Having typically amateur trouble with my set-up!!

[conmcloise]

Hi, apologies for the blatant newbie-ness in this post; I have been playing music for several years and have just made the daunting step into home recording. I have a number of problems that maybe those of you who are technically orientated could help to resolve! Here is my setup:

I have an Alesis imultimix8 USB mixer, i plug my electric guitar directly into this as Line 1, as I also plug headphones into the headphones slot and listen from there. A usb goes from my alesis into my desktop. I also have a SHURE SM58 microphone which i plug into the alesis as Line 2, into the microphone slot. I have my alesis working under USB audio codec on my pc too.
So far so good!

Now the first of my problems occurs when i start up my recording software, Cubase LE 4, on my pc - a high pitched whining starts that I cant get rid of. I can still hear my instruments and when I close the program this stops.

Next problem: I must repeat that I am a complete amateur to this so forgive my lack of knowledge. When I record an audio track and hit playback I can hear nothing. The audio levels are moving as the song plays but I cant hear it, also when I play my guitar or sing into the microphone I can see the audio levels moving down in the bottom right of Cubase when i'm not recording so it is obviously picking up my signal.

My final problem is more of a concern: When I play my guitar I hear a perfectly loud, clear sound in my headphones. When I look at Cubase however, the audio levels seem to be far too low, barely off the bottom whereas on my mixer it has them nearly going into the red - i have boosted the gain on my mixer to no avail!

If anyone can help me with this it would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[TetraFish]

The high pitched whine sounds like feedback through the mic. Try unplugging the mic and see if it does that. Where is the high pitched whine coming from? the headphones, or do you have monitors connected to the Alesis?

As far as cubase goes, I assume you set up the inputs under "VST Connections". Then you must select one of those inputs as the input for the track you want to record. To set the level click on the monitor button. Set the level, if you have the input level on the Alesis set right you should almost have to max out the Cubase slider. Then you have to arm the track for recording and then record the track by clicking record on the transport in cubase. If your level isn't high enough the input on the ALesis may be a line input, in which case you either have to use a pre amp or an FX pedal that has a line level output.

 

[TetraFish]

Almost forgot, if you did all that stuff and you can see that the track actually recorded something but you can't hear it you should make sure the monitor button is off on that track (the little round button that looks like a speaker). And if that still doesnt work check the outputs in the "VST Connections" and make sure that they are the ones you're using on the Alesis.

 

[guitaristic]

Next problem: I must repeat that I am a complete amateur to this so forgive my lack of knowledge. When I record an audio track and hit playback I can hear nothing. The audio levels are moving as the song plays but I cant hear it, also when I play my guitar or sing into the microphone I can see the audio levels moving down in the bottom right of Cubase when i'm not recording so it is obviously picking up my signal.

Check to make sure you have direct monitoring off during playback! It's the button by your track that looks like a little speaker.

 

[conmcloise]

Cheers for replying guys, checked my outputs in VST connections and they weren't the same as my inputs so I matched them, direct monitoring is off: now I can hear what I record! All is not well however as the sound is very low and doesn't compare with the strong,clear sounds I can hear on my alesis still.

I tried unplugging my mic but there was no difference. The whine comes from the headphones, but I have been tinkering with the Alesis and have discovered something: there are 3 buttons - 1.Mix, 2.Ctrl Room and 3.Mix to Ctrl Room, If i have only mix pressed down the whine goes much quieter while still remaining but sound levels on my alesis go down and I have to really lean into the mic - with no.3 pressed down the levels go up and my mic is super sensitive - Im not too sure whats going on and again there is blatant ignorance because I dont really understand what these buttons exactly do but I'm happy the whine has gone in my recordings. Is it of any note to you guys that I have no speakers for my pc and that everything, computer sounds and all, goes through the mixer into my headphones?

You mentioned that my Alesis may be a line input, Tetrafish, if so is a pre amp the only way to boost my sound being recorded?

 

[TetraFish]

I'll look into it a little more but it looks like your channels one and two have a little grey button by the gain knob that you can set to guitar, which should solve your low input problem.

So try setting your levels in cubase now. To see the levels though you have to click on the monitor button (in cubase) you can turn it off when recording. So put the slider in cubase to about 3/4 and the adjust the gain knob on the alesis. You should be able to get the levels up to an acceptable level.

 

[conmcloise]

Ok I set Line 1 to guitar and boosted gain, audio levels in cubase are now high on the monitor! When I click playback however what I have recorded is quiet when I have just the Mix button pressed down, if I press CTRL Room down the sound is loud but then I have the high pitched whine again! - I have a feeling this is because I have no speakers for my computer so all sound goes from my computer through my mixer into my headphones, maybe the computer sounds are weakened this way? Thanks for all your help anyway

 

[TetraFish]

Well you can set the output levels in cubase as well as the main mix level on your Alesis and maybe even the headphone volume. You should be able to get the volume up in the phones too, at least as loud as what it was when you recorded it.