Can I record all my gear at the same time? Yes! 

A lot to cram into 11 minutes, but hopefully I covered everything. 0:00 - Intro 0:35 - Midi routing 1:28 - Controllers 2:56 - Midi Mods 4:07 - Midi to CV 5:34 - Multi-track recording via USB 7:35 - Diagram of the final setup 9:40 - In practice (the performance) 10:43 - Conclusions

Great video! I love how you talked about the aspect no ever does. We all see studios full of fancy analog gear but what always interests me are the conections and set up techniques. Finally a video on this subject! Thanks a lot!

Congratulations! You just went back in time to what we were all doing back in the 80's! Only that I was recording my Midi rig into a mixer feeding an 8-track cassette.... this was pre-digital recording, but having 8 Midi devices all going at once was typical.... then came the ADATs! Very cool exercise and great synth studio.......

Wow, what a setup Alex. I used to do sax solos for a couple of guys in Sweden, who are obsessed with 1980’s synth based Pop music, and I believe they may have a similar set up to yours. Everything vintage! Oh to be young again! Sniff! 😩 Keep it up mate, your vids are most enjoyable!

Good lord, that was mind boggling as it was fascinating . Well done my friend , you make we wanna rehab all my outboard gear

Hi Alex! Love you did this video, I think it's what most of us followers were waiting for!!! And thanks for answering. You're an inspiration for us musicians trying to get a vintage tone in our recordings. Hugs Santi from Best Of Feelings

You are SO GOOOOOD mate! Love this, great instructions and really dig the tune! I wouldn't have made anything so sparse, haha! It would've been a hot mess. Beautiful work, Alex!

Yayyy!! I requested something kinda sorta like this from you and yay it's here. It's also really nice to see someone I admire using cubase, too. I've been looking at the sound mtk for ages now. More for instrument tracking but as I'm getting more into hardware synths it's a big plus for that too. Thanks mate.

This channel is amazing! Thanks for all you videos!!

Pretty cool. That soundcraft actually seems like a really convenient way to solve the issue of a room full of gear 👍

Very cool setup and a nice collection! I had to accomplish a similar task when I set up my space (I've got like 13 synths and 2 drum machines?) but went about it a little differently. I use a couple of old M-Audio Midiman interfaces (1 8x8 and 2 4x4's) for all of my MIDI control, and then mix everything into a MOTU PCIe 424 setup with a 2408mk3 and a 24 I/O which accomplishes the same basic task you're doing here with your console mixer (having a dedicated input for each synths) but instead of having a physical mixer in the space, it's all pretty much rack-mountable and digital, which is helpful since all of the mixing and processing is done in-DAW anyway. Love your content, dude!

Great to see all this vintage kit being used all together. Years ago I had Boss DR110, Korg MS20, Roland CSQ600, Juno60, SH101, TR606. Wish I still had it all now. Sold most of them to a lecturer in Music Technology at a local polytechnic. ps your demo reminded me of something Tangerine Dream could have knocked up, but with huge modular Moogs and System 100s etc.

The tricky bit with all of this of course is the finer details of timing. With latencies and midi delays there's a lot to sort out if you're working with rhythmically refined music. I've found that's it's possible to get a live setup running tightly from a DAW but it's usually not completely stable and you end up chasing mysterious new errors hours into a session. To save time now I usually just get the timing roughly accurate for recording and then shift that audio once it's recorded to get it totally locked in.

This was fantastic! And i think you just helped Soundcraft sell me one of those MTK22s :)

This was really great, thanks for showing off your results.

Love your tech, and your compositions! Thanks!

"Everything louder than everything else" - Deep Purple, Made in Japan

What a great set up and video! That mixer is a gem :)

I was looking for a video that demonstrated the Motu MIDI Interface, and this did just that! I’m going to order one. Thank you!

the video nd gear show was great but man you delivered on the music end of the deal - wow - thats great man ! i havent heard that feel since FZ

This is awesome. I just got a Soundcraft 12 MTK and it has changed my life.

My guy, your instrument collection has got me green with envy. Watching your videos makes me want to get a high paying white collar job to afford such an arsenal. Collecting vintage synths and drum machines are like pokemon... Gotta catch 'em all!

love all your videos, Alex, intelligent and entertaining

First: very nice setup, and admirable effort hooking everything up to record simultaneously! I'm definitely jealous! I actually cultivated my setup to be able to do just that but with the noise floor and audio dropouts, it's been used mostly one part at a time recently. I use a Korg KMS-30 to sync my TB-303 and MC-202 to MIDI, a MIDIMan and an M-Audio 8-out USB-MIDI to go to MIDI gear like the Alpha Juno 1, W-30, MC-09, MPC-1000, Ensoniq TS-10, Alesis Micron, MicroKorg, and a Doepfer MCV-1 to go to my Moog Rogue. Outboard audio goes back into the DAW (Ableton 9 Suite and Logic Pro 9) through an Alesis MultiMix 16 Firewire. I use the same rim shot trick to trigger my Juno 6 arpeggiator from my TR-8S. The rest of the outboard gear has USB MIDI and audio: JP-08, JX-03, JU-06, TR-08, TR-09, TB-03, SH-01A (x2, 1 red, 1 blue- I know I have a problem ;-) ), D-05, SE-02, VP-03, TR-8, TB-3, System 1, SH-201, and Kronos (original 61-key version).

Very informative video! And as a bonus, a cool track at the end, too! :)

Mind-boggling, and yet quite fascinating at the same time...

Excellent video, and 17 tracks I've recorded 3-5 at most on my PC before my PC starts grinding :)

Amazing you managed to get them all to work, personally Ive always avoided CV&gate , I have enough trouble getting midi to work all the time & integrate with a daw, but you got a much more complex system to go so well done!

Enjoyed the conclusion. Nice little jam. Also, the diagram did an adequate job of explaining the setup. If you want to expand your options with a different hardware sequencer, check out the Squarp Pyramid. It would be loads of fun in a room like this.

Great final result!

TPS II is a good piece of kit! I like mine a lot.

Nice one Alex. I’ve got a pretty similar setup (606, 707, 727, 101, Juno60, dotcom modular, TX81Z, JX03, TT303, JV1010) but use a Kenton Midi Thru25 (so no daisychaining) as I wanted the option to play DAWlessly. All goes into an A&H MixWiz4 (jumpers set to post-fader and post-EQ as I want the DAW to record exactly what I’ve set on the desk and use that lovely EQ when I am recording) going into a UMC1820 with a slave via ADAT from an ADA8000 so 16 channels in all. (Sorry sounds a bit geeky so far.) Observations: 1. the 7x7 MIDI chips are a bit slow - more so when you’re sending notes as opposed to just the clock although you can correct that a bit in the DAW. (The speed of Kenton helps though.) 2. I’d highly recommend getting a patchbay so you can override feeds to your desk. (So my instruments are normalled into patchbay then out again to desk.) It also allows you to insert Fx pedals etc between instrument and desk very easily. Best 40 quid I ever spent (thanks again Behringer) PS love your channel. Excellent varied content and a talented individual!

Very impressive with all that old gear! I use Ableton on the Mac for sync master and an iConnect/Midi. With the Mac, I can have multiple USB device drivers active and, along with the iConnect, I am able to sync up all my gear. This consists of: Roland SCD-15, Roland SC-880, Roland JX-03, Roland JP-08, Roland SH-01A, Roland SE-02, Roland TR-08 and Roland System 8. My favorite thing is to utilize all these machines at once and create arrangements of sequence patterns that I trigger at will using a Novation Launchpad - thus being able to have spontaneous, never ending arrangements and usually noodling over it all with a lead patch on the SE-02. I love to make unique drum tracks by using the TR-08 MIDI out to drive Part 10 on the SCD-15 and SC-880, mixing/panning the 808 sounds of the TR with various other drum kits on the other devices. When I want to record, I use a Tascam hand held recorder and just send the mixer mains to it. This method works, but precludes any opportunity for mastering or overall compression in the DAW. Your video has inspired me to try and record each device simultaneously via USB, either through my mixer (Alesis MultiMix) or through its own USB audio interface. :)

Thanks alot for this, it helped me with thinking about my setup a bit. Im not too high on using midi, i suppose that explains my kinda modular turn lately but yeah, now i know how to do it if i go that way. I should also get a Beatstep, so far im using the keystep to sequence. I appreciate it!

Wonderful video! Much needed. Long live MIDI!

It's always interesting to see how all the gear is hooked up, so cheers for this Alex - most "informatitive and educatitive", as Mr Cholmondley-Warner would say 😊 My own setup (which pales in comparison to yours) consists of a Behringer UMC1820 (yes, I used the B-word) as my interface, with my synths (Roland XP30, Roland Boutique SH01A, Alesis Micron and Roland JV880) going through a sub mixer into a stereo pair into channels 3&4 of the interface. I also have an Alesis SR18 using multi-outs into channels 5-8, leaving the front channels (1 & 2) free for microphones, etc. The final piece of the puzzle (for now) is an EMI ESI4000 sampler which uses the SPDIF channel (9&10). No real analog kit here, but that's what Arturia's V collection is for 😉 I drive everything using MIDI from my DAW using a 4x4 USB MIDI interface, as well as the inbuilt MIDI I/O on the UMC1820. I do plan to expand the setup with an 8 channel ADAT box at some point (on a budget so probably a Behringer ADA8200) to ultimately replace the mixer, but for now I can track the drum machine (with separated kick and snare) one of the synths going into the mixer and the sampler in one go, as I prefer to track synths in stereo wherever possible.

Excellent. I write straight to manuscript . I watch your channel because your melodies,rhythms are great; you've studied orchestration{ in other words;great ears]. And you're talented. I am going to buy a computer and Cu-base inspired by you. Wish me luck and post another brilliant song soon.

For MIDI, I use two MIDI interfaces (A: 1 in, 1 out / B: 5 in, 5 out) and two Roland A880 MIDI patchbays, to send outputs to several synths at once, and they all respond to different channels. I've got 8 synths, a drum module and a sampler. From those that are multitrimbal, I can at least use four parts at once, and all devices simultaneously. But I mix analog.

Your gear setup is mint

Brilliant tutorial, I wasn't aware you could record that many channels of audio for that kind of price. Just for folk on a tighter budget, you could use a decent midi thru box instead of the MOTU. Older synths only use 1 midi channel each so you can easily run 8 synths from 1 midi out using a thru box.

Great info, Alex!

Ahaha so cool Alex ! Your music was great, nice to hear them all at once it makes perfect sens :) ! This is your final setup, to bad it is difficult to carry to a gig ! :p

Oooh challenge accepted 😎🤩

Yes you can. Your neightbor is way more tolerant as mine.

This sounds so damn nice, well done!!!!!!

Really great setup man! I’m a sucker for tunes in 6/4. I have a JL Cooper MSB+ Rev 2, which is an 8 channel MIDI patch bay from 1993 - no USB, obviously. I run that into one input on a MIDISPORT 4x4. I really need to just get a modern 8 channel MIDI patch bay like your MOTU because this setup is so prone to brain melting glitches.

Excellent - thank you, Alex!

This is one of those thought experiments that I've never pursued due to concerns that it would sound like I'd just stepped on my cat's tail, which you have dutifully confirmed. All joking aside, thank you for highlighting the SQ-1 as a MIDI-CV convertor - I will now try that with the MS-20 & PS-3100. The other thing that made me smile was doubting that USB2 (480 Mb/s) would be sufficient for audio or MIDI (31 Kb/s). Despite all the marketing trying to sell you USB3 audio interfaces, USB2 is fine. You don't need a really high speed interface for audio (44.1/48KHz) or MIDI. USB3 becomes more important (essential) with SSD for loading samples/libraries into a DAW. Good video, thank you.

Alex this video is so great!! There are not many videos out there talking about synching old gear. Man would love a super in-depth vid on this. Sure would be nice to have all the info in one vid rather than scouring the internet for days trying to understand korgs synch protocall and rolland synch, what is compatible, what cables wortk just ts or trs. Like there is so much info not talked about and it's so important as you know. I'm just learning now. It sucks cause ya just want to use it and get it working but takes a life time trying to understand it all. Would love to hear ya talk for hours about this stuff like a podcast. Like what roadblocks people have. At the moment I'm I'm trying to synch my keystep pro to my Monopolly via CV and it works with the onboard sequencer but there are lots of roadblocks when it comes to trying to use the Keystep pro as a Midi CV converter to run inside Abelton live. There are so many little important steps to understand that are not talked about. Like you might run into this issue or this old gear has this quirky issue where you need to plug the cables in last for it to run properly. Or dont do this you could damage this old synth or mess up the tuning. I think so many of us that love this gear really want to know the whole picture and would be really nice to hear someone like you talk on and on about it and I'm sure you would like to talk about it cause it's such an accomplishment when you figure it all out. Thank you for all your Vids!!!

Alex makes me feel like a monkey banging a rock with a stick... but I still enjoyed the video 😀

Wow and such a fun tune!

This was so helpful thanks so much.

God, I hope you have good insurance! 😃 This was amazing. Would love to hear more about how you actually programmed the various bits and bobs

"Everything and all at once" was(and still is) the method I use the most for tracking, although never had more than an 8 channel mixer so that's where it ended. However my old 1202 is getting gradually more unrealiable every year so might upgrade to a twelver

That Korg SQ-1 is such a fun little box.

very cool vid, i'd recommend checking out the ESI - m4u or m8u otherwise as a USB / Midi interface cool thing is that each port can be used as either an input or an output, so on 8 ports you can have 6 outs and 2 ins or whatever combo you want, and it also has a built in USB hub

Nice vid, man! I occasionally record all my gear at the same time and have been looking into MIDI routers for a while. At present I have 2 MIDI interfaces and daisy-chain everything by their thru. Works a treat when recording everything, but it’s a pain in the arse when you want to record one thing at the end of the chain and have to turn everything on.

Neat video!

Good experiment. I've been doing similar (so that I never have to plug stuff in/out) But I've got a Soundcraft Ui24R instead of your mixer. I run that for recording Jams and general messing around when I'm not actually working on a project on a PC so that I can walk in and noodle on whatever instrument takes my muse.

Well that was nuts. Quite interesting. I doubt I could have figured all that out.

You should do a midi mod to your Juno 6. I recently did a completely non destructive mod using the CHD midi retrofit kit. There is even a hole in the back of the Juno 6 behind one of the small plates so no drilling required. Just one small cut and solder to the arp cable. The rest just clicks in place. I’m so happy bringing the Juno in line with the rest of my studio synths being able to sequence it and clock the arp over midi too.

You need a Synthstrom Deluge! :) Allows me to sequence a 16 channel hardware only setup perfectly!

thats sound really good.

GREAT. Love this.

Very jealous of that setup! :)

Interesting to see. very similar indeed to what I have set up. The main exception is my lack of proper midi patching. It depends what you intend for each piece of gear to do really. All my midi is via 'MIDI through's' ins and outs' from only one port on the back of a Pro 40. You have to spend some time setting all the Midi channel receive and sends for each keyboard. I dispensed with the combo mixer/interfaces because they all seemed to have drawbacks, but have a cheaper midi to usb for my mackie controller. (The PC can use multiples of these btw, cheap option!) The synth's are routed to classic 1/4" patch bays then to an old keyboard mixer where they are normalled to some 80's outboard aux on the patchbay and the mains feed back into the Pro 40. If separate synth channels are needed, you patch direct and override the normals. I spent way longer setting up than making music...

Great demo of that mixer. I think there is 12 channel version that does the same. I wish there was a smaller version that also did multiple outputs instead of just stereo out.

Excellent video thanks :)

Incredible!

Very informative.

This is great!!!!

MS-20 has an imcomplete analog sync feature i used to input a mono signal into DSP audio in, Guitar even tape recorder output drove glitchy noise

Good stuff man Subbed Gonna keep an eye on your channel Cheers n Godspeed!

luv it.. I use the same MIDI interface with a MOTU Hybrid audio interface but after looking at your multitrack mixer i'm starting to think that's a better option, there's just never enough ins on an audio interface when you are doing synths, drum machines & samplers etc..

For those still in the market for a midi router, consider the iConnectivity mio10. Best option next to that MOTU 128.

Very cool, sounds like a slightly deranged backing for a new Men Without Hats song.

Nice one Alex. I should never have sold my motu128. I liked the tune at the end also.

Very interesting indeed!

Drumtraks looks nice. More Drumtraks!

Edirol UM-880 is also an excellent midi router...highly recommended

that mixing desk // fuck, that think look so perfect.

Epic!

hey brother subbed after I saw your metal track all synth,,,funny as heck and good track! Im just now getting into synthesis for the past few years, learning how to route , patch etc. I picked up Behringers Pro One, I have the Crave The TD3, and a Minilogue by Korg, ( i really like that synth) I am using a Launchkey slMK3,) it can run potentially up to and more than 32 synths, 16 per chanel, it has two full cv gate out,. im having difficulty creating ''a template'' so i can control my synth parameters al via the slmk3. I am thoroughly impressed. 8 seperate arpegiators, Chord and Musc mode snap to or just light up the keys. i.e you can put on an arp that just hits Gminor harmony notes 4octaves up and down. Ive actually let it create a couple of little arps for my tracks

I think you and Anders Enger Jensen should do a collaboration at some point. Would be epic!!

THANK YOU

Alex, very nice video again. Not sure whether asked in past reactions, I miss in this video details regarding the PC and its specs. My experience this DAW-running device is often the bottle neck in the set-up. Please share your experience.

ahh... making a nice cup of coffee.. and settling down to this :)

Hi Alex....I also have a Motu 128....I've also got a model d, ms20 and odyssey mark iii and use Kenton pro solo cv gate midi from the model d to the motu and pro solo cv gate usb convertors to a carillon ac1 music computer. The motu and kenton pro solos have been absolutely rock solid. On the audio side I have a mackie 2404 vlz4, connected to an rme babyface. To get an additional 8 audio inputs, I run 8 channel inserts from the desk into a Behringer ada8000 using trs cables and connect via adat to the babyface which gives an additional 8 channels of recording simultaneous audio in cubase... synths connected like this are: Minimoog model d Arp odyssey mkiii Ms20 2x karp odyssyey (connected to carillon via usb) Macbeth m3x nord lead 1 rack Nord lead 3 Jd800 Prophet 6 Creamware prodyssey asb Lyra 8 (no cv connection to carillon) Additional s/w on the carillon is Kontakt, Battery for drums and Synthogy Ivory for piano..as a master keyboard, there's an Maudio controller keyboard. I don't have any external drum machines anymore so my clocking is very simple, cubase provides the master clock. Love your channel!

Really interesting piece, Alex, wow! I use 2 LinnSequencers clocked by an SBX-80 pulse to control a lot of hardware synths through a JLCooper MSB16/20, and there's also a Syco-Logic for some of the newer (!) hardware synths and the MacPro. I'm just using a Motu MIDI Express USB, so I only have 6in-8out, but it works. I tried using a USB-3 PCI card for some Midi Destinations, but it would glitch, so, like you I'm using USB-2 in and out of the MacPro (an older one, firmware upgraded to 5,1.) After I've programmed something in the Linn(s) I put Digital Performer into External Clock mode, and Multi-Record all the Midi Tracks simultaneously into DP. Then, switching patches on the JLCooper and the Syco-Logic, I send all that Midi BACK to the synths, and record them as Audio Tracks all at once, through 2 Motu 24i/o's and 2 Motu 2408MkIII interfaces. Once everything is audio, I can splice sections (sometimes I think I should have done the splicing while it was still MIDI (pre-audio recording of it) but with crossfades, and re-recording (remember, all the audio tracks' midi sources are still there, part of the Digital Performer sequence, but just muted once the Audio tracks have been recorded...) it's still easy to go back and change a track. For a while, I had a working Phonic Helix mixer which worked similarly to your SoundCraft mixer, sending individual tracks into the computer, but also functioning as a mixer. The Firewire connection died on it, and, being a Mac guy, I could never upgrade the unit via USB, it wanted a PC to do it. But you're a PC guy, so if you're in NYC, come by, we can make a VERY reasonable deal! It sounded real good. Nice to share set-ups with a kindred spirit.

The TB303 mod concept looks awesome and intelligently thought out. Now all I need is a TB303 to put one in! Anything like that for my TR606?

I feel very "small" with my Korg KROSS as my only, for now, external piece of outboard gear... :)

I have a strange Akai midi router thing and I do use it sometimes, but usually have no need, I use an MPC60 to sequence and its got 4 midi outs which is really nice. Wish it had trigger outs because that would REALLY help with drum synths. I only record and sequence this way, I record into my mixer/interface(zedr16) and tbh its completely spoiled me, because my mixer sends are incredibly important to my sound, and I kinda need to have everything going at once because I usually have a lot of stuff going into the sends even if its very subtle...I reallllly need to stop being lazy and record track by track more though because it would help with songwriting/editing/changing structure

Nice video. Almost bought a MTK myself since it can send out stems over USB but I decided on a Tascam DP24SD (mixer and recorder) that can record on to SD (stems as mixdown) or directly into a DAW. Haven't touched MIDI over USB yet but my Subsequent, KARP Odyssey and VP-03 support that. Not running that many machines at the same time (max. three or so), so routing is quite simple with a KSP for sequencing or just clocking things.

I've done similar - I get about 24 usable inputs with a Quantum 2626 and an X32 rack going into it via ADAT (26 if I can find something to convert SPDIF to inputs that are not phono). Presonus's ASIO drivers allows up to 4 interfaces chained together and my X32 rack still has 2 spare ADAT outs, so I could make that number much higher if needed. Latency is ridiculously low too, only 2ms at 64 samples, making hardware integration really painless. I also use a Mio 10 for MIDI - really useful as I can configure the internal routing via software, meaning I can group ports to use the same MIDI clock, make filters etc. Also have 6 usable DC coupled outputs, useful for sending CV.

You can do same thing with Focusrite 18i20 (or presonus with same inputs and ADAT) plus Behringer ADA8200 (or focusrite octopre)

Can i hook 2 yamaha dd65 drum sets up via midi on them and run them at same time with ez drummer to assign many pieces of drums to them? Or buy 2 ez drummer softwares on 2 diff computers which is more exp prob.

I do this on a smaller scale. I just use a midi devices quadra thru and a midi devices quadra merge with a roland usb midi interface. I have my audio routed through a zoom live trak l 12 over usb. The livetrack l 20 has more channels and both interfaces/mixers also record to usb stick or sd card. So if you have a sequencer and don't want to use a DAW, you can use that setup without a computer.

Extra impressive, was the fact that all the vintage synths were working at the same time. I've usually got at least one konking out at any given moment...

fist i was even expecting more synths and drum machines but anyway the result was still a very interesting Setup and Sound. actually i wouldnt even think it took that many to create that. ...

Can you do something like this, plus using a midi controller to use VSTs on a PC at the same time?