New MicroX Owner - Need Your Opinion on a setup Please

[chudlord]

Hello, I just purchased a MicroX and will be purchasing a Korg KP3 and a Presonus Firebox. Additionally I want to run Live 7 on my laptop.

*Korg MicroX
*Korg KP3
*Presonus Firebox
*Ableton Live 7 on a Windows Vista Laptop (alienware-new with lots of juice)

My questions to you all is.

1. Do you think this is a good setup for making music but also having some live play fun? I'd mostly be making House/Deep House/Down tempo.

2. What would be the best way to connect these devices? How should I use the MIDI connections and analog for the best result?

Many thanks for your responses!!!

Regards,

Chud Lord

[BONES]

I don't know that the microX would make a very good controller, so I'd suggest investing in one. Two octaves is really not quite enough a lot of the time. Is there a reason you want a FireBox? If you are doing a lot of multi-channel recording, i.e. 6 or 8 channels at once, FireWire makes sense but USB 2.0 is actually faster [480Mb/sec vs 400Mb/sec], although you are less likely to achieve that. I'd suggest a MIDI controller with a built-in USB audio I/O device. I've had several [Edirol UA-20 and PCR-1, Line 6 UX2 and KB37] and I've always had decent performance from them in the studio and on stage. My current thing is the Line 6 KB37, which is a three octave controller with built-in USB audio and very flexible signal routing. I use that and my microX on stage and they complement each other very well. I saw another device in a shop last week that had two-and-a-half octaves. It was made for Arturia by someone else and it looked OK. Or you could get a Novation XioSynth, which has a great synth engine as well as an audio I/O device in it. In fact, if I was buying something today, the Xio would probably get my vote.