With the current tariff madness in the USA, and the fact that the majority of music production peripherals are made in Asia, I thought I’d look into making any possible purchases sooner rather than later, before the tariff rates go back up in July. (10%, 30%, 145%, who knows?) Does anyone have any hardware peripheral recommendations that are essential to your Dorico workflow? Or other DAW and music production workflows? For example …
I find my Logitech MX Master 3S mouse pretty indispensable. Both horizontal and vertical scroll wheels make navigation in Dorico a breeze, and the app-specific programmable buttons allow for customizations specific to Dorico. I have my Forward and Back buttons set to navigate through Layouts for example. (Made in Vietnam)
I’m sure it’s already known to most users here, but my Stream Deck XL is pretty great too. I find it’s best used for macros rather than simple shortcut replacements, which I’d rather just do on the keyboard. I use it to trigger a bunch of commands that aren’t available to be assigned through Preferences / Key Commands too. (Made in Taiwan)
My SPL Marc One is super useful too. It’s not only a fantastic DAC / headphone amp, but can also mix together an analog signal with the digital signal. I use that to have the audio output from my Nord Piano 4 go directly to the same Neumann monitors that my computer uses, without needing an additional mixer cluttering up my desk. Big knob makes volume adjustment easy as well as an analog switch to select or turn off speakers. The L/R > R/L - Stereo - Mono switch is really useful for transcriptions. Sometimes just quickly reversing the image can help me hear a difficult passage more clearly. Great little device! (Made in Germany)
One of my absolute favourites is my Logitech MX Ergo trackball. I once had a kind of mobile desk setup with very limited space and that was when I made the switch to trackballs - haven’t looked back ever since, although I work at larger desks again. There is a newer version (MX Ergo S) with USB-C charging and the new Logi Bolt connection available, but apart from those two changes, there is absolutely nothing new, so that’s not on the list right now and will have to wait for my older M570 (which I use on my paperwork desk) to break.
The newest addition is an Arturia Keylab 49 mkII. I wouldn’t call it essential as of now, because I haven’t found the time to properly map it yet. I got this one used and picked it over its successor because of the 4x4 pad matrix, which corresponds to many drum interfaces in DAWs and plugins. (By the way, dear Dorico team, it would be nice if there was one pre-configured 4x4 drumpad setup in the input panel that corresponds to the most common layout. I do know that I can set it up myself, but I still find it surprising that it’s not there by default.)
My audio interface is in fact a full-blown mixer, namely a Mackie Onyx 12. It does take up quite some space, but I picked this because there is no regular USB interface on the market that let’s me have all my stereo sources plugged in at the same time. The Mackie can do exactly that, it provides 14 input channels all configurable in a DAW in a single unit.
Connected to the mixer is a pair of Yamaha HS7 monitors. I do not produce music regularly, and never on a professional level, but I picked those after my older, cheaper monitors broke because I was aiming for studio grade clear definition and transparency to have an easier time when transcribing from recordings - and the Yamahas absolutely deliver in this regard.
EDIT: Below all this is my Roland FP-80 sitting on the keyboard tray, which occasionally gets abducted for sporadic live use (but I urged my parish to get a digital piano by themselves because the formidable hammer action does bring with it some serious weight). This piano has also been my note input device for some time, but I ultimately decided to split the keyboards used for auditioning and inputting and got the Arturia, so I don’t have to worry about Dorico unsolicitedly feeling addressed when I forgot to switch note input off.
I use a two monitor setup, and have BenQ Ergo Arms on both monitors. Really easy to install and position. They are pressure fit so you don’t have to drill into your desk. I wish I had discovered them earlier!
That seems likely, although I imagine many manufacturers are already reducing output. It’s hard to know exactly how everything is going to play out with the constant change in policies. (WaPo reported over 50 new or revised tariff polices since Jan. 20) The other reason I’m looking around now is that obviously some peripherals may be basically impossible to find in the US once current inventory is depleted if suppliers haven’t placed orders due to cost uncertainty.
For quite some time i put notes in via qwertz keyboard, because my masterkeyboard is on my side wall and I don’t go there just to put some notes in. Now I have a small keyboard (32 micro keys) just for note input on Dorico.
But apart from my computer my most important „peripherals“ are softwarebased.
I can’t remember where I read it, but my impression was that in some cases the opposite was happening - manufacturers were absorbing US tariffs and raising prices everywhere else instead. I want to say Apple in particular, but can’t be sure IIRC.
Not those, as this would require them to send MIDI information which AFAIK they don’t. I am planning (and hoping to succeed) to map the Arturia’s faders to do this.
I’ll raise you one, I got the competition when there still was one, an A&H ZED R16…
For when we’re jamming or recording live, still pretty cool gear, although I can’t use the firewire anymore, so it’s going through ADAT now.
With this one, all the faders can be switched to MIDI, 20 all in all!
However, I never use them like that, because they are not motorized.
I’m not 100% sure but I believe Dorico would need to support a mixer protocol such as Mackie HUI, or any other kind of protocol which could connect midi-based faders to Dorico’s mixer channels, which AFAIK is not supported and if I were to guess wouldn’t be high on the list of priorities for the dev team. It’s a bummer because I did try setting up my previous mixer control surface, the SSL UF8. Beautiful piece of kit and I was able to use it with Dorico for midi CC automation control, but I ended up selling it because the experience using it in Cubase (my primary DAW) wasn’t all that great (although it apparently works much better in Logic/Pro Tools etc.)
Peripherally speaking, I’ve actually downsized my collection. I used to be crazy about all these external devices but tbh most of them end up in the closet because the ergonomics of reaching across the way to do something I can basically already do with keyboard/mouse doesn’t really add much benefit in the end, and my desk was always cluttered with all these tools. My streamdeck XL is the only thing which has ‘earned its keep’ and that’s primarily for using macros.
I’ve never been a big mouse person, these days preferring a trackpad for hand health (as one specialist recommended to me), and ease of pinching/zooming around without need of keyboard shortcuts or modifier keys. I use the Apple Magic Trackpad and I like it more than any mouse I have used in the past. Many years ago I used to have a Wacom Tablet and one of those Logitech gaming controller things (for macros), but the Streamdeck basically replaced that entirely.
Finally I do have one dedicated midi CC controller I use with both Dorico and Cubase to write automation, and I really like it - HARMONY – Viper Synths - not cheap but it’s really nicely made, with long & smooth fader throw, and CC values are assignable on the fly. Not made in China though, hand-made in France. I pretty much keep the primary faders on CC1/11 and the knobs for things such as vibrato etc.
Ooh, that’s beautiful! I had been looking at maybe picking up a CC controller like this EF44 from Intech. That Viper Synths one looks really, really nice though! I might have to consider it.
Yeah, probably me too. I always use VEPro with Dorico as it makes opening and switching between files so much faster. MIR, Transcribe, Roon, Audio Hijack, FabFilter Pro-Q 4, etc are almost always in use too. There doesn’t seem to be any discussion about tariffs applying to software, so I’m assuming pricing won’t be affected much, but who knows …
…or an ultrawide. Windows 11 does have some very neat native screen splitting capabilities, and if those don’t suffice, there’s FancyZones as part of the PowerToys to really get the most out of it. One advantage of an ultrawide is that there is no physical middle barrier always remaining in the same place. (I respect that on the other hand this can help some people focus, though - YMMW.)
That one looks nice as well! If you have the budget there’s a “roll’s royce” of CC controllers called the MusioTech Fader Premium. A pretty hefty price tag but apparently all the parts are super premium and most interesting are the colored high resolution screens which allow instant preset recall (handy for switching instrument libraries where they have unique CC assignments different from others, such as vibrato and whatnot). I personally haven’t been able to justify such a price tag but it looks very nice. For now I enjoy the considerably more affordable Viper Harmony which is still quite a premium build - just lacks color screens and preset recall (woe is me, how will I ever manage, haha).
Yeah, you might’ve seen they also have a presidential model at a whopping $2K! If I had that kind of extra spending money laying around, a fancy midi CC controller is probably the last thing I would want to spend it on.
