Newbie question - no playback

  • Thread starter Thread starter chizuck
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chizuck

New member
Hello,

I am brand new to home recording, and just bought a tascam us-122 to try recording a little bluegrass. I've installed the Cubase LE that came with it on my PC and am trying to learn how to use it. I successfully created a project, added a track, and then recorded a 10 second sample, but I can't seem to hear it when I play it back. I can see the cursor thing moving over the sample I recorded, but no sound comes out of my computer speakers.

I don't have any kind of monitor hooked up to the Tascam, I just assumed I could have the playback come out of the little speakers that are plugged into my computer's soundcard. Is there a way to make that work?

Thanks for any help you can give someone who's just starting out.

-Chuck
 
make sure the 'monitor' button on the track isnt selected, or else it will be monitoring the input instead of the output. also make sure the output settings are configured correctly between Cubase and your soundcard so that everything is in agreement there.


i'm not too familiar with the interface you are using, but i think that your computer might be trying to monitor through the interface as opposed to monitoring through your on-board sound card. do your normal computer sounds still work OK through your speakers? if so, then check the output settings in cubase, they might be set to monitor through the Tascam, and i think you should be able to change that so that it monitors through your soundcard if that's what you want. you might get a better sound monitoring from the Tascam though (but then again i'm not even sure if that's an option since i'm not familiar with the interface you have). if it's anything like the Firepod, then you should be able to set up your computer so that all sound (internet sounds, movies, music, etc.) come out through your interface as if it were your regular sound card. that might be what Cubase is trying to do in your situation. if for some reason you can't hook up your current speakers to the outputs on your interface, then you will have to change the settings in Cubase so that your inputs come from the interface, and your outputs go through your stock soundcard. hope this helps. :o :o
 
Monitoring

Yea, that's a tricky one for Cubase. Aside from enabling the monitoring on the mixer, you might want to check the settings under preferences under the FILE menu(of all places instead of devices). I think there are 3 different monitoring options. Default is off. The other (2) lets you monitor with the record on the transport running and actually recording or not and the last one (3) will monitor only with transport running and you are actually recording. You probably will like (2) the best. :D

Regular duplex PC sound cards with a central (main) mixer will monitor ok, but you won't be able to hear the VST effects with out chosing (2) either, I believe. No main mixer on the Tascam in ASIO?
 
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I just assumed I could have the playback come out of the little speakers that are plugged into my computer's soundcard. Is there a way to make that work?
Click to expand...

Yes, switch your audio driver in cubase to the onboard soundcard. This will probably not work that well so you should either get some monitors or plug your comp speakers into the 122
 
If you're active ASIO driver is the 122, the sound can only be coming out of monitors hooked directly into the 122. It sucks that Cubase doesn't support multiple ASIO drivers at once, maybe one day...
 
Thanks for all the suggestions - definitely got me pointed in the right direction. I had to switch between the ASIO drivers within Cubase to get Cubase sounds to come out of my computer speakers, but as one of you mentioned, this isn't really the right way to do it. I found that I could keep using the ASIO driver for the US-122 and plug some headphones into the US-122 and hear the playback that way. The next thing I'd like to try is getting an adapter that will allow me to hook my computer speakers to the 'Monitor' output my US-122.

Which leads me to another question. I keep reading about 'studio monitors' which appear to be high-end ($300+) speakers with an attached amplifier, so that they can just be fed line-level audio and put out high quality sound. What's the difference between these studio monitors and the $30 set of two speakers and a subwoofer with built in amplifier that I bought for my PC? Is it just the quality of the sound they produce, or do they somehow behave differently?

Thanks again for your help in getting this rookie off the ground.
 
Monitors should have a very flat frequency response. Normal speakers may increase certain freqeuncies making it very difficult to make an acurate mix
 
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