Help with my setup

[vicevursa]

I have a K62 AMD 500mHz computer with 128mb of RAM. I have the Soundblaster Platinum Live with the Live Drive 1. I am running Cakewalk 9. I use my computer speakers to monitor or a set of headphones plugged into the mixer. I have a Behringer MX802a mixer (mistake #1, Misterque, sometimes I have to touch the hot stove before I learn...lol), a Behringer Patch Panel, Alesis QS6.1, Alesis DM5, and DSP1000pro for effects. I run the main outs from the mixer into the line input on the soundcard. I then run the headphone jack from the Live Drive to channels 7/8. That's so I can hear the output of the computer. When I want to record a vocal track I find that I need to plug my mic into the Live drive and play the music through the headphones of the mixer. This is very limiting, I feel. And it's very difficult to try and get good levels. Something tells me I don't have this equipment of mine patched up correctly. Is there a way I can listen to other tracks while recording through my mixer? I am thinking my mixer might be the problem. If you have any suggestions on my setup, pray tell!
Thanks for any advice...

 

[Tekker]

I run the main outs from the mixer into the line input on the soundcard. I then run the headphone jack from the Live Drive to channels 7/8. That's so I can hear the output of the computer.

Can you just plug your headphones into the headphone jack instead of using the mixer? If it's too quiet you can turn up the sound of the output on your soundcard using your soundcard's mixer window, (double click on the speaker icon on the bottom right hand side of your screen then turn up the output volume.

When I want to record a vocal track I find that I need to plug my mic into the Live drive and play the music through the headphones of the mixer. This is very limiting, I feel. And it's very difficult to try and get good levels. Something tells me I don't have this equipment of mine patched up correctly. Is there a way I can listen to other tracks while recording through my mixer?

Plug your vocal mic into the mixer and then your headphones into the output of the soundcard. This is the way I've been doing it, (only speakers instead of headphones) but when I do need headphones I just unplug the speakers and plug in the headphones and it works fine.

Hope this helps

-tkr