Need help with our first recording - Any advice appreciated

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ultracougar

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Me and my friend are working on setting up a decent place to record and possibly make our own music. We're absolute completes newbies but believe we have the right equipment we need to start, but we could definitely be mistaken. I play guitar, and he plays drums, so we went ahead and purchased a Xenyx1202 FX mixer and 6 Shure mics that came together. I record guitar directly into the mixer from the output in the back of my line 6 spider IV 75 watt and into the input that says 'line11/12' and my friend uses two of the cymbal mics and a mic attached to the snare and bass that run into the mixer with midi cables. We use a dual Alesis usb thing that takes the mixer output and puts it into the computer via usb. We also have a headphone splitter attached to the mic output so that we can both listen live.

This setup is probably pretty messed up somewhere along the line. Our basic problem is that we record into a program like Soundforge or SonarX2 and the audio is always way too low for us to even hear, or peaks enormously. We tryed turning the volume on the usb device down but then its so low we can't even hear it. And if we turn anything up on the mixer so that we can hear it through our headphones, the audio peaks really bad. Any advice to help get us started on audio production? We're trying to learn as we go but it;'s become hard. Also, is it possible to record into multiple tracks in a music program since the mixer has multiple channels? All we can get it to do is record as one device onto one track in whatever program we use.

Sorry for the newbiness.

Thanks very much.
 
Could it be that you have a line out from the mixer going into a mic or instrument input so that there is a level mismatch? so it is actually the input of the "dual Alesis usb thing" that is peaking?

Alan.
 
First thing: K.I.S.Sir (or madam!)
Feed just a guitar into the "instrument" input of the Alesis interface (and FCS give us a model#!) I bet it has one. Now try to get a decent level which is an average of -18dB (FS) on the software meters. This assumes you are recording at 24bits (and 44.1kHz) and if that last is DDutch to you you need to do some serious reading!

Once you can record guitar ok progress can be made on connecting the rest of the rig but also bone up on "gain staging.

N.B. You might have the classic Win 7 usb audio "problem" but the above test should prove that.

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
First thing: K.I.S.Sir (or madam!)
Feed just a guitar into the "instrument" input of the Alesis interface (and FCS give us a model#!) I bet it has one. Now try to get a decent level which is an average of -18dB (FS) on the software meters. This assumes you are recording at 24bits (and 44.1kHz) and if that last is DDutch to you you need to do some serious reading!

Once you can record guitar ok progress can be made on connecting the rest of the rig but also bone up on "gain staging.

N.B. You might have the classic Win 7 usb audio "problem" but the above test should prove that.

Dave.
Click to expand...

What problem would that be? I am curious as I have never heard this problem.
 
DM60 said:
What problem would that be? I am curious as I have never heard this problem.
Click to expand...


"am fairly sure this is the common problem of Windows 7 (and W8 probably?) seeing usb audio devices as microphones and giving them the appropriate amount of gain, i.e. far too much.

Go into the Sound Devices menu and search for "recording devices" , find the usb device and go to "levels". This will almost certainly be slammed to 100% and needs backing off to a very much lower level of 5% often even lower. I am sorry to be a bit vague about these settings but your W7 version might be different from mine."

^ me from another post.
Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
"am fairly sure this is the common problem of Windows 7 (and W8 probably?) seeing usb audio devices as microphones and giving them the appropriate amount of gain, i.e. far too much.

Go into the Sound Devices menu and search for "recording devices" , find the usb device and go to "levels". This will almost certainly be slammed to 100% and needs backing off to a very much lower level of 5% often even lower. I am sorry to be a bit vague about these settings but your W7 version might be different from mine."

^ me from another post.
Dave.
Click to expand...


OK, I don't see that as a problem, just be aware that the default setting is 100% and needs to be adjusted. Thanks for the clarification. Good information for those who might not have other wised looked.
 
Never would have thought of plugging guitar directly into the alesis usb, thanks I'll give that a go. And one of the first things we did is adjust the recording volume of the device. We still had peaking problems at like 10. And a normal level of sound we should be aiming for during recording is -18db?
 
That's correct. Shoot for -18 dbs. As for the mixer, you should sell it and get a bigger interface with mic pres in it. otherwise, you won't be able to get more than a stereo track out of the mixer. Look for something with 8 ins like the scarlet 18i20. It's about $500 but you're not going to get anything with that many inputs for less. You're basically paying to have a converter on each channel.
 
For the drummer I would recommend using a trigger for his bass drum and running it into a drum module. This will give his bass drum more definition. Also I would get a couple more mics for his toms to bring them up to volume with the rest of the kit.
 
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