quattro questions

msgrape

msgrape

New member
I'm fairly new at home recording as you will soon know.
I have a Dell, Pentium 4 with a sound blaster audigy 2
I recently purchased a quattro......just because it was there on ebay.
Now here is my stupid question.......do I have to have seperate speakers and will it somehow play through my 5.1 surround sound pc speakers? I would like to someday purchase a pair of good monitor speakers but in the meantime.....is this workable?
I 've already learned a lot from reading on here.
Thanks a bunch.

msgrape
 
Quattro answer, but I have a Quattro question

I just purchased a Quattro today, too. To answer your question, you won't be able to use your 5.1 PC speakers to play back sound directly from the Quattro. However, what you may be able to do is go to the 'Control Panel' from the 'Start' menu, then select the 'Sounds and Audio' utility. You'll see tabs for Audio and Voice. I'm not entirely sure which tab is more relevant, but you can choose which audio you want to record with and which you want to playback with. So basically you would choose the Quattro to record with and your PC soundcard device (whatever's connecting your PC speakers) to playback whatever you record. I just tried it with Sonic Vegas 4.0 and it seems to work alright. I hope this helps your situation.

However, I have a question, too. Anybody out there who has a Quattro, I have this issue: I can get audio coming from the computer through the Quattro fine, but I cannot simultaneously listen to the audio from the computer with a mic I have going into the input of the Quattro. If I hit the direct monitor button, then I can hear the mic input, but I lose the computer audio output. Does that make sense? Is that then just a limitation of the Quattro? It seems like that's a pretty major limitation. So if that's the case, anybody know any other USB devices out there without that limitation?

Thanks,
Cris
 
quattro

Hey Chris, thanks for replying. Here's what I did.........I plugged my outs from the quattro into my home stereo system. Now I can do what you suggested. I can hear my keyboard through those speakers and record through the quattro. It's all very confusing to me. I think I know what you're asking and I have done it.....recording to music in Acid and hearing both? IT is possible but I can't tell you how I did it because I haven't been able to do it again that way. It's either one or the other. To me it's all a matter of pushing buttons and seeing what works along with changing settings on the pc. I'm sorry but everything I do is just trial and error. I hope someone else can help you. Do you use a preamp for your mic or do you have to?

Gidge,In re. to using the 5.1.......I asked that but didn't really get an answer. The pc soundcard has 3 plugs into the soundcard. I didn't know if I should plug in all 3 into the quattro or what.
I must really sound dumb here but it's the only way I learn.
 
msgrape- oops. Sorry, you're right. I didn't answer your question. It looks like you figured something out, but for future reference if you're still trying to figure out if you can use your 5.1 speaker system with the Quattro, here's what I know. I don't think you can plug the 5.1 speaker system to the Quattro directly, because of two reasons, really: a) the Quattro only supports 2 channel speakers, essentially (left and right) and b) I'm assuming that your PC card handles 5.1 sound fine and so has the proper connections as well as electronics and coding to support your 5.1 speakers, of course. To elaborate on point a), I've further realized that Windows (WinXP, in particular because that's what I have) only utilizes the 1/2 inputs and outputs. I haven't tested it out fully, but I think input/output 1 is the left channel and input output 2 is the right channel. It's only in music creation/sequencing software that you can utilize all four inputs and outputs. And in those programs, you configure them specific to how you want it within the limits of the Quattro itself (i.e., sample rate and bit rate).

I know what you mean that it's all confusing. I spent most of last weekend with my eyes crossed trying to figure everything out. I wanted the most versatile setup so I ended up basically using two mixers, one mixer for inputting into the Quattro and one mixer for outputting from the Quattro. I'm by no means an expert on this, but I think I've got a handle on the Quattro now. Let me know if there's any questions I might be able to answer (criscable@hotmail.com).
 
quattro

Thanks, Cris for the offer of help.
I might take you up on that someday and you may be sorry..lol
Take care and make some good music.

msgrape
 
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