I mean why ride a bike when you could just drive there?
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I learned mixing on mackie, old yamaha digi and SSL consoles back in the days. Recorded to 2inch. No DAW included. No DAW needed. Did the same for years in ProTools, thats more editing and less proper preparation as you can do so much after the recording.
But with little thinking and preparation one can easily have a proper mix OTB.
Mixing only on tje wlekteons is veeery time consuming, so get a proper mixer, be it analog or digital, get the direct outs multitracked on tape or harddisk and you are fine.
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exactly. Its like saying…oh why do you need three Elektron boxes…you can all do it with an Yamaha Genos! Alex Christensen even uses one…
Of course you did.
You did it then because you needed to.
You don’t need to now 
And I already showed an SSL console as a potential daw replacement above 
I was an engineering draftsman when I was younger. Started on a drawing board, then we all switched to Autocad and took advantage of the incredible power of the modern pc.
Never looked back.
Technology is an amazing thing. Use it.
The OP even already has a laptop. He’s half way there.
Get a good audio interface and you’re set.
Why deal with unnecessary compromises
Does it record to a similar card than what the OT uses, though?
That could be a great solution, to pair the OT with a device that streams recordings directly to card, ready to then open with an OT static track. Recording lenght probs sorted! Then use the OT for editing the audio.
You could use something like the mobilelite wireless for xferring files between cards with your phone.
I think @andreasroman has some experience recording full tracks with just the OT. Curious to see his thoughts on this.
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actually i disagree with the idea that mixing on the Elektrons is overly time consuming.
mixing sounds on the Elektron boxes is no more time consuming than compared to a multi output with mixer to concurrent multi track recording scenario. Especially when viewed regarding the Octatrack in particular.
in particular, if thought about properly, the OT is very time efficient for mixing.
with one caveat: need to learn how the effects on the OT actually work, what the result of their application is on different sounds.
is technology an amazing thing?
i would say it is a multi faceted progression and regression in relation to music recording technology. the mass uptake of mp3 technology. what mp3’s did to song quality and harmonic richness was utterly horrible. and yet the technology was convenient and useful in the early days of the low bandwidth high cost internet access.
so yes technology is a sometimes convenient, sometimes amazing, sometime a deleterious thing … depends on the application, the content, the context, the advice, the workflow and technique.
as regards capturing a song mix, there is absolutely no reason why it could not be done to realtime memory of the Octatrack and thereby avoid not one but two conversion processes.
well, if a bunch of samples are in the Flex memory already, taking up more than 20 or 30mb, then yes that might get in the way of a five minute recording.
apart from that, surely the best way forwards if mixing the levels on the Octatrack, to then go forwards and use the Octatrack environment to capture the song mix… save it to disk and from there upload it to Soundcloud or a record company submission email address?
If the recording memory scenario is not using more than 25mb for existing Flex slot usage, then it is quite obvious that recording to the Octatrack’s realtime memory is the smartest option.
Hey @tsutek and everyone else,
I used the OT more or less as a pumped up porta when I had it (which was about three years). I recorded both short and long sequences into it, everything from one shots to three minute takes from a keyboard or similar, mostly with recording trigs.
I did all my mastering in the OT as well, since I kind of like both the EQ and the compressor, and the punchy and compact effect these give with the filters. They have character of the kind that I liked.
The single most important thing I learned from this was that if you watch your recording material carefully, and make sure that what goes into the OT sounds pretty good as it is, then you’ll do just fine staying within the OT. However, if the material that goes into the OT is so-so or worse, then the OT’s fx won’t fix something that a proper DAW or similar could.
So I took my time to learn how to get it right in the recording phase, and from there, the OT was just fine as a tool for recording, mixing and mastering, given that I liked what came out of it. You gotta embrace the OT’s character, though, but the way I looked at it, it’d be hard to make a DAW sound just like the sweet spot combinations of the EQ, compression and filters of the OT working their magic together.
So I looked at it the other way around - it’s possible to get this sound in a DAW, but why bother? It’s so much easier in the Octatrack.
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If I should add anything to this, it’s that part of the reason I stay away from DAWs, is the reliance on them to make things good that’s not great to begin with. With no DAW around, you gotta try harder to get things right, which in the end is the only way to get solid results anyway. So you’re removing a set of excuses and reasons to get the work done properly.
So for me - and this is very personal, I’m not saying this is a truth for everyone - a DAW is a mirage with all its options, an idea that once it’s in there, it’ll be good. But it doesn’t work that way for me. Which is also why I don’t care much about Overbridge.
As the number of tracks running in parallell grows, and the kind of input of those tracks vary in sources, this argument becomes less relevant. Argubaly, recording guitars, vocals and drums into an OT is a lot more challenging than just plugging in a Prophet or two and hit record. If I’d been into those kind of things, I might’ve had a very different experience with the OT.
But I’m all electronic, so a proper set of line ins and a decent sounding board, and I’m good.
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No doubt certain tasks are much easier and better with a computer, engineering drawings is a good example, precision is certainly required, and computers allow precision that pencils and rulers do not. But it is a fallacy to believe that even electronic music requires such precision, you do not need to eq and compress every track, or endlessly fiddle with a mix to get it sounding good, sure you can if you want to, but it isn’t required.
Computers are great, but they don’t replace everything and never will. There will always be people painting with brushes, drawing with pencils, and recording music just fine without them.
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It’s only my opinion, and we all have one.
It would be a pretty boring place if we all thought the same around here wouldn’t it.
The last thing I would want is people agreeing with me 
That would be silly
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People (including me) are just tired from looking at screens… all day, every day. Work, communication, entertainment, … there is no end to visual polution or better just:over exposure. But our passion is sound, hearing and listening are our chops, the visuals are a form of first aid.
(1 of the) Reason(s) why Push, Maschine and their siblings are so popular I guess, bridging software with hands-on controllers.
So we look for alternatives, doing as much as possible in a way we can feel personally connected with creating. Letting go, finding a flow in an activity in which we find peace and makes us happy in the moment (and hopefully afterwards too, but that’s minor and subject to change…).
Just a thought.
// EDIT
Forgot … to mention … eurorack anyone? 
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Its funny how polarising this kind of a topic can be. Hipster name calling for using tape machines and all.
A calibrated 15IPS pro tape machine sounds better than my UAD tape plugins. Now if someone loves tape, I aint gonna judge. Hell, I just found an abandoned pro C cassette deck the other day, I’m getting some type IV tapes and checking what kinda results I can get by running my DAW stuff into it and back again.
Its the tunes we should be concentrating on. If someone blows me away by their latest fruity loops tune or by their ukulele playing, recorded with a dictaphone, I am in awe of the music, not the equipment.
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Do they though? Does it astound you that people still scuplt by hand now that 3D printers are available? Does it astound you that people still write love letters when they could send a text? etc. etc.
It is just a personal preference, nothing else. What is astounding though is that just because a technology is available some people who use it think everyone else should use it.
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some of the philosophical writings of Heidegger point vaguely to areas of thought and streams of opinion amongst the possible standpoints that could indicate why it’s sometimes more fun to not use a computer.
a more direct sense of control, etc.
also i would suggest there may be some kind of muscle memory presumption or something for some people - as in, a difficult-to-escape mental disposition that “computer equals work” … when really, finding a frequency that makes the body and mind feel good is not always achievable from a work framework mindset …
so it isn’t necessarily a kneejerk subconscious moral virtue highground grasping attempt to not use a DAW, by any means.
also, the original question asks for help on mixing without a DAW. On the OT.
really the best idea is to explore the subtle use and characters of the OT effects. and the value of volume automation. and realtime recording.
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Could be a hipster thing. Typewriters are making a small comeback. So are film cameras. Sooner or later there will be a small revolution to computer technology.
Can i have a small multitrack recorder,…8 stereotracks or 16 monotracks based 0n the OP1 Tape Recorder, with the FX from Digitone plus EQ, Elektron pleeeease?
I don’t care whatever people use to do the thing they like… Maybe some do it for good reasons and some do it for not the best reasons… But whatever, don’t we just all want to be free to do as we please? And people have to do things and experience things to evolve and change their mind, so even by doing something for a silly reason it helps as part of a process to later learn they did that for a silly reason and grow as a person…
I don’t understand why folks want to push their opinions on people and have them conform to it… It’s just silly to me and limits our own personal freedom of expression and choice… Or maybe I do understand that it helps with people’s egos and feeding some kind of power/control trip, even if it’s just a small one they don’t know they have…
Do people feel better inside when someone else changes their mind to conform to they’re opinion they’re forcing on people or something? Wouldn’t the world be better if we just helped each other and understood we are all brought up in some void of culture reality and it’s obvious people have to go through a bunch of stuff and sometimes make funny choices to learn from, because we have zero guidance?
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There is something to be said for appreciating and respecting another’s choice to exercise their own free will.
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Online ego is a strange beast!