There are 6 basic steps to making music. Compose → Perform/Monitor → Record → Produce → Master → Distribute.

A lot of people ask what’s the point of outboard gear, when you can do it all inside a DAW for less money/time. People still like and use outboard gear IMO due to a few basic fundamentals.

#1 You actually OWN outboard gear/instruments. No company, change, update or data loss can take your gear away.

#2 many find the tactile experience of real life tools/instruments, more inspiring.

#3 Natural sound. Analog electronics add saturation/warmth. Outboard digital devices have pre-amps and converters, which can add color, and onboard processors/memory are always optimized per application. Lastly the most impactful piece of outboard gear, a musical instrument played by a human adds a plethora of individuality, identity and uniqueness.

The downsides to outboard gear is, it’s more time consuming/expensive, and real life instruments take practice/talent to play. It’s hard to beat the efficiency of the DAW for most music making steps. Where the DAW lacks IMO is performing/monitoring and mastering. These 2 steps, especially performing/monitoring, benefit most when done outside the box, provided proper gear/instruments are available. Real instruments played by real people always sound more natural in every way. Mastering outside the box adds natural harmonics, saturation and filtering, which have a different sound signature than artificial ones in the DAW.

Hybridizing music making steps can be tricky because of latency. I’m always surprised how much this gets overlooked. High latency almost always interferes with a performance/recording. To get extremely low latency, you must spend a LOT of money on your DAW/computer/interface. Nullifying one of the main benefits, the low cost. So it seems, it’s best to do entire steps either purely inside or purely outside the box. For instance perform/monitor outside the box, while using the DAW to simply record. Once done, then stay purely inside the DAW for production. Once done, stay purely outside the box for mastering, using the DAW to simply play/record.