How do I record in mono?

[Stevo7]

Hi. I don't have any experience with recording but I just bought a M-Audio Firewire 410 acouple days ago. I'm having a little trouble. I have one mic (for vocals) plugged into the first mic input and another mic (for guitar) plugged into the 2nd mic input. When I record both at the same time I can only hear vocals in my left speaker and the guitar in the right speaker. How do I fix this so I can hear both vocals and guitar in both speakers? Right now I'm only using Windows sound recorder because I haven't figured out how to use cakewalk with this interface yet.

Thanks alot for the help.

 

[Sampler]

I think you're problem is using Windows sound recorder. The sound recorder is designed to handle audio applications other than simple sounds-hence the name. I also don't see how you're able to use it since it only gives you one min. of recording time. Anyway, I have tried recording with Windows sound recorder and have experienced this same problem, not to mention the horrible quality. I strongly recommend learning CakeWalk rather than even bothering with the sound recorder.

Your pan or balance settings might be off--probably not, but it's worth a try.

Another thing--are your "mic inputs" line inputs or mic preamps? If they're line inputs, you can connect your guitar directly (if they are line inputs, there is probably a button or something that gives you the option of mic or guitar; select guitar)


Good luck!

 

[NYMorningstar]

I don't own one of these but a quick look at the manual will show you what you need to do. Basically I think you need to pan each channel to the center, but check the manual.

 

[gordone]

I bet what is happening is Windows Sound Recorder is seeing the two inputs from the 410 as L/R, so it sends the vocals to the left and the guitar to the right. When you playback the stereo file, the vocals are playing in the left speaker and the guitar in the right. I'm pretty sure it will always be this way as long as you use Windows Sound Recorder. What you'll want to do is use Cakewalk and activate channels 1 and 2 of the 410 from within Cakewalk (I have N-Track so I don't know exactly how to do this). Then tell Cakewalk to record each input channel (from the 410) into it's own mono track (the other option is 1/2->stereo track which is what WSR was doing). Now each part would be on its own MONO track, and when you play back they will initially be panned in the center (hence could come out both speakers) and you can pan them wherever you want when you mix. When you render the mixed file, you'll end up with a STEREO wav file, with each part panned where you put it.