Committing to audio, losing Elektron beauty

Bluetomo · 2022-12-13T18:06:25.774Z

Hi, just watched a video from Ricky Tinez, which spurred me to plugging my OT into the audio interface and therefore Ableton to record it.

I get this, tape recording anything is always a good thing.

I immediately felt dissatisfied. Capturing 4, 8 or even 32 bars still felt I was robbing my sounds from what I bought Elektron for.

I’m just a hobby music person, but would still like to capture my stuff occasionally.

Any thoughts, nauts?

OldmanChompski · 2022-12-13T18:08:38.098Z

Not quite understanding what you mean by “robbing the sounds” and what you bought the elektron for. Could you elaborate?

I personally love committing to audio as it allows me to move on, not get stuck in an editing cycle, and with something like the Octatrack I feel like it allows me to level up the sound of anything.

thermionic · 2022-12-13T18:21:03.571Z

Bluetomo:

I immediately felt dissatisfied. Capturing 4, 8 or even 32 bars still felt I was robbing my sounds from what I bought Elektron for.

So record more bars and perform over them?

Play as long as you’re having fun, chop out the dull moments and leave the fire.

If you’re conflating songs with short-bar loops, sequence the bars into a song and then record into Ableton while performing

Strutter · 2022-12-13T18:23:31.814Z

What is the cause of dissatisfaction?

alechko · 2022-12-13T18:24:55.184Z

the way I see it is if you want to release your music commercially and you want to be able to rearrange a recording or mix in more detail you probably want to split the recording into clips / individual channels, if you’re doing it for fun and yourself then you can record stereo output bring the levels to norm and be cool with whatever you’ve captured.
I create a pattern, jam with it and record it with no intentions of releasing my shit ever, bring the levels to norm and add bit of eq/compression, then throw it into my Saved Messages on Telegram. when I’m taking a long walk I listen to my playlist, if something stands out and I’m like “yeah wow this sounds nice” I can always return to a project and re-record it.
so it depends what you’re looking for… noone if forcing you to record bars/loops, you can record 5-6-10-20 minutes jam, bring the levels to norm and enjoy, or you can break everything down for better arrangement / mix. still beautiful

maymind_trax · 2022-12-13T18:34:39.571Z

Well, recording by nature captures a static performance. Maybe you aren’t satisfied with the performance and given that this seems like one of your first times doing it, that’s not surprising. Recording is an art form and it takes more than one stroke of the brush to come up with something memorable. Imagine how a great painter would have sounded if he tried painting once and then said “eh”.

Stick with it!! Keep recording! Write things down, note what works, what doesn’t. Elektron makes tools for sound. Use them for that!

Bluetomo · 2022-12-13T18:43:15.508Z

Robbing the random and lfo.

Pretty sure you know what I mean.

Bluetomo · 2022-12-13T18:45:03.995Z

Great advice, thank you.

OldmanChompski · 2022-12-13T18:55:21.929Z

Ok so by committing to audio you’re saying you’re losing the trig conditions and other movement stuff from other Elektron gear?

I mean, true (it’s also why I don’t think the percent chance value stuff is all that important in a studio environment and more for a performance environment) but that’s when you use the Octatrack trigs and LFOs.

thermionic · 2022-12-13T20:38:36.029Z

Bluetomo:

Robbing the random and lfo.

Pretty sure you know what I mean.

I don’t quite

Are you not recording long enough patterns? Are you sending the Octa MIDI notes instead of triggering the sequencer with longer patterns or “songs”?

Microtribe · 2022-12-13T21:13:43.580Z

Bluetomo:

but would still like to capture my stuff occasionally.

So then do it.
Wait until you have a whole track finished, and record that. Done. simple.

You dont have to do what Ricky tells you to do.

Or any one else. Do what makes you happy.

BLKrbbt · 2022-12-13T21:28:09.724Z

Microtribe:

You dont have to do what Ricky tells you to do.

I disagree. You MUST listen to Ricky. You must submit to Tinez.

BassesAndPads · 2022-12-13T21:33:24.102Z

I capture audio from my OT all the time. It records exactly as it sounds, but I use a sync clock.

Not sure what the OP means here.

no-thanks · 2022-12-13T21:40:20.164Z

I don’t really understand either. I mostly do this for fun and for myself, but I record a few takes of a track in arrangement view in Live then edit, pull out pieces from other takes, etc. The goal in the end is for it to sound fluid, so you wouldn’t necessarily know it was edited. Ideally I’d be able to just do it in one take but I’m not that good, ha.

I have been thinking that specifically separating recorded parts/loops out into clips then doing another live arrangement of those clips in Live might be a way to further refine these recordings. Maybe that’s what you’re talking about? I could see that possibly losing something of the live feel, but I haven’t actually tried yet.

Strutter · 2022-12-13T21:43:03.733Z

I hate it when cool and never-to-repeat-again stuff is going on and I’m not recording.

Phurniture · 2022-12-13T22:01:56.655Z

Whether it’s Elektron gear or even just tweaking a hardware synth, I often jam on it for whatever length of time I think I might want the finished product to be. This could be 5 minutes of jamming, and then layer other stuff on top and repeat.

BTW @Bluetomo - Technique might be my favourite album of all time.

Microtribe · 2022-12-13T22:20:48.420Z

BassesAndPads:

I capture audio from my OT all the time

Yeah so do I. Its kinda how I make music…

maymind_trax · 2022-12-13T22:40:58.967Z

This thread is devolving quickly

djst · 2022-12-14T11:21:56.481Z

Bluetomo:

I’m just a hobby music person, but would still like to capture my stuff occasionally.Any thoughts, nauts?

I keep asking this question a lot in this forum, but I think it’s relevant here too: what is your goal with your hobby?

If, let’s say, your goal is to produce finished tracks that you can send to friends or publish on places like Bandcamp, etc, then it’s inevitable that you will have to commit to a final version of a song at some point. Every performance is unique and has characteristics like randomness to it. Any guitar solo ever recorded is going to be completely unique and no matter how much that famous guitarist tries, every performance on stage in front of a live audience won’t match the solo performance recorded onto the album.

The way I see it, the final result should aim to distill the best parts of that magic. It’s the same when an actor does 10 takes of a scene and only one of them ends up in the movie. So if the magic gets lost in the recording, it could be a sign that the take wasn’t the right one? Like @maymind_trax says, just keep trying!

If, on the other hand, your goal is to just have fun and jam live for your own enjoyment, then do you really need to record into the DAW at all?

LCVL · 2022-12-14T11:25:35.715Z

Committing to beauty, losing Elektron audio