Monitoring playback while recording

[KeithCF]

Hi -- I have a question about how I should set up my gear (which I will be buying very soon for recording in Cubase.

The plan is to load my buddies' vox/gtr/bass tracks into Cubase LE, so I can play along and record my drum part. I'll be using a Presonus Firepod (8 ins/outs) and recording an acoustic set with mics (8 mics total). The snare/tom/kick tracks will be replaced by Drumagog, and the hi-hat/OH mics I am hoping will sound good enough on their own.

The question is: how do I set things up so I can record and monitor my 8 drum tracks AND listen to my buddies pre-recorded tracks at the same time? Should I monitor everything thru the soundcard? If yes, how do I connect things so I can hear my buddies' tracks while I am playing? Will the Firewire connection automatically enable monitoring of the PC tracks? If I am monitoring tracks from the PC via soundcard, does that mean I have fewer inputs left for my drum mics? Or do I need to get a 10 channel mixer to accomodate everything? (And how would I set that up?? Ahhh!)

I have researched lots of other points on "how things work" thanks to this forum, just can't figure out this portion of the process.

Thanks for your help!

Keith

[zed32]

well i know this is an older post, and i dug it up through searching, but i have the exact same question as this guy. does anyone know if this is possible?

i'm looking for a new interface for my PC and the way it is setup right now, i would like something that is capable of both playing back something that i already recorded as well as monitoring stuff that i am recording at the same time. i haven't been able to find specific info as to wether or not the Firepod can do this without any problems. also, until i finish saving up for a dedicated PC thats used only for recording, i'll be using my current PC for both recording and regular use. will the Firepod actually be able to replace my stock sound card? as in, will i still be able to play MP3's, movies, and then be able to monitor my recordings w/o having to switch around any settings? my studio monitors currently function as my regular PC speakers as well, so i don't have another set of speakers to switch to for monitoring and regular computer sounds. again i've tried searching, and this is the closest post i have found but nobody replied to it, haha.


also, i want to thank you guys for having such a kick-ass message board here. i've been getting little sleep these past few days because i've been up all night browsing thru and reading these forums. the information i've found on here is invaluable and i look forward to learning as much as possible from you guys. thanks!

[noisedude]

Don't have two sound cards in one PC, unless they're the same and meant to go together (e.g. two Delta 66s, synched thru SPDIF).

The answer is you have two options:
1. Software - Delta cards have a 'monitor mixer' which you can organise your direct monitoring in and mix with the signals coming from your software. If you have low latency (e.g. 2.6ms) you might be able to get away with software monitoring, set up in Cubase.
2. Hardware - Bring all your outputs out to a mixer and sort it out there. It is slightly trickier with the Firepod, because all eight outputs could be tied up with mics. For me, I use preamps in my desk with direct pre-fade outs so my faders only affect the monitor/headphone mix from the desk.

[zed32]

yeah i don't want to run 2 sound cards, i just want one card that can handle everything until i get a dedicated recording PC. i dont know if i was understanding things correctly, but from what i read it seems like the Firepod in itself functions as a "sound card" right? i am seriously considering getting one of these in the very near future so i can have enough pres to mic up a drum set, plus i'm sure quality of the Firepod far surpasses what i'm using right now. i guess i'm just wondering now if the Firepod can serve to replace my stock sound card for all intents and purposes as far as recording as well as playback and monitoring, and if its possible to do all 3 of them at once.

[noisedude]

The Firepod is certainly intended to do those things ... however, I don't know what the driver is like so I can't help you. Like I say, on my Delta 44 I can do all my direct monitoring through one stereo pair of outputs. I would expect the Firepod to be similar, but it might have one of those really basic drivers that is supposed to be super-stable or something, I dunno.

[zed32]

cool, sounds good. thanks for the help, during the week i'll probably head out to Guitar Center and see if they actually know anything about it besides the price. if all looks good, ill probably pick one up and post up my thoughts. my needs were similar to the guy who first posted, only backward. i usually record drums first, then would like to listen to the drum playback and play my guitar along to it while i record the guitar, and then record vocals on top of that. i dunno if thats the proper method, but hey it works for me, hehe. i'm hoping it would be safe to assume that the firepod would be able to handle this task. i just ordered a Firewire card for my PC from newegg, and some more memory (so i'll be running 1G now) so hopefully my computer will be up to par. its nothin too special though, i'm using a AMD athlon 2200 1.8ghz for now. anyway, thanks again, and i'll let you guys know what happens.

[DuoToneBand]

I run Nuendo, which is just the big brother version of cubase. On the conputer, cue up the project. On the firepod, the "mixer" knob that has "inputs" and "playback" on it, turn it about half way , or until you are happy with the mix of the recording-in-progress drum tracks and the bass and guitar tracks.

[mishagolin]

i have a firepod that i run with mac osx tiger. it works wonderfully. i have my monitors plugged into the firepod and i can use it as my traditional soundcard. this works out really well since i'm on a powerbook. so if i want to listen to some music on something better than laptop speakers i can use the firepod as a soundcard and play using iTunes and my monitors.

concerning the firepod and its outputs. there are 10 outs on a firepod. the main, cue and busses 1 & 2 are all the same. then there are outputs 3-8. the last two outputs are the spdif and midi outs. so there are really 6 outputs that you can use as busses for reamping, seperate monitor mixes etc. . .

you can import your friends bass/guitar tracks into Cubase and then record your own drums over it using the firepod. use the mixer control to blend how much you want of the mains compared to your mics.

[xotsx]

I just got a firepod and think I have a similar question.

So, if I'm reading this right.... to monitor already recorded tracks you actually have to take up a channel on the firepod with an output from your PC, so you can only record 7 additional tracks while monitoring (not using s/pdif).... is this correct?

[daav]

I dunno about the firepod, but i know cubase with a layla 24/96.

In cubase you can take the recorded tracks and send them to a group, the group then goes to a set of outputs. You set up your incoming tracks top all be monitored and recorded when you hit record and sent he outputs to the same main outs of the sound card. IT should be fairly straight forward.
The output channels should be seperate from inout, so you don;t sacrifice a channel or anything, it should be pretty straight forward, but perhaps i am reading this wrong.

Daav

[djhead]

that sounds right acutally.

[sirslurpee]

FYI when you hit record in Cubase it will play the tracks that you have unmuted and already recorded. You can monitor them through the headphone out and there is a knob that turned one way plays back only the inputs (1-8) and the other way only the playback and you can use the knob to mix between the two. You can monitor what you've already recorded using this method. Also, the monitor option doesn't have to be selected on cubase (if you are having latency problems hearing yourself) you can use the inputs/playback knob to adjust it and be able to hear what you are playing without any lag. I hope this helps.

[Farview]

When tracking drums, I find it much easier to not have the drums in my headphones. That way, I can turn down the headphone volume. Having kicks and toms in headphones usually makes them distort just enough to make it hard to hear the click/guitar/whatever you are playing to, so you turn up the phones, which makes it worse. You keep chasing your tail until your ears are bleeding (or you put in ear plugs)