Question About Recording Analog Synths With No Presets

[ghettosynth]

yep, so that means my work flow is wrong. I need to stop working the verse, then the chorus, etc...

I actually start with the chorus, then work backwards, but I don't even start the verse in the chorus is complete.

Perhaps I need a better workflow.

Or, as I already said, you need more synthesizers. Just because our desks didn't change doesn't mean that it imposed a particular order on how we completed songs. You just need as many channels on your mixer and as many synths as necessary to set up all of the components of the different parts.

I don't know how other people worked in the 90s but A LOT of my stuff was direct to two track and all of the mixing and bussing happened in real time, but, all of the composition happened in the midi sequencer. Even when I went to 8-track I didn't use it for everything. In fact, I used samplers much more than I used multi-tracking for most of my electronic stuff. My songs graduated from four track cassette to eight track open reel but the sequencer always dictated the organization so I never felt like I had to work in a linear fashion. The tape had timecode and it forced the sequencer to a particular place and you punched in whatever had to be recorded then.

In the modern era I really don't see the complaining TBH. Record your bits, arrange them in your DAW into a song.

[nineofkings]

I think you're too fixated on your workflow being "wrong." Workflow is a personal thing. If you like to write and arrange at the same time, and compartmentalize song sections, that's fine.

If I were you, I'd record the synth part as if it were going to be in the chorus, and if you decide later you don't need it you can just delete that part or mute the track. It's easier to trim what you don't need than to discover you want a sound and can't remake it

[do_androids_dream]

For important patches take pictures of the synth with your phone camera. It was common practice to takes pics of gear in studios for recalls.

[whyterabbyt]

Do the interim stages with approximated patches, once youve got the whole thing written redo with a single 'optimal' version.

[adamgrossmanLG]

All great ideas.. Thank you. The last one is brilliant. I can record everything with software synths first and then replace with hardware later on!

[deastman]

Use soft synths as placeholders, or samples of your hardware synth.

In the 80s, I was running a roomful of hardware synths and samplers through mixers, sequenced from the Mac, all recorded and mixed down in realtime. Things are way easier these days.

As for Yazoo, it was pointed out in another recent thread that he was sampling all his synths into the Fairlight and sequencing from there in those days.

[thecontrolcentre]

As suggested earlier, keeping accurate patch sheets could be a solution. I take photos of my analogs if I create an 'essential' patch. Its not perfect, but it gets you close.

[AnX]

As for Yazoo, it was pointed out in another recent thread that he was sampling all his synths into the Fairlight and sequencing from there in those days.

Got a link for that info?

[Boone777]

All great ideas.. Thank you. The last one is brilliant. I can record everything with software synths first and then replace with hardware later on!

If your on Mac this little freebie here lets you sample your synth and play the sound with a midi keyboard afterwards it's very easy: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/paraph ... al-analogy
Or you can use a sampler like Kontakt or maybe I guess a free sfz player would work also never tried.

[thecontrolcentre]

Buy more hardware and do it live

[jancivil]

I think you're too fixated on your workflow being "wrong." Workflow is a personal thing. If you like to write and arrange at the same time, and compartmentalize song sections, that's fine.

That workflow is too tight-assed for me, but it's not for me to say. OP is frustrated by it.

I really started writing whole pieces of music by having a Minimoog and a 4-track Teac. The thing here was create the sound along with the musical idea. It was a lot more difficult then to recapture a patch than today, of course.
When I learned to use that instrument there were patch sheets, but writing while making patch sheets, not a good flow. 4 parts meant 4 sounds. When I was setting up patches for someone else to play keys, yeah, patch sheets.

sampling all his synths into the Fairlight and sequencing from there
is the best kind of answer IME. I write for the sound in the moment, rather than more abstractly and then the sound.
Kontakt won't be a real sampler, so you'd have to create the samples and then an instrument, seems not so conducive to writing at the same time. However there are DAWs which are, Cubase Pro 9 has a sampler track so once you've recorded some of that sound you have a patch to work with in MIDI. Ableton Live I would think has something pretty much like that as well, it seems like a DAW-as-big-sampler paradigm.

[Chris-S]

Problem is, I will never be able to make this EXACT sound ever again.

Yes, that's the world of analog.

For this reason some musicians have the same synth several times.

[foosnark]

Getting into hardware had me pursuing two different workflows:

A. Make something I like, sample it, and work with the sample from there. This is often the way to go with non-sequenced stuff, like the Olegtron 4060 where the patch generates its own sequence as well as sound. From there I might slice the sample and work with it that way. Often I'll tear the patch down and make something else, then use several different samples.

B. More usually: try to finish in one session. Since I don't write songs in advance but merge sound design, improv and composition, this got me really working quickly after a while. Other times I'll just leave all my synths on and untouched until I can get back to it and finish it. (One of the buggy digital desktop synths I had at the time wasn't reliable about loading and saving; after a while I started sampling lines I wrote for it too just in case it would crash and lose my patch. Once it crashed while I was recording, and I wound up using its glitchy failure in the song.)

I did a remix project last summer where I had to keep my Microbrute untouched for seven weeks, between working on the actual thing and being told there might be a video interview about my process. I almost wanted to buy a second Microbrute, but it was an unpaid gig There is no way I would leave my modular patched that long for one project now! I tend to finish tracks somewhere in the 2 hours to 3 days range.