Stereo Recording

Up, interested in answers in 2020 :slight_smile:

It depends on my mood and the nature of the project for me. When I first started playing music as a teenager in the 90s it was all stereo to cassette or 2track reel to reel due to budget. Saved up and got a cassette 4 track. Many many years later built a computer powerful enough to run multiple tracks and kicked my 4track to the curb (which I still regret). Have upgraded computers many times since and, like most folks, have the tech to run effectively limitless tracks now. Thing is, Iā€™ve been gravitating back toward recording straight to stereo and doing a few edits and maybe the occasional overdub after. For most projects of mine unlimited track count is just too much, artistically. Itā€™s so easy to lose the essence of the track. My favorite recordings Iā€™ve done over the years have usually been stereo recordings of live sets at an event of some kind. These rarely sound as ā€œgoodā€ and often have a few bad spots where my mix was off or I triggered the wrong sample or whatever else but they have so much vibe that I just canā€™t seem to get when recording multitrack style at home. I have come to accept that imperfections are not only okay, but good if theyā€™re minor, few, and happen organically. Feel will always outweigh polish. Most listeners respond far more to the feel of a track, warts and all, than they do to anything else.
I want to get back to recording at home the same way I would record a live set. That being said there are situations where it just isnā€™t possible or practical to record that way. For example Iā€™m working on a project that has lots of live percussion and I only have two arms and two legs so I canā€™t do it (and the rest of the instruments) in one pass. Also, different projects (I use many different monikers for different styles) may require different approaches to make them more artistically distinct so I donā€™t want to rigidly adhere to any one method of tracking but in most situations the most live approach seems to be the best for me.

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I record everything Iā€™m make live off the stereo buss. Havenā€™t even turned my laptop on in about 2 years. I do all the ā€œmasteringā€ live as well with a couple of compressors and an Analog Heat. Iā€™ve always preferred the sound of the tracks that I make this way. It doesnā€™t work for everyone and Iā€™m sure thereā€™s plenty of purists will tell me my tracks sound like dogshit but Iā€™m too old to change.

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Iā€™ve always done it this way, first with cassette, then DAT, then CDr, now SD recorder.

The mistakes can be easily be overcome by just carrying on and redoing the section, then cut out the mistake using a wave editor, and you can do multiple takes and comp them together.

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Yep. I record just a stereo mix as well. Some of them get mastered and released. Its totally viable. A good mix is a good mix, doesnt matter how you get there. A good mix is more important than mastering anyway.
I listen back to my recordings and make notes, if something is off, i fix it and rerecord. No problem. Gives me more playing time.

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Getting back at this nearly 3 years later i can say i doubted sometimes it was a disadvantage to record straight to stereo . I mean , i love it , itā€™s what iā€™ve always done as it is so much fun to jam and fool aroundā€¦ but i thought i was limiting myself soundwise compared to people who multitrack in DAWā€™s and polish everything to the max ā€¦ but i sticked to it !! And then i had my first vinyl release a couple of months back which sounds greatā€¦ now iā€™m more convinced than ever that for me , straight to stereo is the way to go!

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Little side note ā€¦ i did end up buying that 16 channel soundcraft mixer , but it was not used on my first realease . I used filters like eqā€™s inside a digitakt .

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Just spent several days, on and off, recording and arranging a 100% Digitakt track in Ableton.

Initially I recorded a single stereo mixdown From the Digitakt as a guide, and then recorded each track separately via Overbridge to make editing and EQing easier.

Yesterday I listened to the result, and then listened to the original stereo recording? Guess which sounded way better?

For songs where the Digitakt is just a part of the arrangement, Iā€™ll keep multitracking via overbridge. For Digitakt-only, I think Iā€™ll stick to stereo.

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can I have a link to listen? very curious!

using Zoom LiveTrak L-12, recording both multitrack and stereo master.
itā€™s very convenient. if a multitrack take is to be imported to a DAW for further editing/mixing/mastering, there is also master stereo track for reference.

Everything I did in the last 2-3 years was recorded straight from the stereo bus. Love the immediacy, sometimes hate the little mistake that stands out and forces me to do it over.

Recently i started multitracking via my Xone:96 mixer and OB which allows me to do some editing after the fact. But given how my setup and fx is routed I then often have to replay it live with the edits streamed in over USB into the mixer and re-perform the mix and fx tweaking, which basically then is another live take.

I also like that composing, jamming and recording all happen on the exact same setup that I take out for live gigs.

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