I’ve had the same approach for years now, colleagues sometimes criticize me for not having stems but who cares!! The organicity and humanity found in stereo recorded performances is, at least to me, unmatchable.
And today I will find out if my bid on a second hand PerFOURmer is successful....🤞 - I have been converting the PerFOURmer since Mk I - watching your videos recently has inspired me to flip some old gear and go after the Vermona!! 😀 🙏
Since I moved from just working in the box to using hardware Ive embraced using just stereo master recordings for my tracks too. I love how immediate and human it can make my stuff sound. I never considered recording the separate instruments at the end of a take like you have - great idea - its a nice way of giving some extra samples or an emergency repair kit for rebuilding track sections if needed later. Great tip 👍
I’m a recent subscriber and have really been enjoying your videos. Your set up is clean without being sterile, very inspiring stuff. Your melodies are also just great, they hit that nice balance between tense, emotive and danceable. Good work ✌️
For a long time I struggled with mixing my hardware to a stereo file out of the box. It’s difficult when you know, or think, you could get better results tracking individually in the box. Recently though I’ve been able to embrace the performance aspect found in the single take. Went all in on out of the box mixing with an analog heat / SSL SiX and have been really happy with the results. Sure there are aspects of control I lose but I’m loving the overall experience much more. Letting go of individual stems was difficult but I’m glad that I did. Great video to watch because taking mixing out of the box has only been a recent thing for me. Thanks again!
This is fantastic. I’ve been so stuck getting to the next stage of taking live jams and song sequences and getting them into my daw to complete the song process. Every time I’ve recorded my synths one by one into ableton I completely lose the vibe and don’t know where to go next. Subbed and binge watching all of your videos
Hey Roy! that was my probelm too. The only other way fr me would be to have all multitracked and record the performance, but way too much headaches. Im happy right now :)
Really enjoyed this video and the previous also. Look forward to more and maybe some of your scientific approach to mixing/mastering. I work in stereo due to the limitations of my mixer and next time I am going to do as you have done here. Thank you for showing us the way.
Sounds wonderful! And I can totally relate to the workflow but then again I am biased as I do the same haha My hypothesis is that folks with background in gigging or playing live with bands just feel more at ease and in the flow when performing as opposed to recording each bit and the lego blocking it into place. In any case, wonderful tune and a wonderful video!
Thank you so much for your videos! Love the topics you share and also your way of explaining etc :-) would love to see a deeper dive into your mastering process sometime if the inspiration arises!
That's pretty much the same way, I do it. Different instruments and mixer of course. I even do the single sound recording afterwards, but most of the time I don't use them. I tried multitrack recording, but somehow that didn't feel right. What's came out always sounded so different then the stereo mix, resulting in a lot of work to get closer to the sound I actually wanted. So the stereo track recording for me is the better way. Even if you risk to have the perfect take performance wise but messed up volumes. You said you're doing around three takes. Sometimes I end up doing four to eight takes, but on the other side, sometimes the first one is just perfect. Thanks for the insight! Glad to see other musicians working that way!
THANK YOU! There need to be more Videos like that about workflow for imtermediates instead of all those beginmer videos how this or that synth or synthesis method works
Very similar to my approach. Recording and mixing live performance through analog mixer as L/R track; if the recording sucks, I'll do it again. Then just mastering!
I would like to see you build off this track. It would be helpful to learn your process through to the finish of this track. You already inspired me for a new approach to recording with this video. Thank you.
It's a great discipline and something I'd like to get more comfortable with. I tend to work with a few stereo channels so somewhere between mixed and multi-tracked - I rely too much on being able to tweak EQ and levels on tracks in post, even though I don't do much post production. Drums especially. My fear with this workflow is those retakes - if I have a multitrack sometimes it's as simple as moving a single slider to fix it - having to recapture a whole performance has the risk of losing some of the magic in the first take. Like all things fear holds me back :)
Thanks for your share! Fear is a normal thing, sometimes tho is liberating to let go of all the expectations and comforts, I think that pushes creativity a lot!
thank you for taking us along your recording process! I'm using stereo recordings only, and now doubting to record all my instruments individual, but I think I will lose myself completely in the post production.. Maybe just get a better stereo audio-interface then haha
Thanks! Would love some DAW arrangement/process videos. I'm working on an album using just the Model Cycles that only has a stereo out. Struggling to figure out and commit to a workflow. Any inspiration would be appreciated.
Thanks man! this is exactly how I want to do it. 1 question: How do you make sure you can align the recorded stereotrack in your DAW to the time grid in the DAW? do you sent start/stop messages to your octatrack from the DAW? or do you drag the track to the grid later? no tempo problems when adding stuff in your DAW (like the rytm overbridge parts) later?
So, i just set the tempo in the daw as the same tempo on my octatrack. then later on i will move the recording to put it in grid but being the tempos matched is super eeasy!
I've been wondering about switching to Bitwig. Have had Ableton many years and it has never kept my interest long. Mostly using hardware now but I would like to do as is shown here... still on Ableton 9 so time to decide to upgrade or jump to Bitwig