Another Newbie looking for a micrphone

55Dudester said:
{BUMP}
Anyone ?
I've decided that the way I'd like to record, is to just play the mp3 music track through mixcraft (through my headphones) and sing into a new track in mixcraft, again, through the headphones. Is this feasible, or am I wasting my time trying to figure this out ?.
Click to expand...

That would be the best course of action.
Not sure how to solve your latency problem as i have no experience of usb mics
but someone will come along soon and sort you out i'm sure
Stick with it Ray.
We all went through a "i'm gonna throw the goddam pc out the window and be done" stage
There's no doubt audio engineering is a steep learning curve.
+ the more you know the more complex things get but you still want to know more.
 
kip4 said:
That would be the best course of action.
Not sure how to solve your latency problem as i have no experience of usb mics
but someone will come along soon and sort you out i'm sure
Stick with it Ray.
We all went through a "i'm gonna throw the goddam pc out the window and be done" stage
There's no doubt audio engineering is a steep learning curve.
+ the more you know the more complex things get but you still want to know more.
Click to expand...

I sure hope so, I'm losing all my hair here pulling it out. lol:RTFM:
 
Hey man, sorry I missed the updates on this thread.

The latency can be adjusted in mixcraft. Go into the preferences to where you select the sound device (Wave, Asio, WaveRT) and make sure you have the proper input selected. ASIO will give the least latency I believe. Then in the bottom right you should see a little box for latency. Trial and error here, set the number to like a 6 then ok and try recording something.. See how it sounds, if you sound like a robot, you went too far and raise the number up some.. If it's crystal clear keep going down as low as you can before it messes with the quality.

Short answer I don't know that you can get 0 latency as I never could just using software, I was also using crappy on board audio and not any real sound card so you'll just have to test. I don't see any reason you cant get the result you want with the gear you have. Yes an interface and XLR would probably be better but the learning curve is the same.

Stick with it man, I'm in the same boat as you.. I started this now just a few months back, I'm not exactly turning people into jenny from the block over here but it gets easier haha.
 
Polarity's got it. You'll have to manually adjust the latency settings.

It's always a compromise between stability and performance.
You'll never get zero latency (without hardware monitoring), but you should be able to get it close enough that you don't really notice it.

You'll certainly be able to record in the way that you're describing.
That's probably how most people do it.
Stick at it. :)
 
Thanks guys for the info. Here's some problems I've come across. When I click go into "preferences" in Mixcraft, I go to "Sound Device, where I see 3 little circles with the option to click "WAVE, ASIO or WAVERT" If I click on WAVE, I go into DEFAULT RECORDING DEVICE INPUT and chose "MICROPHONE (USB CODEC)
And in "PLAYBACK DEVICE OUTPUT, I chose SPEAKERS (USB AUDIO CODEC). I plug my headphones to my Samson G Track mic, put the mic on "MONO" mode *according to the manual instructions) yet, I get a lot of latency.
I then start all over again, this time hitting the "ASIO" option. In this option, my only option in DEFAULT RECORDING DEVICE INPUT, is MUXEDLN 1 1/MUXEDLN 1 2.
In PLAYBACK DEVICE OUTPUT, I get NOT CONNECTED 1/NOT CONNECTED 2 ASIO4ALL
Again, with lots of latency.
Another problem is, no matter what I do in Mixcraft, I can't seem to add any 'effects' to the voice track, even if I "alarm" the track and "monitor incoming track". Even if I go to the "mixer" window, and play with the EQ knob settings, nothing changes if I add or remove the low mid or high eq's, yet when I speak in the mic, the VU's show it's detecting my voice. ARRRRGGGHHHH !!! When will this headache go away !!!!! LOL
Sorry if what I'm saying doesn't make any sense to you, but I'm doing my best to explain things step by step, so that "hopefully" someone can figure out what the hell I'm doing wrong.
Thank ever so much for your help and info. I'm still not convinced I made the right choice with this mic, but I'm hoping to figure out a way, otherwise, I'm just going to sell it, however, I'm realizing I may open yet ANOTHER can of worms if I buy an interface and do the XLR thing. But before I do that, I want to exhaust every possible avenue my brain can handle with this usb mic. Other do it, so why can't I ? .....don't answer that lol.
Later
Ray
 
Oh and one more thing, when I am in the ASIO mode, I don't get the window that shows the options for the number of buffers and buffer size etc, to lower in order to get less latency. Yet in ASIO I get more latency than when I'm in WAVE......and the saga continues !
 
Also if yours is like mine I had problems when I used the ASIO driver with playback, I could play back to regular speakers, but was unable to play back to a USB headset (regular headset with 1/8th in jack would work too).

When you try and play back through USB you get major latency (or I did anyway) and I had to buy a standard headset. That took a ton of it out, but again I only got it down to about 6milliseconds.
 
Houston, the Eagle has landed WHOOOO HOOOO,.....well ok, still a ways to go, but it's working MUCH better now in WAVERT (the one I didn't try of course lol)
I have the DEFAULT RECORDING INPUT DEVICE on MICROPHONE (USB AUDIO CODEC) and the same for PLAYBACK DEVICE OUTPUT. I have the latency checked down to the lowest it will go, which is 3, and I also have the box checked that says "EXCLUSIVE MODE (use for latency less than 20 ms)
I'm also now able to play with EQ settings as well as getting effects, which is another learning curve. Anyway, things are looking (and sounding) much much better now. THANK YOU so very much for your help. Any other advice you want to give me, please feel free. I owe you big time.
Thanks again.
Ray
 
Glad it's working. The only down side to exclusive mode is if you went to youtube while mixcraft was open to hear something, you can't hear it. It takes control of all sound when it's open, not that it's a bad thing but definately something to be aware of so there is no computer smashing later.

Enjoy and I look forward to hearing something in the mp3 clinic one day =)
 
Dude 3 milli seconds is awesome
I've got 12 milliseconds.
Anything less than 20 is bearly audible anyway.
Have fun 55Dudester.
Glad you got it sorted
 
Didn't realize that some computers were different when it came to latency response (e.g mine being low at 3 ms)
What is the best sound effects for singing ? I see there are a few, but to be honest, I thought there would have been more effects for vocal that what I'm seeing in Mixcraft 6, maybe I'm not seeing all of them. Thanks again, today was a major leap forward.....finally lol.
Ray
 
Haha now you are getting to the hard stuff, because there are no straight answers (not that I've found yet). There are some common effects that may be used on some vocal tracks, but it all has to do with the voice, the room, the sound you want, etc.

The "big 3" are Equalizer, Compression, Reverb.

In mixcraft just to get a basic sound so you can start messing and try to learn it you can try the Classic EQ set to Warm Vocal (or might just be vocal), then Classic Compression set to vocal or warm vocal, and then finally do classic reverb and choose something like "Ambient Room".

that's a starting point
 
Also those effects break down into a lot of settings. There are tons more you can get on the internet once you determine what it is that is missing, but the basics that come with mixcraft should work for a while
 
with vocals keep it real simple for a modern sound.
A small amount of compression if needed and i mean small. Its better to use automation to get a nice even sound.
Maybe a hi pass Eq (might not sound so good on a bright mic)
and a small amount of reverb as soon as you hear the effect dont go anymore, unless your Enya in which case whack it up.
Go for getting as good a sound as you can at source. it saves a lot of time and effort and headache trying to fix badly recorded tracks.
 
I will completely agree with kip. As soon as I got a real mic and really heard myself sing it was time to make some corrections. If you're anything like most of us when we get to that awesome scream, yell, note, whatever you are going to jam your face as close to the mic as possible... It turns out while that looks awesome on stage it doesn't sound so good on a recording haha..

And as always man, remember to have some fun with it!
 
We'll just talk amongst oursleves while he does some tracking.
I'm willing to bet he says
"i hate my voice"
"How do i get rid of the room noise?"
"Whats the right level to record at?"

at some stage
We've all been there too
+100 on the have fun though
 
That's the part I'm at now hahaha.

It seems like what started as such a simple idea is so much more in depth than I ever planned. I wanted to do some acoustic covers. Guitar, check.. me, check!.. mic, interface, software, room treatment, understanding of audio in general.. holy crap! where did all that come in lol.

I've had worse hobbies though that's for sure. Unfortunately I have a full time job (IT Consultant for law firms mostly), a golf addiction that keeps me on the course after work until dark, and a music addiction that keeps me going the rest of the hours. I'm almost sure we're supposed to fit some other things in the day (my wife would agree I think) but there aren't enough hours.

BTW how DO you get rid of room noise =)
 
Never really got rid, just managed to tame it some by putting treatment behind the singer and a reflection screen behind the mic.
The more i do it though the more i like the room in the recording depending on, where in the room the mic is.
If i'm recording acoustics I use a tiny Niaint Omni pattern mic. (Go to acoustic mic)
or get the ribbon mic out and do mid side recording For a broad stereo image( Great for singer players who want to demo songs)
Or two SDC in xy
Or just a dynamic on the fret board.
It all depends on the part i want the guitars to play in the final mix
 
So much to learn, when I first purchased my interface and mic my thought was "Ahh finally, got what I need to get it done right!"

I guess you never really know how wrong you are until later eh?
 
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