I have a bit of a recording dilema at the moment. For a long while now, I have resisted combining my soft synths with my hardware which consists of a Voyager, Multiple Foogers, Korg M3 and an Eventide Eclipse (and a few assorted stomp boxes). For some reason, working with soft synths is a different process for me. It’s more cerebral. Working with hardware synths is performance oriented. Tweaking and playing join together especially with the Foogers and Voyager. I get very exited playing my hardware setup and ideas flow quickly between tweaking and playing.
So when I record, I don’t want to think about how I want something more hardware oriented and quick. I don’t want to thinik but do. I am not sure if I am making sense but my interest peeked when I saw a good price on a Zoom R16. Simple but good for laying down tracks and moving between the hard and soft synth worlds. I can take an R16, plug it into my DAW and add soft tracks or do the same in the other direction with my harware. It keeps hardware separate and yet lets me combing soft and hard synths and I kind of like that.
I also have a Berhinger mixer that lets me do splits so I can split the signal to create different fooger feeds and then even add effects on the R16 and mix down.
Any thoughts? Does anyone have any mutlitrackers or should I just use a DAW on a laptop and get over my desire to keep the hard and soft synth worlds separate.
All of my synths, analog and digital, go into an outboard, multi track recorder. For now, I use the multi track as a mixer for all the inputs, plugging amd unplugging as needed. However, later on I could probably patch all of them through an outboard mixer, and feed the multi track from the board.
I haven’t used the R16, but I do have an H2 for live recording. I like the H2, and if the recording quality of the R16 is anything like the H2, it should be a good choice.
Lux,
Man a guy I worked with told me something that I have kept in mind ever since:
“If it works it works”
We were talking about sampled horns vs real ones. If I want a trumpet sound, I can lay down a sampled one. Its not the same, but it works. Sometimes you can’t tell the difference, sometimes you can depending on how you use it. THe same is to be said with software. If it works it works.
Now I own a trumpet and if I want a trumpet sound Ill lay one down, provided that Its not too difficult, otherwise it woudl sound like dyying, breeding elephants sinking deeper into a tar pit. Ill mix my sax with synth strings because I am not a 1 man symphony (I wish I was).
In my opinion I think you are making the situation a little too heady, man if your software does something that your hardware can’t do, and it sounds good, then by all means let them blend and create beautiful music with whatever means you have. Theres no law that says it has to be seperate. Its like you have a huge pallette to mix together all these musical colors, they almost beg to be blended together.
Now if you are doing some kinf of concept album then thats different. A lot of the music that you hear from Rhythmicons unless otherwise specified are hybrid softsynths and hardware. Why? Because I don’t currently own a sequencer, and neither does Gabe. In fact all of Gabe’s stuff is software, I own the hardware. He programs a lot of sequences and I write melodies, basslines, solos, pads, or punctuate where it needs to be punctuated. Sometimes it is such that you can’t discern who composed or laid down what tracks. Only we can.
Im currently working on an all Moog album so there won’t be any sofware synths involved, and that includes Arturia Moog modular/Minimoog.
But if you really choose artistically to keep them seperate then theres nothing in the world at all wrong with that approach. Only YOU really know the differencein the long run, unless you have some truly experienced ears like GregAE or who has run side by side comparisons listening and scrutinizing your tracks.
Lux, I think the most important thing is the arrangement and the delivery. Whatever means you use to achieve the end result is your decision and theres nothing bad to be said about going wither way.
Eric
By the way, I personally only use a multitracker (Roland VS 840ex) and I use a PC only for mastering purposes.
Thanks for the good advice. I guess I just find myself working differently with hardware than with software. I tend to sit down with my soft synths and think about things and tweak. Patches can get complex. With my hardware, its all performance oriented and tweaking is more immediate. Even the M3 with it’s touch screen and sliders makes tweaking in real time performance easy. So a multitrack will give me the same feel as the rest of the hardware.
I am not saying that I will not use soft and hard tracks together, just that I will add one to the other. I thought about a Receptor as well. I like the idea of just having a box and then doing sound design separately. If I add a Macbook Pro to the rig is going to complicate the way I compose/peroform music.with my hardware.
It’s just the way I work. So I think I will go with my instincts although I looked at the top of the Boss line which has a CD burner and 8 simulateous ins. I like that idea. I publish some music on the web but if I want to give someone a CD of my music this way I can do it easily without even a computer. I like that.
Again, just the way I work. For me, mouse and keyboard are equally useful but I just don’t like how they work for me together.
It’s funny. When I work with fooger I start plugging things in like a mad scientist and then play by Voyager and it plays a sound that no digital will make. Again, software does that to but I like to keep them separate and then blend them togetther.
hmmm i cant imagine the AD converters on the zoom to be too great…and i personally would not run any sound through a behringer desk…ever…
If i were u id get a laptop and best audio interface i could afford and then use some piss easy DAW like motu traktion or ableton live to record…i mean im sure with the boss or zoom youd be clicking away on some tiny screen naming ur racks n geting things setup and whatnot…mite aswell just do that with a keyboard and mouse no? and then get all the advantages of a computer recording system
You make a good point and actually, its been suggested to me before as well. I guess there is something I like about having actual hardware. There was a time when all I had were soft synths. I used to think that I did not need any knobs and while that my be true in a sense, I find the immediate tactile experience of knobs and sliders is somethng I like.
That said, I look a closer look at the Zoom, the Boss and other mutlitrackers. Most have small screens and its true that what they offer in terms of recording is suprisingly lacking compared to Live or Cubase, both of which I have used albiet a lighter version of Cubase. I love Live because it does fit in with my peformance/improvisational composing style.
One of my concerns about a laptop is simple, I dont’ have one that I would want to use for music and they are expensive at least a Macbook Pro which is what I really need. I have a laptop in a sense but I dont’ really want to use it for music because I have it for word processing and Powerpoint and use it almost exclusively for my day job. It’s also not up to the task of the kind of musical abuse that I would throw at it (i.e. several VSTs running at the same time).
At the moment, all my VSTs are on a desktop and I live at another location for two days so I need to me mobile so having a laptop is the perfect solution. My setup is significant and its in a small space but I looked at some laptop stands and I think that one of these might do the trick and put my laptop in a place that I can use it easily for recording.
Right now, perhaps I will do this and use my current laptop but not move my VSTs and just use it for recording. I have an interface but its now great. I have been looking at MOTUs which I like because they are DC couples and would work with Volta or Silent Way and control my foogers and Voyager.
So yes, I may rethink the multitrack idea. It’s still appealing to me on some level but practically I may benefit more from a laptop.
Lux,
I started out as a bass player. Back in 96 I used to say things like “I hate synth bass, i hate techno” I wanted to let the technical aspects of my bass playing be heard rather than layered effects. If I was to go back to myself and say “In 13 years you will be deeply immersed in synths and electronica” I probably would have thought of myself as a sellout and quite right there lololol.
I don’t really see synths a sellout or even digital synths or soft synths. I guess its a matter of how they are used. I’m not really a fan of techo or anything associated with dance music but even that can have artistic integrity.
What I have seen however in any popular form of music is a somewhat subliminal attempt to fit into a genre. Music should be classified after its made not before and the best music is that which can’t be easily classified. The trouble is with the dominaion of sample based synths, genre gets defined by a set of presets because synth makers want to make the bands happy who want to make the consumers happy who are fed a genre by record companies. Of course that is changing with the internet.
Tara Busch is a good example. Her music is on CD but I found out about her from the internet and first listened to her music there. It definetly does not fit easily into a category which gives it some musical integrity.
What do I look for? Tools. I think about how I compose and what can help me to do that. At first I was more concerned with synths that claimed to be everthing synths and then learned that that is somewhat of an illusion. So now I find something that lets me be creative. Unique sounds some from me and what I can do even with synths that many would say are limited like the Voyager.
Alvin Lucier made a piece with an old alarm clock, a delay line and galvanic skin response meter (which by the way can be done with a foogger delay. Karlheintz was a master at working with very little and getting great results. I guess what I try to be about is exeperimentation and finding new ways to make music and I leave the genres to the record companies who are the ones who make them in the first place.
The thread discusses the H2 in a lot of detail. The components inside, using the external mic input and line input, and how the settings affect the quality of the sound.
If the R16 is using the same A/D converters and amps as the H2, it might give you better insight as to whether the R16 will suit your purposes.
Bob, thanks for the info. I am going to try a trial of using my laptop to record. It is not a laptop that I bought for this pupose but I wanted to see how it would work with my setup. I have a stand for it and should be able to play it with my rack and foogers and most importantly, my patch bays.
I have an adequate interface that I got for it before. Not great, but certainly adequate at least for stereo.
If all goes well, I may just get the Macbook pro that I have been wanting to get. If I don’t like it, I will go back to lookng at multitrack recorders.