Best way to record hardware jam?

[benr]

What are you all doing to record jams (digitally, as wav or aiff) for later use?

Ideally I want a tape-recorder like experience. No fuss, just one-button record and pause, and no risk of losing recordings if I just get in the groove for an hour.

I’ve been trying to record directly into the arrange view, but it’s not ideal in terms of the way the playhead and arrange view work. There’s a M4L device that will help, but that seems clunky.

I considered recording into Audacity (ugh, so ugly), or possibly Adobe Audition (complex, overkill), but none of them seem great. Or perhaps just plug into a Zoom or something, but now that’s an extra step to import, and my computer and audio interface are already set up.

My questions are:

1. Does anyone have tips for working with Ableton (or other DAWs, maybe?) like a tape-recorder, i.e. just hit record and noodle for an hour, pausing occasionally, without worrying about losing stuff?

2. Or is there any elegant “virtual tape recorder” app (I don’t mean tape emulation or anything); just a robust 2-track recorder app with simple shortcuts and minimal interface that would record straight to disk as wav or aiff files?

3. Or any other thoughts?

(I’m on macOS fwiw.)

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I guess I'm realizing my issue is mostly about Ableton's arrange view transport controls. If I pause recording with the spacebar (to design a new patch or something), hitting the main "record" shortcut (F9) either jumps back to the start of the track, or back to the "flashing playhead marker". It's not a huge problem, but it's enough to mean I have to stop and click around in the interface to get back to where I need to pick up recording, and sometimes I forget and overwrite the previous Clip (I know the recording still exists on disk, but it's a pain).

I'm looking for the equivalent of a tape-recorder: only one button to hit to record or stop, and you always record from the end of the previous recording. No other thought necessary.

[Tarekith]

I use a Centrance Mixerface R4r when I want dead simple, remote, and reliable recording like that. Though really, for most people I'm guessing it really doesn't get much easier than just recording in arrange view. Just need to remember to press Shift+Spacebar to play from where you left off.

[arnleton]

I'm looking for the exact same thing, but for VST software synths that I already use inside Ableton, and for much shorter events than long jams.
I'd like to load, say, a preset in Pigments, and if I explore a sound which I'd like to use as a one-shot sample I'd like to hit record, play, and stop. Find the next one, and repeat, ideally appending recordings into the same file. And either load the captured sounds directly to one Simpler each or a bunch of them directly into a drum rack pad each, via the 'Slice to drum rack' feature, or rather directly.

The only recording tool I've found so far is Melda MRecorder, but for me it's still not the most elegant one workflow-wise.

Any contributions appreciated!