Any other people out there who are recording straight to stereo ? So no multi tracking , no overdubs , no stems / tracks in daws… just hardware through a mixer straight to stereo… ?
Getting pro results like this ? What are your techniques ? Do’s and don’t do’s ?
I’m plotting on going down this road but like to hear from others how they experience this .
Thx for your input .
K.
Not sure why I’m replying as I have no advice.
I do this but only to make little youtube jam/demo recordings, I dont daw.
Straight out the mixer into a zoom q3hd cam line input but recently thru an rnc comp for lite limiting.
Depends what you mean by pro. Will you get them mastered.
I think its a great idea if it works, like the old style recording.
I work like this. Always have and always will. Just midi, no audio. I even had a label pull out of releasing a track because I couldn’t provide stems.
I’m all about the moment. If it isn’t finished in a session, move on. But I do prefer the sound of techno made in this way, and from that era.
I definitely don’t get results that would be considered pro, by today’s standards. But my style is my own and that’s what matters to me.
Yeah I’m sure it could work quite well. If you have top end sound sources eg some tasty analog synths, maybe invest in a nice suming mixer and some good compressors. 
You listen to some old beatles or whatever and they sound awsome.
Indeed by pro i mean that after mastering they would be release worthy .
Exactly , i prefer my live sessions much more then my arrangements inside a daw… i just feel that every time i start editing, adding fx plugins etc it’s sucks the life out of the tracks , not to mention the hours lost in finetuning it all. As you say i just like to capture the moment , mistakes and all , but with a good enough sound and balance to be usable. For now all my boxes are all linked by using audio inputs on the machines itself … So not ideal for getting the best of sound , been eyeballing the Soundcraft GB2-16 as it seems to have a good EQ section…
I always record straight to a single stereo track these days. I’ve had it with recording all the tracks separately and then getting into never-ending mixing and tweaking mode. As Kristof said, it seems to drain the life out of the music, and also takes forever (literally if you never actually finish the thing!).
One more thing is that recording straight to stereo encourages you to get the arrangement sounding right before you start recording. There’s none of this “I’ll fix that in the mix” nonsense. Get all the sounds working together before you record anything.
I actually still run everything into my laptop on separate channels (Overbridge for Rytm, VI for the Virus, and separate analog channels for everything else) and use MainStage as a mixer. Then when I’m ready, just press REC and jam.
After that, I load the stereo file into Logic and do a bit of post production – usually add some saturation and compression. Done.
Hmmm ive been thinking about this a bit as i have only recently acquired my elektrons andnhave been arranging my tracks mainly on my OT and other hardware but i think in the end im going to have to track it all separately into ableton. I just need that control over the mixing side of things.
Ive gottn quite good at tnit dwelling on the mix though. General rule of thumb if a task isnt done in 10 minutes you’re no longer fixing it and dont spend more than 2 hours on a track at a time
This is where I want to go as well. Record multitrack with one take, fix any minor issues you missed during the take (hats 2dB down, a 3dB narrow cut @2.4k on the snare etc), export.
I tried nailing songs down via the 2-track-only method for some time, but always fucked up something that ruined the take. With a constant lack of time and energy for perfecting my technique, I have admitted to myself that I am simply not good enough to pull off two track recording down well enough. But recording in one take is a must for getting more feel into a track IMO.
I would like to do more of this. I’m always envious of people who can just jam out a song recorded to stereo and call it a day. I tend to get lost in the tiny inconsequential details of a song for weeks and weeks. Doesn’t make it any better, just takes longer.
My latest song is 99% Rytm (“Invisible”. Can listen in the Our Music forum if you want), recorded to stereo (plus an extra clap and MS20 solo). Some Glue and Satin applied to it in Ableton. I was pleased with Rytm’s internal fx. Didn’t feel like I was missing anything by not using OverBridge to record individual tracks or applying reverb/delay plugins.
Helps to have things like Performance and Scenes set up. Those can add a lot of depth to a song. Next time I will probably use Song mode, not worry about changing patterns, and just play with Perf and Scene and Mute pages.
Took about 1/4 of the usual amount of time to make this song. I’ll probably keep trying to do this and get better at one-take recording. Like Tsutek, I find this pretty difficult to do without throwing in plenty of goofy mistakes, or forgetting things like - oh yeah, I was gonna mute that part on second chorus, etc… Much respect for those that record like this all the time and manage to make it sound good.
I find that when i try to record a track start to finish indeed is pretty hard to do in one fluent take . However playing around with a set of sounds and sequence for lets say 1,5 hour , trying different fades and mutes, filters etc … and then cutting out the best 6 à 8 minutes of that recording , works much better , at least for me it does .
I’ve been googling a bit to see if there are any artists using this technique and was pretty surprised to read that Pan Sonic was using this exact technique , straight to stereo on DAT . Pretty amazing !
Yes, that method can also work well. But for songs that have strict parts (intro, chorus, verse etc) I find that playing them in “takes” instead of noodling them works better (takes meaning full attempts at the whole song).
Nearly all of the music I’ve made in the last six years, with the exception of a few things I did within the OP-1, have been live jams recorded to stereo from my OT’s outputs.
I record into Logic and then edit things down to the shortest length possible. The only thing added after are vocals and occasionally some percussion or maybe a little solo type thing. From there I bounce the session, normalize that file, add an adaptive limiter, then bounce again.
Some mixes are better than others, but I’ve been quite happy with my mixes for a while and think they stand up to most other professional releases, lacking of course that extra polish since I don’t do any true mastering.
I did buy a big rack interface to get everything recorded to separate channels in my daw but never got into that workflow. It is quite advantageous for me to record to stereo because if it’s a song I’m adding vocals to I can easily have 50 tracks in my session and it would be harder to manage if all the other parts had their own tracks as well.
50 vocal tracks? I want to hear your stuff now 
Any tips for mixing in the OT, or just practice? Do you have a systematic approach/process?
Agreed. For me, I think it would be much easier to get some sort of rough arrangement on the Rytm (or whatever your setup) first, and then just perform it. Do that several times over and then keep the best version. Transitions and fx might not sound too smooth/natural if I just were to slice audio here and there from an hours worth of jamming.
Speaking of well known artists, I’m pretty sure I read this is how TM404 works. He knows roughly what he will do, practices, and then begins recording several takes, keeping the best ones for possible release. Maybe he would be kind enough to correct me if I am wrong? 
Think he drops by Elektronauts occasionally.
There aren’t 50 vocal tracks going on at once… I just use tracks liberally when recording.
I think just practicing a bunch will get you there. I’ve been using the OT for years so am very familiar with its gain structure. Filter and dj eq can help give the tracks their own space. I really don’t pay attention to it much, you just develop an ear for it over time. I find a willingness to accept mistakes helps. There’s always the next track to get the mix right.
Basically repeating everyone else. Record live, stereo, because I suck at keeping a multitrack recording feeling live and yes, the result doesn’t sound as good, alas. I mostly use groove boxes so that’s part of it. And I like to think of my music as performative. Following this thread because I want someone to talk me out of it.
True! Usually I program what I need, jam for like 30 minutes and then strip down the track again, press record and do a proper “arrangement” while jamming. Very few times do I have to re-record the track. Most of the recordings I’ve released (as TM404, not so much with the other projects) are the first recordnings.
Same over hear. I work with audio loops so I usually am messing around and after awhile I’ve got some loops going and a groove that I like. At this point I stop everything, hit record, and then do a one pass stereo recording working with and remixing those loops while playing other instruments on top and tweakin da rytm… Ideally I’d like to hit record first and create the loops and then do the remix and instrumentation all in one pass, which is what I aim to do live, but I almost have to pretend I’m at a gig to get in that mode…
@outshape - Thanks very much for stopping in!
For anyone interested, here’s a great Elektronaut’s Talk with Andreas where he very generously shares info about his setup and methods - https://www.elektronauts.com/talk/50
A couple quotes…
I really hate arranging music so most of my songs are studio jams that I cut in Ableton.
I think I will do something similar on my next project. I do like arranging, sometimes. It’s like a complex puzzle. It can be frustrating in the moment. I don’t think I would ever call it pure fun. But when it comes together, and it all clicks, it can be very rewarding.
I’ve got plenty of monikers depending on what mood I was in while recording.
This is interesting. You must be a man of many moods! 
I’m forever puzzling over the pros/cons of using multiple monikers.
Digging the new Compuriddim preview! Maybe I missed the info, but will this be a TM404 release? Edit - never mind. saw elsewhere it’s not.