Introduction

I plug the USB cable of my DM48 into my Intel i7 First Generation 64 bit Quad Core 3.6 GHz CPU, 16 GB RAM desktop computer running under Windows 10 Professional for practicing playing, recording MIDI tracks, and editing.

My choice of Digital Audio Workshop (DAW) is Mixcraft 9 Pro Studio. My desktop computer has sufficient grunt, so I don’t need to use my Steinberg UR22 Audio Interface to reduce latency, but I do so anyway. Instead of my Steinberg I could use the Freeware loopBE Internal MIDI software device to reduce latency. Mixcraft 9 Pro Studio is a very user friendly DAW packed with many sophisticated features and it has a large range of virtual instruments. The purchase price of Mixcraft 9 Pro Studio is US $149. When I want to be mobile, I plug my DM48 into my Dell 64 bit laptop which runs under Windows 8. The DAW on my laptop is Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio which has the same functionality as Mixcraft 9 Pro Studio, but without the full bells and whistles at a much lower price of US $75.

I have purchased and now mainly play a range of SWAM instruments which provide full control over expression within Mixcraft 8 using a foot pedal or the top buttons on my DM48.

The foot pedal I use is a Behringer FCB1010 which has 10 foot buttons and 2 foot pedals. This MIDI foot controller is very robust and versatile, but is an absolute pain to programme using the foot buttons and a digital display which is limited to only three digits. I therefore use the Windows based FCB1010 MIDI Editor version 2.99.7 developed by Ed Dixon. I connect my foot pedal to my Steinberg UR22 Audio Interface.

For sound amplification I use a Beta Aivin BM6 mains and battery powered guitar amplifier/speaker.

Music DAW