Who are you, and what do you do?
I am doseone, I make things. Always have, always will.
Most of which is music and prose, but I also rap, paint, sing, do sound design for video games and film and MOST importantly house a high-quality elderly American cat.
What hardware do you use?
Soooo, my home recording adventures began with a BOSS Dr. Sample SP202 and Tascam 4/8 tracks, and some mic that was the equivalent of singing through a DogDick.
These days I record at HOME, onto a Mac Powerbook, via Apogee Duet. I sing and slap stuff into a Neuman TLM-103 through a Neve Portico 5032 preamp, which I LOVE! I use a Universal Audio 1176LN on my vocals sometimes, but to be honest I have such a "peculiar" voice, I don't really like the 1176, but it is great for other non-voice things.
I am a big self-sampler, so I will "run reel" and record various live takes/noodles on my favorite toys, like: Roland MC-505, DaveSmith Tetra, Yamaha CS-15, OP-1, Gameboy (NanoLoops/GlitchDS), Wurlitzer, Casio CZ-101, Elektron SidStation, Casio SK-1, half-dead guitars, and a SLEW of shitty keyboards and dictaphones.
And then sit with them in a separate instance, on COFEE, and mine/chop up said live takes, to then sample/alter/ruin/loop them through my other favorite toys: BOSS Dr. Sample 303, MPC200 XL, Elektron Machinedrum, EFX pedals...
For me, this process differs dramatically from song to song, but also remains rather intact as well. I like music and recording to be "full of surprises" so in general my home studio and inner musician are wired for spontaneous composition and capture. The rest is a matter of time spent mixing, editing, and being selective and honest with myself about what "makes" the song and what "takes away from it".
And what software?
Ableton Live is my "Baby's Momma", for home recording and live playback, and I use Push, Keith McMillen QuNEO, touchAble and a Novation LaunchPad to steer it on stage/at home.
At home, I write and overdub using touchAble/PUSH where that's appropriate - I try to use as much outboard sound as possible. That said, there are some really great/malleable plugins for Ableton - Max for Live/Arturia/Sonic Coture/Plogue/PureMagnetik all make quite a few cool sounds.
I use the QuNeo at home as well, as a FINAL pass effects gauntlet. I have several plugins, beat repeats/verbs/delays that I have MIDI mapped to the QuNeo and I will do effects to master or individual tracks depending on how I feel that particular moment in music making.
Live, I use Live as the motherbrain, and I trigger rather elaborate clip arrangements via the Launchpad and effect/solo/add to them with the QuNeo, which again I have MIDI mapped to high hell, so it supplements each Live set. I do a similar thing with the Push, which allows for chromatic playback additional fun, but using the Launchpad with the QuNeo allows me far more a "customizable playback" experience.
What would be your dream setup?
Same shit, EXCEPT:
All inside a solid glass studio within a ten ton shark tank, which has a Four Barrel coffee fountain inside and three cats that can talk and cable the whole studio. The U.S. government somehow has subsidized this, to exist and be maintained by the City of Oakland in perpetuity. Also it's wheelchair accessible and has a DoucheBag detector, which will incinerate all said DoucheBags within a 50 foot radius of the aforementioned DREAM SETUP.