Groovebox/sampler Vs Mac, Help with choice of groovebox or sampler Options

[elhean]

Is there anyone here who is using some sort of hardware groove box or sampler/sequencer with Mac, for live acts and music production?

Few models I have digged out spice up my imagination.. For example, little older but still good Yamaha SU700, but if combined with SCSI hard drive and additional RAM...

Then, Korg ElecTribe EMX 1, with even two tubes for vintage sound... New thing, sounds like it is easily combined with computer...

Boss or Roland SP 606, but with NO SUPPORT for Mac... s--t... Even SP 404 sound OK for starting point...

Any expiriences? Any owner advices? What should i look for when choosing stuff?

I'm little low on budget so up to 800 euros is TOP!

And I making some kind of ambient/deep/pop/chill/rock... He he... One more CyberGenre...

I'm using PowerBook g4 15" 1.67 with 1,5 gigs of ram, feeding it up with Ableton Live, Reason, Absynth etc...

[td3k]

If you are using Ableton, I think you will find a sampler redundant. You can far exceed the capabilities of your standard 'groovebox' type sampler with Ableton.

I used to use a Roland SP-808 sampler, and an MC-303 Groovebox. Once Ableton came along, my sampler quickly collected dust, so I promtly sold it while it still had some re-sell value left to it. I still have the MC-303.

I think you will get more mileage out of something like a Korg Electribe or a Roland MCx0x series box. They have built-in sounds and realtime filters etc., and you can trigger patterns on them from MIDI clips in Ableton while tweaking their filters in realtime etc.

Plus it's always way easier to program sequences in your computer than with the rediculous sequencer built into a Groovebox!

Just some thought from my experience with Grooveboxes and Ableton.

Hope that gives you some ideas.