Did I get the right USB cable?

Audacity is fine for audio recording, but DAWs use MIDI based VST instruments as well as audio - and audacity can't do that. If you just want a tape recorder replacement - it's fine. I'm wondering in all your setup posts - why are you telling your computer you want to use it's microphone? You aren't? You are using the interface as the input and mics or lines get selected there, not in the computer input interface.
 
Steenamaroo said:
It's your choice, of course, and if audacity covers your needs that's great,
but two obvious benefits of reaper would be that you can choose the input you want on any track at any time, and you can choose which tracks should, or shouldn't be recording at any time.
Whichever you go with, best of luck. :)
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Good to know. 10-Q!
 
rob aylestone said:
Audacity is fine for audio recording, but DAWs use MIDI based VST instruments as well as audio - and audacity can't do that. If you just want a tape recorder replacement - it's fine. I'm wondering in all your setup posts - why are you telling your computer you want to use it's microphone? You aren't? You are using the interface as the input and mics or lines get selected there, not in the computer input interface.
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Thanks! I won't be using any MIDI-based gear. Don't know what VST instruments are, but I doubt I'll be using any. I want to mic, record, and mix garden-variety band instruments and vocals, miked. I did it on a Tascam for years, but for a variety of reasons, I decided to try a DAW.

I don't want to use the computer's mic. I want to plug my 58 (and other dynamic mics) into my Clarett. Keith explained above how to do it.
 
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Yep - I know, but I was stuck why you were trying in the pics to get the internal mic connected - but as you've sorted it that's cool.

VSTi - they are where the vast majority of sounds not recorded with mics come from. Your pianos, electric pianos, strings, synths and samples come from virtual instruments. All my old 80s synths I sold I now have back in virtual form - and the best bit is I think they sound even better and you can memorise each setting so you can repeat it. Imagine your band you are recording - if the keys player plays a non-real keyboard, then you record the output of his gear as a MIDI stream and he can have a huge variety of sounds. No cheesy synthy strings (unless you want them) and if you think his piano sound is not that realistic, you can have a steinway instead. Or a vintage Rhodes, or ....... anything. Need a few brass stabs? No problem. Well worth trying if you have the time and a little money.
 
rob aylestone said:
Yep - I know, but I was stuck why you were trying in the pics to get the internal mic connected - but as you've sorted it that's cool.

VSTi - they are where the vast majority of sounds not recorded with mics come from. Your pianos, electric pianos, strings, synths and samples come from virtual instruments. All my old 80s synths I sold I now have back in virtual form - and the best bit is I think they sound even better and you can memorise each setting so you can repeat it. Imagine your band you are recording - if the keys player plays a non-real keyboard, then you record the output of his gear as a MIDI stream and he can have a huge variety of sounds. No cheesy synthy strings (unless you want them) and if you think his piano sound is not that realistic, you can have a steinway instead. Or a vintage Rhodes, or ....... anything. Need a few brass stabs? No problem. Well worth trying if you have the time and a little money.
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Lots of time, not much money. Just sank all my boxtops into the DAW. Synthetic sounds and emulation and looping and sampling don't interest me. I like playing real instruments in real time. So do all my music buddies. We play instruments you could've bought cheap in 1965.

MIDIs and VSTs sound like a world of fun if that's what you're into, but they'd bore me blue. And I wanna have fun, dagnabbit!
 
I know what you mean, but part of what we do is classical music sort of karaoke. People studying for diploma level clarinet, flute, oboe etc - they must have a real pianist for the exams, but they cannot afford to have a real pianist twice a week or so - we produce the piano accompaniment. My colleague is a concert class pianist, with a lovely Yamaha grand, but we don't record it any more. The reason is that some of these pieces are amazingly hard and the recordings must be perfect. A tiny mistake, with the real recording means a re-run and they can be quite long to an edit point. After a few runs the mistakes multiply. We now record these in the studio with a virtual piano, and edit the tiny mistakes. Sometimes we can drop in a bar from one recording and fix things that way. It's a much, much faster process and while at first he resisted, the new process is better for the music and better for him and we're much quicker - and the sound I think is better.

If you are recording drums, bass and guitars, I totally understand your liking of your process, and in fairness, guitars are still not quite there yet. Close, but the editing is quite hard. Drums now is easy - often impossible to tell if real, or sampled. Do what floats your boat.
 
rob aylestone said:
Audacity is fine for audio recording, but DAWs use MIDI based VST instruments as well as audio - and audacity can't do that. If you just want a tape recorder replacement - it's fine. I'm wondering in all your setup posts - why are you telling your computer you want to use it's microphone? You aren't? You are using the interface as the input and mics or lines get selected there, not in the computer input interface.
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MacOS is asking for permission to let Audacity use 'the microphone' which, as far as I know, means any connected audio input device.
It's standard in the more recent MacOS versions - First time any app tries to access audio input devices MacOS will say 'is this OK?' and you click OK, then that preference is remembered. It doesn't specifically mean the built in microphone - Just audio input in general.
 
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