Recording through Overbridge vs outboard mixers and converters

Elektron Software Overbridge
#1

Been thinking about the advantages of Overbridge lately and I’m already onboard as a graphical editor/UI for the A4 and AR… it’s fantastic. And there is obviously an appeal of recording with no latency through OB as well, which of course means converting analog to digital on the Elektrons themselves and bypassing mixers, outboard units and higher-end converters that would otherwise be in the recording path.

So my question is this: does it really matter? I’ve heard peeps on this forum say that they never use OB for actual recording, and others say it sounds good enough and that the advantages outweigh the potential audio quality disadvantages. What say you?

(Also in my specific case I have a SiX and SSL2+ that everything currently runs through… not Neve-level or anything but certainly better than most synths’ built-in conversion.)

#2

I come around with my default statement to that sound discussion:
99% of the people won’t notice a difference in sound, if there is one, if you solo the tracks. I would say 99% of the remaining 1% won’t notice it in the mix, you did in your DAW, and that remaining 0.001% just don’t care :stuck_out_tongue:

So as long as you don’t produce mainstream-radio-whatever music (if you would, you wouldn’t care, as that recording might be done by someone else), I would choose the workflow that fits best instead of thinking about possible sound differences.

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#3

I’m wondering about this as well for long time now, tested both ways multiple times and came to conclusion that I don’t notice any difference in audio quality.

what keep me wondering for better flow personally is the ability to record non-wet mix, sometimes during recording I make some mistake that I’d wish to fix but with wet recording it’s borderline impossible.

so besides the endless pursuit of improving personal workflow I don’t think there’s any sound quality concern that should be a serious concern.

you can still have the OB plugin to control the machines with extra modulation/automation and record individual tracks “in the background” together with recording everything from the audio interface until you find the best approach or just to test it yourself and see if you can see any difference in audio quality.

btw, OB has some glitches here and there and it’s definitely not lag free from my experience, could be my mac, could be lots of things but when I record stuff from my h6 it’s much more consistent.

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