I recently picked up a mixer as I’m trying to start including a DAW in my setup. I’m not sure if my goal is possible- and if it’s not I am looking for suggestions on how to get close to what I am aiming for.
I’d like to have all my instruments (synths, drum machines, Octatrack, guitar) running into the inputs on my mixer with each having their own channel in Ableton. And then have my mixer run into the Octatrack so that I could sample from channels on the mixer. From there I would like to be able to play a live set where I live loop various synths with the mixer running into the Octatrack. The obvious problem I keep running into is I’m no longer able to isolate the channels from the mixer to the Octatrack and everything gets looped together onto the Octatrack instead of the individual instruments.
What I’m looking at doing now is running some of my synths through the Octatrack and using thru-tracks to use the main and cue outs to channel the synths from the Octatrack to the mixer and have them for looping on flex/static machines as needed. The biggest apparent downsides to this is combining channels when going into the mixer, Needing a line in adapter to run guitar through the Octatrack if I want to loop guitar (instead of using the one built into the mixer), wasting tracks on thru machines, and I can’t run all my instruments into the Octatrack inputs- so I’d have to find alternative ways to utilize the other instruments in a live setup.
The gear I’m using:
Octatrack
OP-1
Arturia DrumBrute
Korg Minilogue
Moog Sub 37
Ableton 10 Suite
Zoom LiveTrak8 mixer
Electric Guitar setup
Am I missing something? Is there some wire formation I’m not thinking of that would be ideal for post-performance editing in a DAW (Ableton 10) combined with live looping/sampling improvisation across multiple instruments? I imagine I could work out configurations if I planned ahead, but I’d like to be able to hop on any instrument at any time and have the cords in a more permanent layout.