RABid Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 I still have my M1 Air which I intended to sell after upgrading to a 16" MacBook Pro. The main reasons for the upgrade was the small screen (I've worn glasses for 60 years) and limited ports. Now I'm thinking this could make a great beatbox alternative. I've sold most of my Elektron gear and would love to have a computer replacement. So keeping with the limitations of a 500GB drive and 13" screen, what direction would you go to turn it into a beat box. With the "no external drive" rule products like NI Komplete are out. But do you have enough room for Machine and the Machine MK3 controller? Maybe a simple Live/Push system would be better, if it fits. FL Studio plus FL Keys as a controller? Or something I have not thought of. What would you consider with the Air and a single controller? 3 Quote This post edited for speling. My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberGene Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 Great question, following. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tusker Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 Robert, my first two thoughts are similar to yours: Maschine from NI and Live from Ableton. Either or both. I have dabbled with both on the software side: enough to have an unreliable Dunning-Kruger opinion. Ha ha. As a pure percussion instrument you would think Maschine and for everything else (Loops, Arranging, Mixing) Ableton right? Will watch with interest. It's a great idea. I have a spare Air (intel) gathering dust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RABid Posted April 9 Author Share Posted April 9 Been giving this a lot of thought. I've come up with 5 possibilities: Live, Maschine, FL, Akai MPC and Zenbeats. I could consider Live and Garage Band, but the iPad versions seem more "beatbox" than the computer versions. Two that I will knock out in the beginning... Ableton Live - Would work well, especially with push, but Live is limited to two installs. I already have a desktop and MacBookPro install, so the spare Air is out. Akai MPC - This would seem like a good choice but Akai limits installs of any virtual instruments or effects that you buy to three installs. This includes both hardware and computer installs. I already have a MPC Live 2, MPC One+ and MPC X. No installs left for software. Akai really needs to rethink this policy. That leaves... Machine FL Studio Zenbeats NI seems pretty relaxed about allowing a third install so I could put Machine on my spare Air. FL Studio has a very beatbox like approach. This is a real contender. Zenbeats seems very simple, but if you have Zenbeats you likely have a Roland Cloud subscription. The collection of TR drum machines plus TB-303, SH-01 and others is beatbox heaven. But, you could just as well load them into a dark horse in this race, Bitwig. Both Bitwig and Ableton Live make it easy to create patterns in some VST's and then drag either the MIDI information or an audio clip into the host. So now I am back to either Bitwig or Live as my primary choices. Edit: The Nektar Aruba (used to be Aura) works great with Bitwig. Bigwig is very good at providing scripts to make controllers work with their software. Quote This post edited for speling. My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tusker Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 Bitwig might work very well with your modular sentiments Robert. An expert sleepers (or MOTU) interface and you've got a unique hardware/software hybrid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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