Albyn Utero

I disagree on the “10 years in today’s economy” comment. Audio Kontrol 1 had 10 years support. The first Presonus FireBox has 10 years as well, the MOTU and several other audio devices have that similar lifespan. Being accepting of these things as consumers will only make companies push harder towards short support timeframes. It was 10 years, now is 6 next your brand new MCX8000 will stop getting support in 2017-2018. It’s not about money either, I would gladly would have paid $1000 for the S4 MK1 if they had assured a 10 year support.

But whatever, fool me once… I dont dig companies going head over heels pushing products recklessly to make a buck while creating boatloads of junk for landfills. As a business student this will be something people will be getting more aware in the future. Just like you mention, 15 years ago getting into DJing was expensive but those who invested then (and take care of their stuff) still have their Technics and old mixers. The trend will change into sustainable quality (althou more expensive) over cheap churned products. Eurorack is a good example of this where they have very expensive modules but they will last forever, no drivers to cut off.

Thanks for your replies. Investigating further, seems like even class compliant stuff dont mean it will be supported indefinitely. A device like Maschine can be class compliant and still need additional drivers for example to support what is displayed on it’s screens meaning it can still be killed off by manufacturer.

Microsoft has been active into making Windows a viable source for musicians and have worked to get better support for ASIO and WASAPI drivers as well as bettering latency issues. I think Microsoft had some talks about this I think at Musicmesse…? I think this will get better as companies like Razer and pcaudiolabs.com are backing this by manufacturing Windows laptops intended for production/DJ purposes. However, Windows is still Windows so having another partition customized for dj/production is ideal.

As for solutions in the Macbook case for having support for legacy equipment, you could do a partition with the compatible OSX version and customize it to never connect to the internet, a DJ/Production partition, and make some security copies of it physicall and in cloud. I wouldnt go as far as a Virtual Machine since it would add latency and other issues on the OS not interacting directly with I/Os but certainly is a solution.

An interesting note is that the Traktor S4 MK1 is still supported on the latest version of Windows, in this case 10, contrary to the latest version of macOS, in this case Sierra.

For me, these recent trends from both the biggest OS makers will play a HUGE part in making future decisions on what computer to get. It’s obvious that Apple, being a hardware company, will pursue a more aggressive planned and perceived obsolesce in order to sell more devices contrary to MS which is mainly a software company. I will be testing my stuff in Windows to see how it performs and if everything goes ok, I will be going off the Apple ecosystem for good. Buying underpowered, unrepairable, unupgradeable hardware with a short support timeframe is something I dont particularly condone. Even more, how much does an Apple product last? ” “How does Apple conduct its Product Greenhouse Gas Life Cycle Assessment?,” Apple notes that after years of study it assumes the lifespan of a OS X or tvOS device (i.e. an iMac, MacBook or Apple TV) is roughly four years, while an iOS or watchOS device (an iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch) is three years.”

Now adhering back to subject, DJ-wise for Traktor Im not sure since I havent dealt with external mixing but maybe getting the absolute best mixer you can get to mix externally and just upgrade soundcards down the line? Maybe a great midi mappable mixer would work as well if mixing internally? It would be more cost effective and easier than also having to get rid of a $1k+ controller in 5 years, a $200 a year thing. I wouldn’t settle with a controller/stand alone mixer and rather invest in a real stand alone analog thing like a Model1.

Production is more forgiving… is just about having everything that makes sounds to be hardware based and just use a good audio interface and a DAW like Ableton. I think I would be going this route since production stuff is cheaper nowadays and you can get good beefy analog hardware for cheaper like the DrumBrute, Minilogue, used Moog, Euroracks etc. Even software like Reaktor which now has Eurorack support so following Richie Hawtin principle on taking digital signals thru Analog to add warmth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aan_g8G2k3s) sound like a good idea… It is completely feasible to keep old computers for production purposes like artist Novo Line who uses 31 year old Atari ST computers to make music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJLM7n4-gbA).