tie all the drivers together. If possible I’d like to add my old speaker system to the mix also. I do ‘most’ of my music work at ‘work’, during lunch I pull out the Push and my laptop and have at it - with ear-buds so I dont’ stand out ‘too much’. Then when I’m not at work but remote, I’m using my real headphones, then when I come home and test stuff out with my drivers I’m getting a third really completely different sound profile. Mixing has become a NIGHTMARE - never mix in the headphones, but I have to do my production work through headphones. I still have a couple more months before I can make my big sweeping computer upgrade, but if anyone has any driver recommendations - I’m all ears (active with great low-end or sub) as well as mixer for putting them all together (cheap but good quality).

Price is finally coming down a little on the large ultra-wide monitors too, so I’m forgoing a PS4 this holidays for one of those and a wireless mouse (the Push can do everything in Ableton, but somethings take too much work to just ‘get’ to…or modify, like filters. My computer is on the left on a second desk for typing in save names and the such, but a mouse for navigation and automation just seems worth the expense).

  • Unreall
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What USB cables have you got there?

I like lights…

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Purple one is ‘meh’, the LED wel lthe white light portion, is so strong, that the purple is barely noticable and almost seems like another shade of blue until you compare them.

Before I had the Push and had a little more equipment, all plugged up at once at all times heh, I wanted to color code my wires, did the LED ones for the MIDI Fighters. Production USB cables were all red, DJ stuff was typically black with the exception of the MIDI Fighter stuff.

I haven’t had any issues with the cables with LEDs in them so far. TBH I wish I had a cable that was lit ‘all the way’, instead of just the connector. Not a bright glow, but something to make it more obvious in the dark.

  • Unreall