Somebody help me! (starting over)

Hello all,

My first post is a long cry for help. I'm getting back into music production after a two year hiatus and I need some help sorting through the plethora of machines out there to find what exactly I need/want. Admittedly, I am pretty naive when comes to some of this stuff, though not entirely clueless as I worked closely with various machines for a good 3 years. But I sold everything except my drums and keyboard; so, it's basically synths, controllers, sequencers, samplers, that I'm looking into again.

I'm running a Powerbook g4 OSX 10.3.9 (planning a Tiger upgrade), with 1G DDR, and am pretty sold on Firewire 1814/Pro Tools M powered for recording, because back in the day I used the Digi 001, and liked it very much (so unless there's something I need to know, about Mac compatability or something, please don't confuse me on this decision!).

One of the key deciders for me right now is portability. I have this mammoth 88-weighted key Yamaha s80 that, since I'm no piano virtuoso, I'm willing to part with/trade for one or two compact synth/controllers.

Now, I'm aware that there are a number of machines that combine synth/controller/sequencer/sampling capabilities, and, while awesomely convenient, i would be just a satisfied with 2 or three smaller, more focused machines.

Oh, and this is basically just a bedroom/home studio/songwriting style set up, nothing too extravagant, considering live capabilities as well. Both Audio and MIDI equally. I would really like some advice as far as streamlining- meaning, I don't want to waste a bunch of money on machines whose capabilities overlap (i.e. controller/synth, sequencer/sampler, synth, sampler, etc.). One of each, or some reasonable combination(s) of the four would be nicest.

Ok ok, so here's what I've been considering along with the Firewire/Pro Tools combo:

First, it was the MPC1000. I was really excited by this thing. Then I read in the user reviews that its sequencer left much to be desired. Then I remembered how much I needed/wanted something that could be battery powered so,

Now I'm nearly sold on the Roland SP-404. It's a little sucky that the keys aren't touch sensitive, but I think I can manage. How are the sequencing capabilities on this thing? I don't think I need much, but I'm used to the old Yamaha RM1x, which I know is not a sampler, but which was pretty darn decent as far as sequencers go.

Oh, also the Korg es1 mkII and the boss 505, neither of which run on batteries. So yeah, the 404 looks the best so far.

Ok so that covers sampling, maybe (hardware) sequencing too. Remember I'm selling this massive s80 synth/controller- now I the need (hardware) synth/controller/audio interface thing. I'm looking at the Ozonic and the Novation 25, as well as the korg microX (a bit pricey and i can't really find any info/reviews about it). Ozonic is obviously sweet b/c of the firewire, but I don't really like how it's empty as far as sounds, unlike the Novation which has an analog modelling synth built in. This is probably a pretty dumb question but- the Ozonic get sounds from Ableton that comes with it, whereas the Novation is more hardware based---right?? If so, I would probably choose the latter. (USB is not THAT slow, is it?) Another dumb question: since they seem to have REC buttons, am I to assume that these machines have recording/sequencing/sampling capabilities? Or are they just audio/midi interface/effects processors and that's it? Actually, I'm kind of clueless as to what in fact "controllers" are/capable of, as I never really used the s80 for anything other than a keyboard/synth. But they seem perfect, especially the audio/midi combo variety, for streamlining and bringing everything together, as also for effects.

Whew, ok I think that's all for now. Basically, my ideal would be to be able to make/record songs/sounds independant of my computer (portability), but then be able to hook everything up together smoothly in my little studio as well. And not spend money on overlap/superfluous features.

I hope someone can help me with this, and I thank whoever you are in advance. Sorry about the long post. It won't happen again. Have a nice day.

In short, a "controller" is only the "control" portion of a synth, and not the "sound module". Controllers can be as basic as just a sound-less keyboard to having additional sliders and knobs to work as a control surface for programming synths or control a software sequencer. So if you buy a controller, you must also buy some type of synth to make the actual sounds.

The Firewire interface you mentioned should have your audio inputs, so it wouldn't be necessary to have a controller which also has audio inputs.

In having the "REC" button, this only means that they can be configure to control a software sequencer such as Live, Reason, Cubase, etc.

The obvious benefit of a controller over a full synth is that they frequently have numerous controls to work with soft synths and sequencer, and since there is no internal sound, they never get dated sounds....you can always upgrade sound modules. Additionally, unless you are an octopuss, you can't physically play more than two devices at once, so having say six synths with full keyboards is much more cumbersome than having two controllers attached to six sound modules.

Awesome. Thanks dude. That helps a lot. Now... how about more on the pros and cons of these machines?! thanks everyone.

meno-el