ive written this article to show the best way to set up your monitoring while recording if all you have is a low cost stereo sound card. as i get asked by friends setting up a DAW.
as folks complain about hearing themselves problems/latency.
here i'm thinking of the new user with a small behringer or other mixer feeding mic'd voice or instrument to multitrack software on the PC.
this will also save you from bringing your sound card outputs
back into the little mixer for monitoring, and its procedurally a cleaner way of doing things and puts an end to possibly plugging/unplugging cables/connections .
1. find an old cassette deck or line mixer, and plug the stereo output of the sound card into it. in the case of the line mixer plug the sound card stereo output - channel left into lets say line mixer channel 1.
pan line mixer ch1 hard left. and sound card channel right into line mixer channel 2 , and pan channel 2 hard right. now plug your headphones into the headphone jack. the line mixer will have a stereo output .
connect this to your normal studio monitoring ie: power amp or home hifi receiver running your studio monitors. if you have several sets of monitors.
just use a speaker selection box between the monitor amp and the speakers.
to turn off main monitoring while recording with headphones, just turn down the volume send on the line mixer sending to your
monitoring. if instead you cant afford a line mixer and opt to use
a cassette deck. plug the stereo left and right of sound card output into the deck left and right line inputs. now put a blank tape into the cassette deck, and set the deck to pause/record and plug headphones into the cassette deck headphone jack for monitoring while recording. take output of cassette deck line out
to your normal studio monitoring as before. a side benefit is if the cassette deck has nice VU meters and youve test tone aligned everything to just shy of -2db i would recommend, ie: recording mixer thru monitoring, you will know immediately if the signal your sending to the sound card from your little mixer is too HOT as per the VU's on the cassette deck.
3. SIDE NOTE - all your studio monitors should have fast blow fuses in their speaker lines. i recommend this EVEN if the manufacturer built some in as a second line of defense.
If youve set all this procedure up correctly you will now have a nice easy monitoring environment which will allow you to hear yourself playing/recording to the previously recorded tracks in your DAW. its more a concept based on how a lot of big studios do it but in microcosm.
how the idea came about was when i was building a studio once i
was constantly switching on mixer channels and plugging/unplugging because i had limited channels. so i ended up with two mixers.
and this is the ideal situation to think about. one mixer was my recording mixer with mics plugged in permanently to various recording areas/rooms.
so i never had to switch between mic and line again which can cause little pops sometimes.
and a second mixer was set to line (not mic) and was fed by the multitrack to set up monitoring and final mixes on the fly. procedurally the cassette deck or line mixer is a similar concept for a daw.
now if you have a multi output sound card
you could use a line mixer or second mixer to do the same thing,
ie: feed musician cans while recording, and setting up mixes in the control room if you have one. a final tip. some sound cards seem sensitive to plugging/unplugging while they are booted up. do all your connecting business while your PC is off. another tip is when i intially set this up i have a drum machine sending a beat through the recording mixer/PC/output monitoring/
musicians cans till i get everything aligned as a test signal.
this way i can plug headphones in at various points to test signal is getting through the chain.
hope this helps someone out there.
as folks complain about hearing themselves problems/latency.
here i'm thinking of the new user with a small behringer or other mixer feeding mic'd voice or instrument to multitrack software on the PC.
this will also save you from bringing your sound card outputs
back into the little mixer for monitoring, and its procedurally a cleaner way of doing things and puts an end to possibly plugging/unplugging cables/connections .
1. find an old cassette deck or line mixer, and plug the stereo output of the sound card into it. in the case of the line mixer plug the sound card stereo output - channel left into lets say line mixer channel 1.
pan line mixer ch1 hard left. and sound card channel right into line mixer channel 2 , and pan channel 2 hard right. now plug your headphones into the headphone jack. the line mixer will have a stereo output .
connect this to your normal studio monitoring ie: power amp or home hifi receiver running your studio monitors. if you have several sets of monitors.
just use a speaker selection box between the monitor amp and the speakers.
to turn off main monitoring while recording with headphones, just turn down the volume send on the line mixer sending to your
monitoring. if instead you cant afford a line mixer and opt to use
a cassette deck. plug the stereo left and right of sound card output into the deck left and right line inputs. now put a blank tape into the cassette deck, and set the deck to pause/record and plug headphones into the cassette deck headphone jack for monitoring while recording. take output of cassette deck line out
to your normal studio monitoring as before. a side benefit is if the cassette deck has nice VU meters and youve test tone aligned everything to just shy of -2db i would recommend, ie: recording mixer thru monitoring, you will know immediately if the signal your sending to the sound card from your little mixer is too HOT as per the VU's on the cassette deck.
3. SIDE NOTE - all your studio monitors should have fast blow fuses in their speaker lines. i recommend this EVEN if the manufacturer built some in as a second line of defense.
If youve set all this procedure up correctly you will now have a nice easy monitoring environment which will allow you to hear yourself playing/recording to the previously recorded tracks in your DAW. its more a concept based on how a lot of big studios do it but in microcosm.
how the idea came about was when i was building a studio once i
was constantly switching on mixer channels and plugging/unplugging because i had limited channels. so i ended up with two mixers.
and this is the ideal situation to think about. one mixer was my recording mixer with mics plugged in permanently to various recording areas/rooms.
so i never had to switch between mic and line again which can cause little pops sometimes.
and a second mixer was set to line (not mic) and was fed by the multitrack to set up monitoring and final mixes on the fly. procedurally the cassette deck or line mixer is a similar concept for a daw.
now if you have a multi output sound card
you could use a line mixer or second mixer to do the same thing,
ie: feed musician cans while recording, and setting up mixes in the control room if you have one. a final tip. some sound cards seem sensitive to plugging/unplugging while they are booted up. do all your connecting business while your PC is off. another tip is when i intially set this up i have a drum machine sending a beat through the recording mixer/PC/output monitoring/
musicians cans till i get everything aligned as a test signal.
this way i can plug headphones in at various points to test signal is getting through the chain.
hope this helps someone out there.
