How do you fellas record your synths?

I tend to go straight into the hard drive, then process with plug-ins.

Any of you use microphones, tube devices, or effects on the way in? Any specific recommendations for pads and (pseudo) orchestral sounds?

Cheers,

Jerry

I usually don't. They remain MIDI tracks until mixdown unless I wanna process them somehow (except for the Minimoog) or use one of the older non-multitimbral synths for more than one part.

I have been warming a bunch of stuff up by running it through tube pre and tube compression lately, though...fattens the heck out of Mellotron and bass samples. I almost always track the audio when I do that (I go to HD as well). It's really nice to do that to some of the old analog synths as well...string patches especially! I used to do it with Hammond samples, but I haven't tried it with B4. I don't think I will, either - the darn program sounds totally great without ever leaving my computer.

I did a few tracks on the Alesis QCard demo CD by individually tracking each of the parts to 24-track 2" tape. That was really cool - I would have fun asking people who said that they had really discerning ears if they could pick out which two tracks it was...

dB

Many synth sounds come to life when they are put through a tube preamp, even an inexpensive one like the PreSonus Bluetube. I like to mic a P.A. with a condenser mic and capture that sound as well. Many people scoff at the idea of not recording synths and drum machines D.I. but there is something about the way they sound coming out of an amp that is just amazing.