Simple System ?uestion

SoundCard

SoundCard

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Ok...Am using Audacity (now) with Windows 10. No issues. I have a voice-over business going so I feed a USB mic (now) and use Sennheiser cans. I deal only with a mono final result. Here's the near future: I will have an XLR connected ($500) mic and a ($500) studio monitor ..I like the Denon SM50..(just one.....mono). I will have a box (Scarlet 2i2?) to connect the mic to the PC, (using Adobe Audition, or other). I will have some simple, small, 2 or 4 slider pot mix unit to maybe add one track of BG music to my voice track...it still ends up mono.
Finally, my flippin' question: What am I forgetting or not seeing here?
I don't know one end of a watt from the other. I need the Overview ..of you guys who've been through this. What I need ..is simple but I don't want it to fail because of one, silly error in putting this together.
Can I combine the mix unit with the slider pots, and the XLR input for the PC, AND a small amp for the studio monitor?? Things like that.
 
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It can only be mono if you are listening to your results on a single monitor.

Do you need to record the background music at the same time as the voice?

If not, the mike and the scarlet will be fine. You don't need the mixer. You can record the vocals, then import the BG music into Audacity (well, I hope you can. If you can't, then that would be an Audacity fail).

If you listen to your playback via headphones in the interface, you should hear a stereo track.
 
A lot depends on the MIC ?

You won't need a separate amp, if you get a self powered monitor.

Instead of a mixer, you may want to explore signal shaping in the DAW, or, with an external Channel Strip
 
Hi SoundCard. I am now going to surprised everyone here (not!) and suggest you get the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 interface. Why?

Well, apart from having THE most stable and unfussy drivers, and the lowest latency you will get for even 3 times the money, it has two other features I am sure you will like.
1) Two extra line inputs. These mean the back ground music can go on tracks 3 and 4 and mic on 1 and 2 (or just 1 if you cannot 'splice' the output of the mic. It is in effect the 'mixer' you don't really need!

2) The AI has the rare ability to MONO the mono signal so you can hear everything as it will end up.

The AI also works on any PC OS I have met, XP, 7, 8, 10 and even Blista. Macs and Linux so it is VERY future proof and 'portable'.

Dave.
 
Great, useful, concise info. Thanks people.

To clarify, what I want to do in the mixing area, is probably impossible even though it's so simple: I want to take the two waveforms, let's say in Audacity, ....one voice and the other a music track, and I want to mix them into one mono track, using manual, non-virtual slide controls, in real time ....as my DAW records them. You'd think some DAW would give you slides (or even dials) to mix two tracks....WHILE...they are being recorded into one track. Having to set up the tracks, ahead of time, is just dumb IMHO.
But...I'm probably just missing something here. After 25 years in major-market radio, using a whole 24 track board for on-air and for production duties after, I just want to do it in real-time, adjusting the recorded volume of each track....on the fly. Where's my 2-inch tape Ampex when I need it?
 
ecc83 said:
Hi SoundCard. I am now going to surprised everyone here (not!) and suggest you get the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 interface. Why?

Well, apart from having THE most stable and unfussy drivers, and the lowest latency you will get for even 3 times the money, it has two other features I am sure you will like.
1) Two extra line inputs. These mean the back ground music can go on tracks 3 and 4 and mic on 1 and 2 (or just 1 if you cannot 'splice' the output of the mic. It is in effect the 'mixer' you don't really need!

2) The AI has the rare ability to MONO the mono signal so you can hear everything as it will end up.

The AI also works on any PC OS I have met, XP, 7, 8, 10 and even Blista. Macs and Linux so it is VERY future proof and 'portable'.

Dave.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dave. Have read a fair bit but will study the Komplete Audio 6 more. Great suggestion.
 
"one voice and the other a music track, and I want to mix them into one mono track, using manual, non-virtual slide controls, in real time ....as my DAW records them. You'd think some DAW would give you slides (or even dials) to mix two tracks....WHILE...they are being recorded into one track. Having to set up the tracks, ahead of time, is just dumb IMHO".

Ok, let's see if I can break this down?

Voice and BG need to end up, in the DAW recorded as a mono mix? No AI AFAIK will let you do that but yes, a mixer will since any source you pan centre will end up as mono but on the two Main Outs. Now, most DAWS are relentlessly stereo but if you record two identical mono tracks the result, even on two monitors is still mono as a phantom centre image. (if you had two stereo, or just VO+BG tracks the only DAW I am aware of that will set that as a mono mix TO RECORD is Samplitude*.

But, is the BG originally stereo? If so that either needs to be combined externally to mono (two 2k2 resistors in a tin) OR you need a mixer with two line inputs and again pan both to centre.

The KA6 is excellent but, on reflection not quite what you need. The Allen & Heath ZED 10 USB mixer will I am sure suit, you will still record double mono on the USB feed but you only haf t' listen to one of them!

*Download Samplitude Pro X Silver from 'MAGIX'. Only 8 tracks but totally free (you have to register after 7 days, 'bit' of a faff and FFS keep user name and pwd safe!) .

N.B. I have mentioned the use of various gadgets 'in tins'? These are VERY simple to construct, totally passive and so pose NO safety hazard to self or equipment if you FU. It is a fact that (as you have discovered!) you can buy standard STEREO PC recording hard and software to grab voice, guitar etc but as soon as your requirements become even slightly different from the norm, you have to get the solder iron out.

Dave.
 
SoundCard said:
Great, useful, concise info. Thanks people.

To clarify, what I want to do in the mixing area, is probably impossible even though it's so simple: I want to take the two waveforms, let's say in Audacity, ....one voice and the other a music track, and I want to mix them into one mono track, using manual, non-virtual slide controls, in real time ....as my DAW records them. You'd think some DAW would give you slides (or even dials) to mix two tracks....WHILE...they are being recorded into one track. Having to set up the tracks, ahead of time, is just dumb IMHO.
But...I'm probably just missing something here. After 25 years in major-market radio, using a whole 24 track board for on-air and for production duties after, I just want to do it in real-time, adjusting the recorded volume of each track....on the fly. Where's my 2-inch tape Ampex when I need it?
Click to expand...

I admit to being totally bamboozled by this.

I think I understand what you want to do, and Dave is outlined a method of doing it.

But if the waveforms are both already in audacity, I'm not sure if I can see the value of going out to a manual mixer, then back in. Or am I missing something?
 
"I have a voice-over business going" Hmm, can I assume then that these 'VOs+musics' do not have to be dome in real time, together?

What I mean is, you could records the voice part(parts?) then drop in the music on another track(s) and then mix/balance the whole shebang to a mono rendering?

If that is the case then all you need is mic and AI. One mic into Sam Silver can be recorded as a mono-mix on two tracks and the music later via the front line ins which would give you level control*.

*I would personally STILL go for the KA6 and make a fader/mono'ing box to feed tracks 3/4 as this means you can set it all up once and not need to replug. OR, a cheap, small mixer could be used to feed lines 3/4. (if you want drawings of the 'tins' just shout) .

Dave.
 
garww said:
Didn't he just say he doesn't want that ?
Click to expand...

Did he? (no, Doddy. Sorry, old joke!) Ok well sorry then if so but 'Voice Overs' to me means a construction? If nothing else there are always fluffs, corpse'ing and Noises Off to edit out.

Dave.
 
SoundCard said:
Great, useful, concise info. Thanks people.

To clarify, what I want to do in the mixing area, is probably impossible even though it's so simple: I want to take the two waveforms, let's say in Audacity, ....one voice and the other a music track, and I want to mix them into one mono track, using manual, non-virtual slide controls, in real time ....as my DAW records them. You'd think some DAW would give you slides (or even dials) to mix two tracks....WHILE...they are being recorded into one track. Having to set up the tracks, ahead of time, is just dumb IMHO.
But...I'm probably just missing something here. After 25 years in major-market radio, using a whole 24 track board for on-air and for production duties after, I just want to do it in real-time, adjusting the recorded volume of each track....on the fly. Where's my 2-inch tape Ampex when I need it?
Click to expand...
If you already have the two waveforms then you don't need a physical mixer to adjust track levels. I think the one concept you're missing is Track Automation in a DAW program. Most, if not all, DAW programs allow you to make adjustments on the fly and it will record those changes. Then you can render to one output file, mono if you'd like, and it will include your realtime adjustments in the output file.

Audacity won't do it as it is not a real DAW program. But you can try Reaper, which has a generous demo mode, and it will do exactly what you want, all inside the box.
 
Well, if he wants to mix MONO before the interface, he can do that. Just like at the old broadcast station. Some of the 10-inch reels I've collected have the MONO spots and programming on MONO tracks - seems to work fine. The DJ world was pretty adept at that kind of stuff
 
I've been playing around a bit trying some VO stuff (hey, I have the gear, so why not :) )

The voice in the attached mp3 was recorded in Reaper using a Tascam US144mkii USB interface to a mono track (don't recall for sure what I used for a mic, but may have been an SM7b with a Fethead). I had previously imported an mp3 music backing into a separate stereo track. The voice track was simply recorded over/alongside of the music. I moved/delayed the voice content a bit to have it start after the music got going.
I did some tweaks on the voice which was some compression and a bit of EQ, then balanced the levels between the voice and music where I thought it sound about right and rendered it out as a stereo mp3 file. I think I could have done about the same in Audacity, but Reaper has a few things that make it easier, even for something as basic as what I did.
 

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SoundCard said:
Great, useful, concise info. Thanks people.

To clarify, what I want to do in the mixing area, is probably impossible even though it's so simple: I want to take the two waveforms, let's say in Audacity, ....one voice and the other a music track, and I want to mix them into one mono track, using manual, non-virtual slide controls, in real time ....as my DAW records them.
Click to expand...

No reason you couldn't do it. I do something similar, recording 16+ live inputs to separate tracks, but also a live analog mix of those same inputs to a stereo track. It doesn't matter that I'm recording live inputs and you want to record prerecorded inputs, it works almost the same. Your two prerecorded tracks would act like live sources to the analog mixer's inputs, and your DAW would record a mono track instead of my stereo track, but otherwise the same deal. Voice panned to the left output of the interface and music bed panned to the right output. Both into small analog mixer, output to interface, record one interface input to one mono track. Done.

SoundCard said:
You'd think some DAW would give you slides (or even dials) to mix two tracks....WHILE...they are being recorded into one track. Having to set up the tracks, ahead of time, is just dumb IMHO.
But...I'm probably just missing something here.
Click to expand...

What you're missing is that you're probably one of three people on the planet who wants to do this. There just aren't enough of you to warrant making something that works that way by default. But it can be done with an analog mixer. It could also be done totally in the box with many DAWs (in Pro Tools, render in real time to a new track). If you want physical faders you can get a USB DAW controller.

SoundCard said:
After 25 years in major-market radio, using a whole 24 track board for on-air and for production duties after, I just want to do it in real-time, adjusting the recorded volume of each track....on the fly. Where's my 2-inch tape Ampex when I need it?
Click to expand...

I'll backtrack slightly on my "one of three people" comment. There's a subculture of mixers who record in a DAW but mix in analog, back to the same DAW or to a separate capture machine. It's certainly doable.

Note that Audacity is not a DAW, it's a decent free audio editor. It can be pressed into service as a DAW but it's not ideal. One advantage to a true DAW is proper record alignment, so tracks recorded later stay lined up to tracks recorded earlier. That means the software has to know the round trip delay and offset the new tracks appropriately. I don't think Audacity does that.
 
I'm sorry. I just gotta laugh here. You guys are so smart, this is getting out of hand. Haha.
Let me try one more time....
Using Audacity, I record voice track, in Mono, of course, then do all EQ, Compression etc if I need it. Then import music track usually in stereo, then make it mono. I then have two...simple...waveform tracks. I want to adjust the volume of each (or maybe I just need to adjust one...even that would be good)....so as to mix the two monos into one mono track. I can roughly set up the volume of either track, ahead of time, in Audacity (yuk!).....but I just thought there's be some app that would bring up two slider pots (faders) on my screen, where I could change the gain of one (or both) tracks, WHILE they were being overlapped into one track. Not rocket science.....well, not to you guys. Now, that would mean the slider app would have to go between the code of Audacity somewhere, so scratch that whole approach. I will re-read what's above here, again, but I think I would have to go physical to get this done. Too bad,...I'm pretty good with using slider pots.
Thanks for all your help. Even not solving this has taught me a lot.
 
You want the option to be able to adjust two volumes simultaneously?

Group the faders, use an aux track, or use a master track.
The latter two options still allow you individual control, without additional clicks.
 
SoundCard said:
I'm sorry. I just gotta laugh here. You guys are so smart, this is getting out of hand. Haha.
Let me try one more time....
Using Audacity, I record voice track, in Mono, of course, then do all EQ, Compression etc if I need it. Then import music track usually in stereo, then make it mono. I then have two...simple...waveform tracks. I want to adjust the volume of each (or maybe I just need to adjust one...even that would be good)....so as to mix the two monos into one mono track. I can roughly set up the volume of either track, ahead of time, in Audacity (yuk!).....but I just thought there's be some app that would bring up two slider pots on my screen, where I could change the gain of one (or both) tracks, WHILE they were being overlapped into one track. Not rocket science.....well, not to you guys. Now, that would mean the slider app would have to go between the code of Audacity somewhere, so scratch that whole approach. I will re-read what's above here, again, but I think I would have to go physical to get this done. Too bad,...I'm pretty good with using slider pots.
Thanks for all your help. Even not solving this has taught me a lot.
Click to expand...

I don't know if Audacity is going to work. A proper DAW should have faders that work smoothly in real time. Perhaps the ideal software would be Ableton Live, specifically designed for DJs that do music events. Most likely any good DAW would get it done, so downloading Reaper may be your first choice. It might be worthwhile adding a controller, a USB device that gives you physical faders to control the virtual ones.

Depending on the soundcard, it should be possible to select "wave out mix" or "what you hear" as the source and record that to a mono track. If that's not an option that the soundcard supports, it may be possible to use a utility like Jack (JACK Audio Connection Kit|Home) to get the routing you need. I'd be willing to bet Ableton makes that kind of thing easy.
 
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