Rytm and Analog Keys are connected with their stereo outs and the thrus are set to AB and CD (stereo) but I pan the Rytm Thru left and the AK Thru right. No panning on Rytm and AK.
OT can also sum stereo sources to mono on Thrus (A+B, C+D).
They come in stereo, because when I want to sample them, I want to capture the stereo effects. Especially the reverb sounds kinda bland summed to mono compared to stereo.
For sampling I’ll have to pan the thru to center anyway, or I’d just sample a stereo file with silence on one side, so it’s faster that way. I can quickly switch to monitoring stereo through my thru machines.
that’s why i’m using a mixer that does multitrack recording (OTB).
it’s definitely not the smallest piece of my gear, but it allows me importing a session to a DAW and doing more or less proper mixing/mastering job.
layout i use:
– analog kick
– bass
– stereo mix of drums (excluding analog kick)
– 4 synth tracks – leads / plucks / drones
Recording the stereo out has left me with regrets more times than not. Even more than the mix, it’s the arrangement that I often wish to alter down the road. With my ever changing gear setup, it is often not possible to just go back and do it again (especially with modular elements). I’m not Autechre or Surgeon, and I’m fine with that. I commend anyone who can do this successfully and without regret; I just know my own limitations (and the limitations of the gear).
In my experience, the cliche of success coming from 25% inspiration and 75% work is true (or whatever the numbers are). I break my workflow into those two segments (creation time vs work time) and try not to let one slip into the other too much. The burden of stereo out recording is it forces you to do that 75% work during creation time. Of course you’re going to do some of this mixing work during the writing process - in electronic music it’s just part of the game - but you only have so much energy before you start getting diminishing returns.
So yeah. You have to record parts. There’s no other way around it given your gear. Just embrace it, get your clock shit right if that’s in the way, and separate creation time from work time. Mixing and mastering is a different mindset, and it’s a lot better done in a DAW with a birds eye view, when you are NOT in creation mindset, and have a universe of tools at your hand that these boxes don’t provide.
One thing you can do is continue recording your stereo out so you can capture the performance, and then capture the parts after that. Bonus is you might find that the stereo recording was good enough, but if not it can serve as the blueprint for when you arranging the separate parts so you aren’t in this “what would I do live” imagination land that is hard to nail when staring at a computer.