How do you record your hardware into the computer?

RME is gonna be up upgrade for sure

I use a sapphire pro 40 and am very happy. as long as I have 8 out 8 in of the same quality then all is good.

I actually use the mac mic for random desk drumming and vocal sampling etc when I need to, I have no qualms in doing it this shitty way. I can get the results so all good.

Sometimes it is better to transfer your MIDI into a computer in case you need to change something later. Depends.

  On 4/10/2016 at 2:52 AM, Chesney said:

I actually use the mac mic for random desk drumming and vocal sampling etc when I need to, I have no qualms in doing it this shitty way. I can get the results so all good.

Yes, it is a good way of capturing a nice groove and then just convert it to midi if needed. Also shitty samples has nice gritty quality to them when made loud with limiters and compressors. I prefer sounds with some dirt over clean ones.

Cum

usually track by track into my edirol fa-101

M-audio delta 1010 + soundcraft compact 4 for mic and phono preamps and extra routing possibilities. Very space efficient :)

i'm still a hw guy but i'm planing to buy this (after i buy md and mnm + maybe an additional hw synth)

I gave up on it and now I just do stereo jams into my H1 and drop it into the computer for normalizing/encoding.

  On 4/10/2016 at 10:20 PM, sweepstakes said:

I gave up on it and now I just do stereo jams into my H1 and drop it into the computer for normalizing/encoding.

And do you ever finish your tracks or do you just do jams and leave them and move to another jams?

  On 4/10/2016 at 10:22 PM, Jev said:

 

  On 4/10/2016 at 10:20 PM, sweepstakes said:

I gave up on it and now I just do stereo jams into my H1 and drop it into the computer for normalizing/encoding.

 

And do you ever finish your tracks or do you just do jams and leave them and move to another jams?

 

Jams are already finished if you do them right.

For the longest time I was thinking of getting a really nice multi-input external sound unit so I could have everything run into my computer separately.

Then I realised that in the early '90s Orbital, FSOL, Aphex etc. were all recording stuff live to tape and as these are all my favourite artists, decided I just need to learn to up my game and get good enough to do that. If I want to do something really detailed I'll do it in-box; if I'm doing something with hardware I'll just whack it as a stereo track into my 4-track so I can add a bit of improv on top if necessary and then do a stereo mix into my laptop. It's really quite liberating thinking like that.

  On 4/10/2016 at 11:24 PM, RSP said:

 

  On 4/10/2016 at 10:22 PM, Jev said:

 

  On 4/10/2016 at 10:20 PM, sweepstakes said:

I gave up on it and now I just do stereo jams into my H1 and drop it into the computer for normalizing/encoding.

 

And do you ever finish your tracks or do you just do jams and leave them and move to another jams?

 

 

Jams are already finished if you do them right.

 

Yes. A skill that 99.9% of artists don't have and need to edit (or they do a super simplistic music). That is why I ask.

  On 4/11/2016 at 12:06 AM, purlieu said:

For the longest time I was thinking of getting a really nice multi-input external sound unit so I could have everything run into my computer separately.

Then I realised that in the early '90s Orbital, FSOL, Aphex etc. were all recording stuff live to tape and as these are all my favourite artists, decided I just need to learn to up my game and get good enough to do that. If I want to do something really detailed I'll do it in-box; if I'm doing something with hardware I'll just whack it as a stereo track into my 4-track so I can add a bit of improv on top if necessary and then do a stereo mix into my laptop. It's really quite liberating thinking like that.

If I am not mistaken, those artists were doing edits or prepared their sequences meticulously beforehand and then just recorded it. Or can you give an example of a truly spontaneous jam without editing which feels finished and does not need editing? And I am not even talking about mixing yet.

  On 4/11/2016 at 12:39 AM, Jev said:

 

  On 4/10/2016 at 11:24 PM, RSP said:

 

  On 4/10/2016 at 10:22 PM, Jev said:

 

  On 4/10/2016 at 10:20 PM, sweepstakes said:

I gave up on it and now I just do stereo jams into my H1 and drop it into the computer for normalizing/encoding.

 

And do you ever finish your tracks or do you just do jams and leave them and move to another jams?

 

 

Jams are already finished if you do them right.

 

 

Yes. A skill that 99.9% of artists don't have and need to edit (or they do a super simplistic music). That is why I ask.

 

I am a lazy ass and I don't have enough ambition with my music to finish anything, but please don't extrapolate this onto others who work this way, as RSP indicated. Many perennial heroes of this site worked this way in the 90s, substituting DAT or tape for cheapo solid state recorder.

I have done things with a fair amount of structure this way that sounded more "finished" than shit I made in a DAW. I just don't really like DAWs - contrary to popular belief, they're not for everyone.

  On 4/11/2016 at 1:15 AM, sweepstakes said:

 

  On 4/11/2016 at 12:39 AM, Jev said:

 

  On 4/10/2016 at 11:24 PM, RSP said:

 

  On 4/10/2016 at 10:22 PM, Jev said:

 

  On 4/10/2016 at 10:20 PM, sweepstakes said:

I gave up on it and now I just do stereo jams into my H1 and drop it into the computer for normalizing/encoding.

 

And do you ever finish your tracks or do you just do jams and leave them and move to another jams?

 

 

Jams are already finished if you do them right.

 

 

Yes. A skill that 99.9% of artists don't have and need to edit (or they do a super simplistic music). That is why I ask.

 

I am a lazy ass and I don't have enough ambition with my music to finish anything, but please don't extrapolate this onto others who work this way, as RSP indicated. Many perennial heroes of this site worked this way in the 90s, substituting DAT or tape for cheapo solid state recorder.

 

I have done things with a fair amount of structure this way that sounded more "finished" than shit I made in a DAW. I just don't really like DAWs - contrary to popular belief, they're not for everyone.

 

Please, don't get me wrong. If you dislike working in a DAW, that is perfectly fine. I am just talking about editing and mixing. It does not matter if you cut the tape, or if you re-program -> re-record everything until satisfied. I just cannot imagine starting a random jam from scratch and perform it so flawlessly that it could go on an album. I am really interested in others' workflow when recording hardware.

  On 4/11/2016 at 1:52 AM, Jev said:

I just cannot imagine starting a random jam from scratch and perform it so flawlessly that it could go on an album. I am really interested in others' workflow when recording hardware.

That's pretty much all this guy did.

  On 4/11/2016 at 1:57 AM, sweepstakes said:

 

  On 4/11/2016 at 1:52 AM, Jev said:

I just cannot imagine starting a random jam from scratch and perform it so flawlessly that it could go on an album. I am really interested in others' workflow when recording hardware.

That's pretty much all this guy did.

 

Yes, that 0.1%. And I bet even he had to rehearse some stuff and did multiple (amazing) takes in the studio until satisfied. But that is just my personal opinion.

Also, I was talking about HW electronic gear in the electronic music world. Not a single instrumentalist with a single instrument.

  On 4/11/2016 at 2:02 AM, Jev said:

 

  On 4/11/2016 at 1:57 AM, sweepstakes said:

 

  On 4/11/2016 at 1:52 AM, Jev said:

I just cannot imagine starting a random jam from scratch and perform it so flawlessly that it could go on an album. I am really interested in others' workflow when recording hardware.

That's pretty much all this guy did.

 

 

Yes, that 0.1%. And I bet even he had to rehearse some stuff and did multiple (amazing) takes in the studio until satisfied. But that is just my personal opinion.

 

Also, I was talking about HW electronic gear in the electronic music world. Not a single instrumentalist with a single instrument.

 

Good point on rehearsing, though I disagree strongly with the weird percentages that imply some kind of hierarchy of skill. I'm getting the impression from the language you're using (e.g. "flawlessly") that you, at least much more than I, see music as the qualitatively measurable output of an intellectual (edit: and physical, obviously) exercise, rather than simply the result of interacting with an environment and the decisions made in the course.

I mention Miles because he said that there are no mistakes. I think it's a lot more interesting to accept limitations and things that happen while working with sound in real time and let them be there. Instead of trying to erase them, I try to leave them in as much as I can stand. And, yes, for me, that is partly out of laziness. But it's also a more honest, sincere record of who I was, what was on my mind, what I was working with when I made it. Maybe it sounds cheesy or like rationalization but I think that is also more "poetic". And when I listen back later, I tend to find the unpolished stuff a lot more inspiring - at the very least, it tends to suggest many more tangents.

usually multitrack it all. as many discrete tracks as possible but some times lot's of stereo pairs... usually fewer than 16 tracks. probably average 12. i'm usually going to have to do some editing and moving things around and i like to get into processing in the computer and doing different versions and stuff.. i like to have stems for everything so i can mess with things more or easier to give to a friend for a 'vs' remix type thing or just a remix...

  On 4/11/2016 at 2:28 AM, sweepstakes said:

 

  On 4/11/2016 at 2:02 AM, Jev said:

 

  On 4/11/2016 at 1:57 AM, sweepstakes said:

 

  On 4/11/2016 at 1:52 AM, Jev said:

I just cannot imagine starting a random jam from scratch and perform it so flawlessly that it could go on an album. I am really interested in others' workflow when recording hardware.

That's pretty much all this guy did.

 

 

Yes, that 0.1%. And I bet even he had to rehearse some stuff and did multiple (amazing) takes in the studio until satisfied. But that is just my personal opinion.

 

Also, I was talking about HW electronic gear in the electronic music world. Not a single instrumentalist with a single instrument.

 

Good point on rehearsing, though I disagree strongly with the weird percentages that imply some kind of hierarchy of skill. I'm getting the impression from the language you're using (e.g. "flawlessly") that you, at least much more than I, see music as the qualitatively measurable output of an intellectual (edit: and physical, obviously) exercise, rather than simply the result of interacting with an environment and the decisions made in the course.

 

I mention Miles because he said that there are no mistakes. I think it's a lot more interesting to accept limitations and things that happen while working with sound in real time and let them be there. Instead of trying to erase them, I try to leave them in as much as I can stand. And, yes, for me, that is partly out of laziness. But it's also a more honest, sincere record of who I was, what was on my mind, what I was working with when I made it. Maybe it sounds cheesy or like rationalization but I think that is also more "poetic". And when I listen back later, I tend to find the unpolished stuff a lot more inspiring - at the very least, it tends to suggest many more tangents.

 

The percentage was just a different name for "a big exception" or "a genius" or "an extremely talented artist".

I mean we both probably consider some music to be great and some music to be bad (whatever our personal, highly subjective tastes are). And if I am trying to create a piece of art and cannot achieve my vision in a single jam (no matter how hard I try - might be even a technological limitation that cannot be overcome in real-time) I will probably have to do it in parts, and/or edit out the bad bits (again, whatever that is in the context of your and my taste) unless I want to hear my music with "flaws" (again, depending on the taste of the artist).

Simply put, I, for one, would not be able to achieve my artistic vision without editing and a DAW. And I have this strong feeling that if it wasn't for extensive pre-programming, editing and/or rehearsing (to whatever extent), some of the best tracks by AE or AFX wouldn't exist today and some ground-breaking stuff would not be heard. So it really depends on a vision of an artist I guess.

But I absolutely agree with you that a good jam with spontaneous, well-fitting decisions is a magical thing that can completely overshadow an over-produced or thought-out piece. No doubt. But I also know that a single unfitting bit in a piece of music can totally ruin my experience. So it really depends.

A live hardware setup IS an instrument. Can you do a perfect take with an instrument? With practice you can do anything.

There just isn't a school on it for hardware, but not everyone needs school.

That said, there are ways of working that combine the functionality of a daw with the energy of live hardware, and these are good skills to have.

  On 4/11/2016 at 3:14 AM, sheathe said:

A live hardware setup IS an instrument. Can you do a perfect take with an instrument? With practice you can do anything.

It is an instrument but with such a huge amount of controls and possibilities that it is impossible to jam it all out in real-time unless you are into minimal or you pre-program your sequences and then tweak them within the limits of your real-time capabilities.

And because some electronic styles need extensive amount of stuff happening at once they usually need lots of programming and editing and that is not exactly what I consider jamming from scratch.

I believe editing or extensive pre-programming is absolutely essential for anything complex and sophisticated to happen in electronic music. You simply cannot control everything at once.

many of my most successful tracks have been live jams

  On 4/11/2016 at 4:11 AM, sheathe said:

many of my most successful tracks have been live jams

Sure. But if we talk electronic music they are either in simplistic genres/styles or heavily pre-programmed - conditioned. You simply cannot control everything at once in the same way you cannot play guitar and trumpet and drums and sing at the same moment.

You can post examples if you wish. I would be interested. But it has to be a completely post-production-free jam. I think you are not going to find anything tbh but feel free to correct me.

;D