Hardware Recommendations, USB or Firewire Audio Devices Options

[SpiralZ]

Ive been creating music for a few months now using Ableton Live 1.5, Reason 2.0 and an Oxygen 8 controller. Im using a G4/450 cube, which some of you may already know has no PCI slots so i cant add an audio card. So, I've been looking for a USB or Firewire device so that i can accept signals from my turntables and other devices as well as send a signal to my stereo receiver which accepts RCA connectors so that i can monitor on something that sounds better than my macs speakers.....
anyway... can anyone recommend any devices to solve this sort of thing? Ive looked at a couple of the eMagic boxes but im wondering if theres anything less expensive...

[rickenbacker]

Hey, charlieb.

Maybe you don't understand what Live does, but from the sound of it you don't need it at all. Live ONLY works with audio clips - no Midi whatsoever. That's why people put Live and Reason together, as they complement each other (but then so do Reason and Cubase). One handles the Midi; one handles the audio.

Anyway, Reason includes a 14-track sequencer. You can also have 2 sequencers running in Reason for even more tracks. So forget Live or anything else - everything you want to do can be accomplished within Reason. You don't have to link to any other programs, you don't have to leave the Reason environment - it's one of the main reasons (ahem) it's so popular. You can get practically a whole track completed in Reason and then - if you need to - export the Midi file as audio to SX or similar to add on vocals or guitars etc.

But from what you say, if you don't plan to add any audio and are happy with a Midi set-up for now, Reason is all the money you need to spend to make excellent-sounding music.

If you had Live, the only way you'd be able to use it is either to export your Reason tracks as audio files and then import them to Live. But what's the point? You can mix it all in Reason.

Or you could ReWire Reason to Live, have your Reason rhythms appearing in Live's mixer and then record audio directly alongside in Live. But you say you're not planning on doing this. And if you were, I'd still recommend Cubase SX (or SL). Live takes a lot more system resources than SX, is a little flakier and is not designed to multitrack, in my experience. It's more for remixers/live performers looking to throw ideas together and see what happens. Which is a lot of fun, but not what you seem to want to do.

As for keyboards, I like Edirol gear. I've not tried an Ozone, but I have an Oxygen 8 and it has a nice action. However, the PCR-50's keyboard has a much bigger range than either Ozone or Oxygen, and that's something which is always handy. M-Audio make the Radium to compete with the PCR-50. Really, I'd look at the Radium or the PCR-50. Yes, the Ozone has an audio interface built in so you can record your guitar solo on the train, but are you really going to do that? And is the quality really going to be better than a dedicated interface?

Right, that's enough info to take in for one morning. I'm off.