I know the thread title is a little silly, but this has been on my mind for a minute.
I came up using Ableton, and despite grappling with it for 10 years, I never clicked with it. It wasn’t until I bought a Machinedrum and Digitakt that I realized how fun sequencing could really be. Eventually I bought a Virus C and a Moog. This has basically rendered Ableton as a recorder/effects box. The only thing that keeps me from going totally DAW-less at this point are the saturation and mastering effects I get from Satin, Presswerk, and Echoboy. They add a lot to my sound, and overall glue things together. It’s also nice being able to EQ individual tracks.
However, it seems like buying an Analog Heat, a mixing board, and an actual tape machine to record to would be the final piece. The sound I’m going for is mostly lo-fi and dubby, so that feels like a natural progression. It’s not like I’m making super polished pop tracks so I don’t need to do highly detailed mixing (although I would miss some of the whacked out effects I could get by throwing various plugins in to the master buss). Is this a crazy thought? I’m also not totally clear how/if I would be able to run all three of my synths (two instances of Virus plus Moog) AND the Digitakt in to the Heat considering it’s limited inputs. Advice appreciated!
It’s certainly possible… that said, very hard to provide commentary without hearing examples of what you do with Satin, Presswerk and Echoboy. The AH is certainly capable of providing a range of saturation from subtle to brutal and everything in between. I’ve used it many times on the master bus and in mastering situations (actually my primary use case), but as an overall and only device you’re probably going to find it pretty simplistic. That might be what you’re after though?
If you want to be without a computer altogether, then get a mixer with built in recording functionality to SD card. There’s a bunch of them out there, but here’s one example:
That would give you enough channels to have a couple of stereo send/returns (one for a delay to replace Echoboy and the other for AH to treat for saturation). It also has some built in FX for reverb and whatnot.
I personally don’t think it makes much sense to get a mixer and then a dedicated recorder unit unless you wanted to use it separately for field recording or something. My preference would be to have it all in one box, but there’s certainly valid arguments for both, so it comes down to your individual needs and goals.
You could also skip recording in the mixer or recorder all together and use the AH as a soundcard and just use the computer as a tape machine. Doesn’t have to be Ableton (although you already have that) you could use something like Audacity or any number of options if you don’t want to be too distracted by a full blown DAW.
In any case there’s TONS of ways you can do this, so I’m not sure I’m helping you too much. You’re basically going back to how it was all done in the 90’s and early 2000’s when we didn’t use DAW’s for recording. Nothing wrong with that… just a different way of working at this point.
I use a mixing desk with the AH on the master and record into a zoom H4n pro. I have a Quadraverb on an Aux send and that pretty much sums up my mixing/recording setup/workflow.
It works for me because I record all my tracks live, so no tracking or overdubbing to worry about. I definitely think it’s improved my mixing skills a lot over the last year or so, as you have to mix everything first instead of last, so you kinda learn to make the most of the mixing desk and it’s EQs.
If you’re going for a dubby, saturated sort of sound, the AH, a half decent mixing desk and something to record onto will do you fine, as long as you are willing to adapt your workflow as necessary.
If I was to start all over again, I’d definitely buy something like that tascam above, but if you want tape, go for that, before it becomes prohibitively expensive.
One great thing about the AH for me is OB, so when I want to record into ableton in the end, I just open Ableton and hit record. Until then, no screen. I don’t think it’s good to write off the usefulness of vst’s or being able to quickly record a track, bounce it down and send it to whoever you want to hear it.
If you’ve been using Ableton for a long time there will be things that hardware will not reproduce.
You could just spend thousands of dollars trying to replace vst’s and end up using ableton for final mix anyways. All these things we have access to are tools to be used.
As for your original question. No. But using the AH as a sound card and a vst (or just keep the computer off) is an amazing thing for me at least.
As a final polish/mastering tool, yes. I use it on everything I do on the 2-bus, clean/saturation/enhancement drive usually a little over 12:00 until it breaks up then back off. Low and Hi boosted from 3:00-5:00. Just started messing with adding dirt. But yes, it makes everything better more polished and finished sounding. I have an FMR RNLA after to bring everything to level after the Heat.
If I want to do more post production I use Ableton to track into and sometimes I’ll use Glue 10:1, slowest attack, fastest release, threshold just enough so the meter jumps, soft clip on, and gain up until the light blinks. Finally a limiter to make sure it doesn’t go above -0.01.
I went without Heat after having it, and it was greatly missed. It has mojo that “warms” sterile cold sound. Especially out of the Octatrack. Never leave home without it.