Help W/studio Setup, pro tools/midisport 4x4/vs1880 Options

[edubs]

[B]I am a dj who wants to record my own music. I have a bunch of equiptment but I have no idea on how to hook everything up? please help.... My equiptment consists of: Mac G4 with dual processors/osx/pro tools/akais2000/rolandvs1880/rolandmc505/roland r70(drum machine)/other standard DJ equiptment.
I would like to somehow connect everything so I can produce my music and still have the functionality of mixing normally as a DJ.......Please help!

[hahaworld]

Hi, edubs! There are a gazillion ways to hook up your desktop studio these days, but there are a few across-the-board general guidelines. With all your external gear, you're going to need a midi interface so everything can communicate with your dual processor G4. Here is a link to the M-Audio Midisport, which is a nice midi interface:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MIDISport8x8/

You'll also need a sequencer program. This will allow all of your external gear that you've hooked up to the midi interface to communicate and make music in your G4. I'm not one of the guys who recommends anything Digidesign puts out, simply because I've had too many bad experiences with Digidesign. I've never gotten a lot of satisfaction out of the midi functions in ProTools, so I would recommend that you at least get Logic Express 7. I've been a Logic user for about 3 years now, and I'll never look back. It's awesome. If you can afford it, go for Logic Pro 7. There are other sequencer programs out there, too, but honestly, I've never used them. Here's a couple of links to Logic 7:

http://www.apple.com/logicpro/

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/LogicPro/

I hope this helps! If you have some more specific questions, don't hesitate to post!

Sincerely,
HaHaWorld

[rjscheller]

hey bud ... Yea your best bet is to get a motu midi timepiece for the midi... its the best midi interface still in my mind... hook up all the ins and outs from your gear to your midi interface and then go to the audio/midi setup in osx and name and set up your gear for CORE AUDIO/MIDI for mac. Then GO GET LOGIC PRO 7!!! Its the best way to go for midi sequencing, you should also have an audio interface for your cpu that can get the audio from your gear into the mac. Setting up the environment is kinda tricky in logic but there are sites with pre made "multi instruments" for your gear... this is so logic knows what the patch names and stuff your synths have so that you can just click on the name of the patch in logic and it will switch for you...