Today’s Artist Gear Setup feature looks inside the travel bag of Nicole Moudaber. Carl Cox described Nicole Moudaber as the “the most underrated DJ”. Her setup is heavily centered around Traktor and the Kontrol X1’s with a big emphasis on looping, “By looping certain sections of the tracks, it allows me to have different sounds and more control to effect them.” says Nicole. See what’s in the rest of Nicole’s bag.
1 – Midi Controllers
- Native Instruments Kontrol X1 (2) and Kontrol X1 MK2 as back up. I remapped my X1s to fit the way I play; I can do it blindfolded when I’m on, from beat jumps, loop functions and cue points. I normally use Deck C for effects and have all 3 decks running together which I full control from my X1s. I’m a loop freak, if I can have 6 decks looping at some point i can be happy. I also mapped the CDJs which I connect to Traktor on HID mode to give me the same functions as my controllers, sometimes it’s easier to reach them when I’m browsing through my library.
2 – Audio Cables
- Oyaide D+ audio cables
- D+ RCA class S (purple) – I plug them into my Audio 10 and my mixer, the sound quality is amazing, it’s shielded to protect outer and inner noise without any loss of electricity.
- D+ RCA class A (orange) – always have them as back up
- D+ RCA class B (green) – have them as back up
3 – USB Cables
- Oyaide D+ USB cables
- D+ USB class S (white) – I normally use them for my audio interface (Traktor Audio 10) the quality is superior to anything I have tried so far
- D+ USB class A (black) – Normally use them for studio, PA and DJ booth
- D+ USB class B (green) – For all my controllers as seen in this pic for back up use
4 – Soundcard
- Traktor Audio 10 – This is the audio interface I can’t live without, super reliable and sounds great.
5 – External Hard Drive
- 2 hard drives (LaCie Rugged and Western Digital) – always backing up my work when I’m on the road. Backing up is essential, I normally make sure I back up everything before I get on the road. Clone my computer fully that way if anything goes wrong, I have it all on my external drive.
Headphones
- AIAIAI TMA-1 DJ Headphones – I love them, they sound fat and give me the bass I need to hear in music
Laptops
- MacBook Air 13” – For my daily work (it’s light and easy to carry around)
- MacBook Pro 15” – For my music only
Other Items
- Belkin USB hub with 7 ports – connect 3 CDJs / 2 Controllers and laptop
- Zoom H4n – For all my recordings. This is essential for me as I broadcast most of my live sets on my radio show InTheMOOD, it also includes mic for crowd noise capture.
- Shure PG42 mic – This is the mic I use for my radio shows, plug in USB and talk away, it’s brilliant. Got a little Tumi pouch to go with it
- Extension plugs for Europe / US and South America
Catch Nicole Moudaber on tour:
- 5/22 San Diego, CA @ Bang Bang
- 5/23 Dallas, TX @ It’ll Do
- 5/24 Bethel, NY @ Mysteryland USA
- 5/25 Detroit, MI @ Movement
- 5/28 San Francisco, CA @ Harlot
- 5/29 El Paso, TX @ 301
- 5/30 Los Angeles, CA @ Exchange
- 6/4 Washington, DC @ U Street Music Hall
- 6/12 Toronto Island, ON @ Bestival
- 6/13 Chicago, IL @ Spring Awakening Music Festival
Stay up to date with Nicole Moudaber on nicolemoudaber.com Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Looking for more artist gear setups? See what’s in these artists bags:
Cover Photo credit: Danilo Lewis
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Organised cables… I am in love
i’m curious on how she uses her h4n recorder to record both the crowd and her set. I have a h5 recorder and i’m unsure how to parallel record that way. hoping someone could give me some direction on that.
I’m assuming she records sets by some laptop soft or in traktor and crowd by h4n recorder.
Actually the H4N can really record both the line input and the crowd at the same time. 🙂 You don’t need any computer for that…
I use a H2N to do this. You set the input as 4ch and when you plug the Line In, it will automatically record 2ch Line In & MS through the mics for 4ch parallel of the crowd and your set.
I admittedly don’t know the science of it, but I’m extremely sceptical about a £50 (huh?) USB cable sounding any better than any other USB cable. I was under the impression that digital connections are an all or nothing thing, unlike analogue signals which degrade in the cables. It’s particularly silly when she’s talking about plugging it into a Belkin USB hub – even if USB cables could somehow affect audio quality, I doubt a Belkin hub would be tuned for high fidelity sound.
Let us consider that a laptop is a musical instrument as if it were a guitar. Most wouldn’t know how to tune it, let alone restring it.
The Macbook Pro has 2 USB port. I am assuming that the Audio 10 is plugged straight into the laptop itself. Considering in the write up Nicole states that the only use for the USB hub is for controllers and CDJs.
Now if this is true, there is absolutely no problem with this. Macbook Pros have 2 USB 3.0 ports bussed at up to 5Gb/sec. Where as USB 2.0 was a paltry shared 480Mb/sec. Wave files stream at roughly 1Mb/sec., but this doesn’t matter as the hardware that she is connecting through USB hub is only using MIDI protocol.
The soundcard actually benefits from the Neo/Oyaide cables. There are less dropouts, a friend of mine uses it in the studio every day and the results are serously better. I’ve also seen situations where an DDJ-SX wouldn’t work with a regular USB cable, but it worked with a Neo cable (it was missing a cap on the USB connector).
I can’t tell if the audio quality is really better; but I would say the cables are WAY more rugged and reliable than the crappy white/red cables. The USB cables definitely do their job though.
Less dropouts.. Stop kidding yourself. You buy these cables, you get screwed. They may be rugged, but not that kind of money rugged. And what do you want to do with them? Lift a car? 😀
Did you know they’re made by an elve in moonlight? That’s why the are so expensive.. lol
I’ve found Neo USB cables on Amazon for $30
If you don’t believe it, just test it out yourself, they work. I doubted them too, and yes they’re expensive, but worth the pay.
You should get gold plated HDMI cables for your tv too! It will make for a better picture, no really! There is some magic in the cable that will boost the resolution, I don’t know how it works, but you should try it.
😉
It doesn’t work man.. accept it..
Make sure that you plug your audio cables in in the right direction so that the signal can flow optimized! http://wathifi.com/
You’re absolutely right.
I’m happy I’m not the only face palming when I read about the superiority of an USB cable over the other. It’s DIGITAL! It sends 0s and 1s and the sound interface receive the same amount of 0s and 1s, that’s all! The only difference may be in the durability of the cable for extensive use.
There is a small benefit when using superior cable with sound cards (less drop outs, and more reliable) due to the shielding and ferites.
There is also a small benefit to the general experience thanks to a nicer feel and color of the better cables for organization and ease of coiling/laying down.
Personally, I don’t think these benefits are worth the $40 premium of Oyaide cables, which do look amazing. That is why we made Chroma Cables, so people could have the same benefits but at a much more reasonable price:
https://store.djtechtools.com/products/chroma-cables-usb
I love your Chroma cables, although I have to admit that I am currently looking at getting my hands on some Neo RCA’s. Just wondering if you guys have started looking into Chroma RCA’s?
…how many money do all the “big guys” get for telling us that these Oyaide cables sounds better than others?!?
While I don’t think they are getting payed for actually using them they surely get them for free.