Who to trust? ears or ..

Some instruments need to have their impedance altered to provide a clean signal path. Not like turning the output level down type of thing, but rather a "going from a caterpillar to a butterfly" type of thing. High Z, is a reference to two things. In the audio world, "Z" is a reference to "Impedance". As taken from Sweetwater.

Since there are different types, the "High" is just that. If it were "Low", then it is referred to as "Low Z". Good amps, soundboards, Audio Interfaces and mixers, have a input jack with a switch or button to change a High Z input to a Low Z input which is what is needed for recording. Now, if you use a mic to capture the audio, all of this goes out the window! ;-)

Thanks. Yeah, I generally understand the theory of impedance matching from physics, and the quantity Z. I can even derive Z from an LRC circuit. It just strikes me that there's a lot more going on here, especially in practical terms. Great learning opportunity.
 
Well, I don't know how to do that actually..Because if I choose channel one (in Reaper) nothing happens, as if the guitar isn't plugged in. The only channel I can work with guitar is the channel two (and stereo)

I am not trying to confuse you, I am just passing on some of the advice I have received concerning Reaper as well as other DAWs. If you have a Audio Interface that can record many tracks at the same time, most will come with their OWN ASIO file. This is the file that tells the DAW, that more that one track can be assigned to record at the same time.

If your keyboard does not have this file, that is probably why you can only use one track, which you say is two with stereo. This does not make sense to me but that's ok. My Alesis 8 channel USB mixer will only record on two tracks and I must use the ASIO file that came with it. The ASIO4ALL v2, will not work. The Alesis ASIO file has a conflict with my Tascam US 16 x 8 Audio Interface, so I had to remove it.

So, I can make Reaper see my Alesis mixer and it will let me assign two separate inputs for both tracks. Input Left and Input Right. Yet when I record into track one, track 2 will pick up the audio signal as well. Even if I pan track one to the left and track 2 to the right, it will not work. I see that your keyboard is no longer sold, I have no idea why but if and when push comes to shove, I would follow @Steenamaroo s advice. Some times the gear we love the best, just becomes unusable as the audio field is growing by leaps and bounds.

If you have the means, take your keys and guitar to the closest major music shop and have them come out of your keys, into a di box, out to an amp and listen to how it sounds. if there is no distortion, the problem is from the point it hits your computer till it goes into Reaper. Most will do this for free.
 
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Thanks. Yeah, I generally understand the theory of impedance matching from physics, and the quantity Z. I can even derive Z from an LRC circuit. It just strikes me that there's a lot more going on here, especially in practical terms. Great learning opportunity.

It never hurts to have the technical knowledge (I don't)....
but for the guy plugging stuff in, an instrument input is wants to see an instrument and a mic input wants to see a mic.

A di box will let you use an instrument with a mic input.
 
Channel one picks hardware input one, which is the microphone input.
A DI box would want to plug in to a microphone level input so if you go the DI box route, you'd switch to channel one.

I'd want to make sure channel one is silent first.

An unterminated input will usually be noisy as hell so you'd need a microphone and a quiet room to be able to test properly.

Like I say, I'd probably just go interface at this stage but, then, I don't know your future plans.
If upgrading for quality or expanding for more I/O is on your mind, here's a good excuse to spend $$. :p

Sure, I don't avoid buyng a new interface, it's just that I'd like to know if the new one might have the same noise problem.

I've tried today to record guitar on the other computer (laptop).
Installed Guitar Rig and played trough some clean presets.

There is some noise too, but significantly less, and more pleasant to play with.
So there must be some problem with my interface or PC.

As for second channel, this is my mic channel and there is no noise.
 
If your keyboard does not have this file, that is probably why you can only use one track, which you say is two with stereo. This does not make sense to me but that's ok. My Alesis 8 channel USB mixer will only record on two tracks and I must use the ASIO file that came with it. The ASIO4ALL v2, will not work. The Alesis ASIO file has a conflict with my Tascam US 16 x 8 Audio Interface, so I had to remove it.

The keyboard has its own drives (M-Audio Asio) and I use them for Reaper.
Do you think I should uninstall those and use only Asio4All...or something..?
 
I've tried today to record guitar on the other computer (laptop). Installed Guitar Rig and played trough some clean presets. There is some noise too, but significantly less, and more pleasant to play with.
So there must be some problem with my interface or PC. As for second channel, this is my mic channel and there is no noise.

The two things that jump out to me is:1. You used a different computer and got much better results. It is uncommon to have a 1/4" line come in with 0 noise. 2. Your second channel is clean.

The keyboard has its own drives (M-Audio Asio) and I use them for Reaper.
Do you think I should uninstall those and use only Asio4All...or something..?

Does your manual say it is capable of recording more then 1 track at a time? Are you trying to record via your keys as well as your AI at the same time? I read through the who thread and I may have missed it. But IMHO, a keyboard is a keyboard and a Interface is a Interface.

I can see a keyboard offering the added feature of being able to use it as an interface to lay down a guitar track, but does it allow you to run a mic, as well as the guitar as someone is playing the keys and be able to record three different tracks at the same time? If you have already provided this info, I apologize.

You can try to save your M-Audio ASIO file on a thumb drive and install the ASIO4ALL and see what happens. Just make sure you have access to the original ASIO file if needed. I am working with a Young Lady as we speak. She has crystal clear vocals and gets a hum when she plugs in her acoustic guitar. Her interface does not have a High Z input. That leads me to beleive that a DI box will do the job. Most interfaces are a low z input unless marked. My Tascam has two.

In the pic below, you can see it is clearly marked. I do not own this interface, it is for example only. High Z does not play well with Low Z, as you are seeing first hand.

View attachment 100828
 
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The two things that jump out to me is:1. You used a different computer and got much better results. It is uncommon to have a 1/4" line come in with 0 noise. 2. Your second channel is clean.



Does your manual say it is capable of recording more then 1 track at a time? Are you trying to record via your keys as well as your AI at the same time? I read through the who thread and I may have missed it. But IMHO, a keyboard is a keyboard and a Interface is a Interface.

I can see a keyboard offering the added feature of being able to use it as an interface to lay down a guitar track, but does it allow you to run a mic, as well as the guitar as someone is playing the keys and be able to record three different tracks at the same time? If you have already provided this info, I apologize.

You can try to save your M-Audio ASIO file on a thumb drive and install the ASIO4ALL and see what happens. Just make sure you have access to the original ASIO file if needed. I am working with a Young Lady as we speak. She has crystal clear vocals and gets a hum when she plugs in her acoustic guitar. Her interface does not have a High Z input. That leads me to beleive that a DI box will do the job. Most interfaces are a low z input unless marked. My Tascam has two.

In the pic below, you can see it is clearly marked. I do not own this interface, it is for example only. High Z does not play well with Low Z, as you are seeing first hand.

View attachment 100828

I can plug guitar and microphone at the same time, and record it with effects and all, if you meant that.
The same goes for the keyboard.
For example, In Reaper I open two track, in one (if it's microphone, I check Mono channel 1) in second, Midi-ProKeys Sono61-All Channels

And 3 tracks..I would'n know really , because never had someone to play keyboard at the same time when I play guitar and sing :)

"Instruments Galore
Why just play piano when you can be the whole band? The built-in General MIDI sound set gives you a full 128 instruments, plus drums and percussion, to play just for fun--or to use in building up multitrack recordings. Jam on drums, bass, synths, organ, sax, flute and many more instruments right at your fingertips.

Complete Solution
The ProKeys Sono 61 portable digital piano was designed to bridge the gap between writing, performing and recording music. The onboard 2-in/2-out audio interface lets you listen to everything--built-in sounds, software instruments and recorded tracks--right from the ProKeys Sono 61 audio outs or headphone jacks. Connect instruments and microphones to the audio inputs and record vocals, guitar, bass and more--or even jam along with a CD. Compatible with most major digital audio workstation software, including Pro Tools M-Powered, ProKeys Sono 61 combines everything you need to start making and recording music."
 
Well, if one of the variables gets changed on the fly, so do the results.

We 'ruled out' your computers a few pages back

I particularly wanted to try it with Guitar Rig today (couldn't install Amplitube for some reason), just to hear the Reaper with vsts that I use the most.
There is some kind of noise, but that's not even near to the noise from my main PC.
I could adjust it a little with Input/Output and Noise gate. It is not perfect, and I still could hear the noise (as touched the strings) but it was very low level noise, so I suppose it is normal.
Or I am so used to that kind of noise that cannot imagine clean guitar sound with no noise at all :)
 
The manual still says "Channel two has a 1/4” high-impedance instrument input and is designed to accept signals from an electric guitar, bass, or other high-impedancesource."

If you troubleshoot methodically it's easy.
If you guess it's not. ;)
 
The manual still says "Channel two has a 1/4” high-impedance instrument input and is designed to accept signals from an electric guitar, bass, or other high-impedancesource."

If you troubleshoot methodically it's easy.
If you guess it's not. ;)

Sorry Steenamaro, english is not my first language so I'm not sure what you mean here..
I mean, is there something you're advicing me to do?
 
No,
I'm just reiterating that the input you've been using is a hi-z input.

I see, well it is confusing all that.
As I can see, new audio-interfaces usually have that "hi- z" labeled as if it were not already assumed.
Mine is an old one, nowhere is labeled "hi-z", and I was thinking it must be that it doeesn't have that ability..Now it turns out that it has...

If I should get new interface I must be sure it'll have some better features than this old one..now I just don't know what those better features are..
 
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