He does now maybe...but then he didn't... and to sample from records, yeah you need a turntable and a mixer...not much else.

The bottom line is that you have to find what works for you...whether it is expensive or cheap, software or hardware, old or new... it needs to be comfortable and not inhibit your workflow. Making music by yourself is hard...no matter what equipment you have.

Word, I never said making music on software is easier. Still it keeps surprising me how many artists prefer a instrument kind of hardware over clicking with a mouse in some software. There's an obvious reason for this and in my humble opinion you can hear the difference between something made in a software program and something made on a sampler. (edit: I think a device like the MV-8800 is probably the best mix between software and hardware so far, but I haven't tried every device yet. :p )

I do know there's a good bunch of people that use hardware in conjunction with software, but as for 9th Wonder he basically had no money at that time and his love for FL Studio has a lot to do with that too.

so.... i am fully aware of the differences between hardware and software (for anyone that doesn't know I used to run an all hardware setup - sequencer/multiple synths/sampler/drum machine/effects)...

...but does anyone have any advice for making the most of my current situation?

At the moment I'm custom building a midi interface in maxMSP to go between my controllers and Live so that I can assign midi functions to more complex commands etc, but it seems like yet another dead end in the search for soul.

You could always use what Rahzel uses-

yes, the MV-8000 and MV-8800 are the best mix between software and hardware, i have a mv-8000 long time with the LCD
(sometimes i see the right corner looking the clock...)
but the hands are into the pads and playing.

i like this.

Any max/msp user should buy a Monome.

http://monome.org/series/

money! I aint got none

yeah, those monomes are expen$ive

yeah man make the most of your sichiasiAshon. if ya don't have money getcha sum. if ya don't have gear, take ya sum or make ya sum. but really just learning to use what you have to it's fullest, i mean i started making beats on my ps2 'bout eight years ago. even now i will be using plastic bottles, a stick and a simple tape recorder i permanantly borrowed from someone who wasn't using it anymore (imean they can have it back if they want it), to make wild sounds. check out the blue man group; they're money and they use pvc pipes

Get a job...the 64 is $450. You can work at McDonalds (or similar crap joint) and get that cash in a month.

I wanna get my hands on this. Seems like a sweet software alternative to an SP. Haven't used it, but it seems like a solid program. BFD is also from fxpansion and it is an incredible drum module.


http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=4&tab=21

all I would say is u gotta change your mindstate I guess. Not that its easy. If I had to give up my SPs and EPS and go back to live and a controller I would probably go nuts. If I was in your situation id probably dig deep for simplest most basic software that I could find and use that. So its less mouseclicking and more playing.