I connected my Syntakt to my PC using the USB cable that came with the box. I opened Overbridge and selected all the tracks except the main one to record a song. I dragged these wav files into Ableton Live - it automatically created several tracks - and put a Utility on the master track. I turned on mono and it sounded exactly the same, so I figured all the tracks are in mono that Overbridge recorded.
Is there a way to record in stereo from the Syntakt? Do I have to record the main track instead of each track individually? Or do I need to use Ableton Live to record my song instead of Overbridge? What am I missing here?
Thanks all,
a newbie to music and the Elektron world
All Syntakt tracks are mono. Stereo is created through panning, delay (ping-pong), and reverb.
Delay and reverb are their own separate channels, and as far as I can tell, the Syntakt doesn’t send panning information through Overbridge. I would love to be wrong.
It is strange, I’m pretty sure panning does work on the Digitone. But then, a few small things behave differently with Overbridge on Digitone vs Syntakt.
Edit: This is for recording other than the main outs. The main outs do retain the stereo information.
When recording every track separately, you loose the FX, that is only audible in the main stereo track and, iirc, a separate FX track.
The only stereo information a track can retain in such configuration is the panning.
Try hard panning left or right a track, you should see the stereo image of your master track reflect this change.
Depending on your workflow you might prefer to record mono stems and later add stereo movement + FX in your DAW.
Or go for the stereo main out of your groovebox only.
From a mindset perspective it’s best to think of these machines as being a self-contained device each having their own internal mixer - with each track being a mono instrument on its own strip.
i.e. If you had a mixer with a guitar and a couple of monosynths plugged into it you could have a stereo send with a reverb/delay attached, and you could pan the channels differently - but that stereo image is only created when the channels hit the master bus. That’s the metaphor you’re working with. i.e. if you just wanted to capture the guitar and you multi-track it, you’d be getting the mono source because it’s a mono instrument on a mono channel - if you want the stereo image you’d be capturing the master, which would necessitate you silencing all the other channels as that is a bus that contains a mix.
Different folks approach these boxes quite differently and there’s no right/wrong but IMO you lose something in attempting to multitrack them.
