Help - monitoring chain involves my chin!

[guttadaj]

Monitoring through my computer is so bad (about 20ms) that I can't use input monitoring and have to do stupid things like just put one ear of the headphones on so I can listen to myself singing/playing guitar/etc with the other ear.  I also have found that, when recording bass, I can actually just put my chin on the body of the bass while I'm playing it and get "zero-latency" monitoring from the vibrations of my head!!  Seriously, it works pretty well, but I thought to myself... hmmm... something doesn't seem quite right here... LOL

Well, I was pretty much just using my mixer as a preamp/DI and didn't realize that - DUH! - it's supposed to get the playback signal "mixed" back into it.  Here's my setup... I have a little Behringer ( yep - the B word ) Eurorack MX602A mixer, with my bass plugged in to channel 1.  I have the "TAPE OUT"s going to my PC's soundcard, have my soundcard output being sent back to the mixer's "TAPE IN"s, and have phones plugged into the mixer.

The problem is that I can only hear my bass when I have "TAPE TO CTRL ROOM" off, but then obviously I can't hear the signal coming in on the "TAPE IN"s.  When I press the "TAPE TO CTRL ROOM" button, I can hear the signal coming in on the "TAPE IN"s, but I can no longer hear my bass in the cans (unless I turn on Input Monitoring on my computer, which brings me back to where I started with 20ms latency and tendencies to abuse my chin).  It seems like pressing that button takes the signal from the mixer's input channels out of the ctrl room mix.

What's up with that?  That doesn't seem right to me.  I figured this should give me the zero-latency that I seek, letting me hear my bass from channel 1 as I play it along with my other tracks being played back on my PC.  Is that correct, or am I unclear on the concept somewhere?

Please help a poor chin in need.  Thank you!
-Jeff

 

[TexRoadkill]

That is weird the Tape button cuts off the other channels. As a quick fix you could input the soundcard onto a stereo channel and use an Aux send to feed the soundcard inputs. If you mixer has an Alt or 3/4 buss you can use that as well. That way only the channels you select will be going to the soundcard.

 

[guttadaj]

Good to hear you think it's weird too. I don't really know much more than the basics about how mixers are supposed to work (with this being the first mixer I've used), but the way this works just didn't seem right (or at least didn't seem very useful) to me.

Thanks very much for the tip. Yes, I think it should work. I can take my soundcard's output out to a stereo channel, and use the aux send to go out to the soundcard. The aux send is only mono, though, so recording stereo sources won't work, but since I don't do that a lot, this should be good for the time being.

I also have an order in for 256M more memory (to bring me up to 512M on WinXP), and I'm planning to buy an Audiophile 2496 soon. I hope both those things will help to bring my latency down to workable levels, where this isn't an issue anymore. Your tip should help in the interim though. Thanks a lot!!

 

[guttadaj]

Just a quick followup.

I contacted Behringer technical support to ask about this, and they confirmed that this is how the mixer operates. That was really disappointing since it would have been sweet if it had worked the way I thought it should, but alas... I have to say that I was extremely impressed though with Behringer customer support! They responded very promptly to my emails and gave very clear and thorough answers.

Also, want to say a huge THANK YOU to TexRoadKill for your suggested workaround! I just bought the new cable at RadioShack tonight that I needed to try it out, and it worked beautifully. I was even able to turn on Input Monitoring on the recorded signal and apply a Reverb effect plugin at 100% wet to get a little Reverb on my vocal as I recorded - sweet! Who needs outboard stuff?!? The latency doesn't matter too much for that since it's just the effect - no dry signal, since I'm getting that at zero latency (Yeah, baby! ) by monitoring at the mixer. Anyway, I'm psyched - great tip! My chin and I thank you.

-Jeff