Vocals Record Quietly Even Though Monitoring Fine

LeadForLunch

New member
Hi everyone

I'm pretty new to recording, but I've read over the forums for a while and learned a lot. One thing I've been really stuck on though and can't seem to find an answer for is that when I record vocals (I have Audacity, Cubase 5 and Reaper, all of which I've attempted recording through) the result is always extremely quiet.

My setup is an SM58 through a 6ft XLR into a Lexicon Alpha, then to a PC running Win 7 64bit. I can record guitar and bass fine, and when I just monitor the sound with the mic hooked it comes through clear and the volume is fine.

I've tried messing about with the volume going into the DAW and the settings on the Lexicon but the recordings still come through extremely quiet (almost to the point of silence - the only way to tell there's sound is by volume boosting to the point of oblivion). Also there's no option to boost the recording input through the Windows volume control options, as I've seen a few other posts suggesting :( .

So it seems to me like more of a software problem, since I can monitor sound fine through the Alpha.

Has anyone else had any issues like this before who could lend some advice? Mucho apreciado, and thanks for reading through all my n00bish drivel lol :thumbs up: .
 
The reason why the monitoring is good and the recording is quiet is because the monitoring volume has a different signal path and volume.control.

When you.are.monitoring the live mic, the signal is going directly to the headphones without going through the computer. That volume is separate from the record level or the playback level.

Set the recording level so a sustained note is about half way up the meter. Then set the monitoring level.

If the vocals are too low after it was recorded at the right level, that means the background music is too loud. Turn that down and turn the monitors up.
 
Okay so I decided just for simplicity to do some messing about in Audacity. After footering about with all the sound levels and everything and still getting nowhere, I eventually decided to try making a stereo track (even though it should be a mono track, I know) and it recorded the right channel. Clear and consistent. So uh..... Not really sure what's goin' on with that one but I might as well just do that then split the tracks to mono n' delete the blanks.
 
Okay so I decided just for simplicity to do some messing about in Audacity. After footering about with all the sound levels and everything and still getting nowhere, I eventually decided to try making a stereo track (even though it should be a mono track, I know) and it recorded the right channel. Clear and consistent. So uh..... Not really sure what's goin' on with that one but I might as well just do that then split the tracks to mono n' delete the blanks.

So it looks like the problem lies within audacity. I don't know how Audacity works, but you need to specify a mono track that records on channel 2, i.e. the right channel.
 
I think it'll just be easier to do it stereo then split tbh, I can't find a way to get it to record channel 2 to the mono track. I can't do it from the input channel because it only comes up with the Lexicon as one option, and when I make a track specifically for that channel it does the same quiet recording thing.
 
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