Introduction + first question (about monitor recording)
2011-05-08 by raccio
Hello everyone! Just recently decided to go hardware for my music as a way to force myself to "listen" more as I realized I was working too visually on a DAW (and getting lost all the time!). I got myself an s1100 as, after reading around the net, most people seem to love its sound. I have to say that I was not immediately impressed after recording the first samples... Until I hit play on my sequencer! I thought I wouldn't be able to tell the difference (after all, the sound wasn't the main reason why I switched to hardware) but when I A/Bd the same track between computer and s1100 I was blown away. On the computer it sounded like a lot of individual samples playing together, on the s1100 it sounded like a song! It was like the track had already mixed itself! Especially love the snares and hats! It rounds off just that perfect amount of highs plus maybe some sort of compression on the midrange (I'm not an expert). It almost sound s like there's a very very subtle distortion on the whole thing or on each track. I guess, if you're on this message board you already know what I'm talking about! ;)p I'm glad there's an online community dedicated to these machines! I feel kinda bad for asking a question on my first post but, as I found out about this group while searching for an answer to this question I guessed why wait? Basically I was wondering if there's any way to monitor the other tracks while recording a new sample. Here's an example: I put together a beat with various samples (each with its own program) then I wanted to record a bassline (electric bass, so analog input not midi) on top and obviously I need to hear to the other tracks in order to play at the right tempo. But as soon as I enter the REC1 page all the midi notes of the beat start playing the sample that was previously on the track I want to record onto. After a bit of messing around I figured that by setting the kick as the "monitoring program" on the SLCT page of the "Edit Sample" menu I could at least hear that as a reference of the beat (although you can only hear it by setting Moff when you are on the REC2 page). But as soon as I ARM the track for recording the kick is gone! I'm not sure if there is a way to keep monitoring the kick (or even better all the tracks) while recording but it just seems odd to be able to do so up until the point when you're actually about to record it! Am I doing something wrong? Does anyone know any workaround to this? I guess I can always record the track on the computer and play on top of it while recording in the sampler but the idea was to turn the computer "off"... Any help appreciated! Thanks and sorry for the long post!