xenix 1204usb probs

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Greetings fellow audiophobes. My name is Eddy and I'm from sunny New Zealand. I want to do some home recording and I now have a computer (3 gig, 2 megs ram, XP Rev3, ) built 5 years ago, Xenyx 1204USB mixer (new), Sure SM48 mics, Creative Blaster X-FI soundcard, and an Asio driver for the mixer which I think is port specific. I have connected the 1204 to that usb port. At this stage, I can play into the mixer, I can record into a recording program on the computer (Audition or Audacity) and hear the output through earphones. I would like to hear the output through speakers but I have absolutely no idea where to go from here.Can anybody please help?
Eddy.
 
I can't look up the specs at the moment, but there should be a button, maybe right above the control room/ phones knob labelled "2TR/USB to Main". Hook your (powered) monitors to the main outs on the mixer and push that button in and you should hear your mix. When you want to overdub, that button needs to be "out" and the "2TR/USB" button at he top of the stack of routing selections to the left of the control rom/phones knob needs to be "in" that way you can here the mix in your phones to play/sing along with, but only your mics or other inputs will feed ino the computer for recording. If these buttons aren't there, then I don't know the answer. I know that's the way the 24 channel Xenyx USB mixer is configured, so I'm guessing yours might be the same. If, not, it will be the same concept, so stiudy the manual with this thought process in mind.

Good luck,

J

PS - if you don't have monitors, but rather "computer speakers", there should be a 1/8" stereo plug connected to your sound card. Go to Radio Shack or Best Buy (ok those are American stores, but go to the NZ equivalent) and get conversion cables/plugs/adapters/whatever to get from dual 1/4" or RCA (the available audio outputs from the Xenyx) to a female 1/8" stereo jack to receive that plug going to your computer speakers. If you're using a home sound system or some such, it's the same deal. You need to get from the main outs from the xenyx (1/4" or RCA) to the inputs of your sound system (normal RCA cables should work is this case). Good luck again!. Post back how you make out :)
 
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Hi jjjtttggg, thank you for your help.
to let you know what sort of newbie you are talking to, I am looking at 4 [Stereo Aux Returns], 2 [FX Aux Sends], 2 [Line In 5/6] and 2 [Line In 7/8] 1/4" jacks as well as 4 [2-Track/USB INPUT OUTPUT RCAs], on the top. On the back there are another 2 [Alt 3-4 Outputs] and 2 [Control Room Outs] 1/4" jacks. (the brackets are mine) You are correct in assuming I have 'computer speakers', there is a 1/8"stereo from the speakers that would normally go to my sound card. can I use the Control Room Outs?
Eddy
 
give me a few minites to look at your mixer... I'll post back
 
OK, the 1204 looks to be set up exactly the same as the 24 channel version. You need to hook your computer speakers to the main outs on the mixer. They're in the upper right of the unit. There should be a pair of RCA jacks labelled main out and a pair of 1/4" jacks labelled main out. You should be able to buy an adaptor for really cheap that has a stereo 1/8" female STEREO on one side and a pair of RCA jacks on the other. Get one of these and a dual RCA cable. Plug your computer speakers into the 1/8" female side of the adapter. Then plug the rca cables into the rca side of the adapter then plug the other end of rca cable pair into the red and white main out rca jacks on the mixer. Now the Main Output will go out those two jacks, down the two rca cables, into the adapter, where they'll get converted to 1/8" stereo then on to you computer speakers. So anything coming out of the mains from your mixer will end up in your speakers.

On your mixer, in the middle of the right side you should see a white knob labelled Phones/Ctrl Room. Immediately above this knob there's a red button labelled "2TR/USB to Main". When this button is in, the converted sound from your computer's USB port coming into the mixer will be routed to the mains. In other words you will hear whatever the computer is sending out in the speakers. So if you want to play back your mix from the computer and hear it in speakers, push this button in.

Just to the left of the white knob you will see three buttons with a bracket going to an arrow that points to the knob. These buttons control what signal is sent to the headphone jack and the control room output jacks. Unless you have a control room, just think of this knob as controlling the headphone jack. Plug your headphones into the 1/4" headphone jack (you'll need an adapter if your headphones/earbuds are 1/8"). The three buttons to the left of the white knob determine which signal is now going to show up in you headphones. The white knob will make the headphones louder or softer.

Once you have recorded a track and you want to record another one separately so that you can adjust the mix between them later, You need to be able to hear the first one so that you can play along with it and keep everything in synch. For example suppose for the first track you record your basic rhythm guitar part. Now you want to record your vocal. Clearly you need to be able to hear the guitar part so that you can sing along with it. So you put the headphones on and press the top button of the three. It is red also and says "2Tr/USB". Now the sound coming from the computer (the guitar part) is going to show up in your headphones so that you can sing along with it. You only want the vocal going back to the computer for recording though, so you want the "2Tr/USB to Main" button switched out. This way the sound from the computer will ONLY go to the headphones. All that will be left in the main, which goes to the computer for recording is the vocal. Perfect.

Make sense? Main outs to your speakers with an adapter to get from dual RCA to 1/8" stereo. "2TR/USB to Main" (Above the white knowb) should be "In" when you want to play back your mix to listen to it on the speakers, and "out" when you want to record. "2Tr/USB" to the left of the white knob needs to be in when you want to record, so you can hear the mix in the headphones. Headphones get plugged into the headphone jack (with and adapter if you headphones are 1/8"

I think that's about it....

J

PS - Here's a link to the adapter you need to get your speakers hooked up to the xenyx...

http://www.google.com/products/cata...log_result&ct=image&resnum=5&ved=0CCgQ8gIwBA#

You also need a standard dual rca cable.

And here's a link to the adapter you need to hook up earbuds or other 1/8" headphones to the phones jack on the xenyx...

http://www.amazon.com/ER-Stereo-Headphone-Adapter/dp/accessories/B000F2L14M
 
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Hi jjjtttggg
Whew...I have printed your instructions out so that I can study it in bed (it's almost 10 pm over here 16 Feb) I guess it is daytime for you guys over there. Thank you very much for helping me. I'll let you know tomorrow how it is working out. Much obliged again.
ET
 
(I posted this in another thread also.)

My setup is as jjjtttggg explained ,so it's basically ,to record and monitor,I monitor the recording through headphones (volume control through "control room" knob) while playing the audio track through the main output. (1832usb mixer ,XP on laptop,Audacity)

BUT, 2 issues arrises

1. is it seems to "double" all the sound, headphone and speakers.
2. If I "slide up" the input level (on Audacity,to record) ,it mutes the audio output of my laptop and then if I ""un-mute" it ,it "slides" the input back to zero (which means you can hardly hear what you've recorded) ,all this automatically.

Audacity or soundcard issue?

Any suggestions ?
 
Sorry,and another question ... Why use the "rca cable setup" ? Isn't the usb cable suppose to be sending info BOTH ways between your mixer and laptop/recording program?
 
In answer to your second question first. Yes USB sends your digitally encoded audio to and from your computer, but somehow you have to get it to your monitors. That's the function of the audio cables. This is so you can actually hear your music. There are at least 3 scenarios in which you want to hear your music.

1 - The obvious. You just want to listen to it, just like you might want to listen to songs on iTunes are listen to the audio for YouTube videos. For this purpose you MAY want to use whatever normal audio output your computer has already and not involve the mixer at all.

2 - When you are mixing your tracks, you need to be able to hear what you are doing. Depending how serious you are, you may want high end speakers for this purpose. In any case, this CAN also be done through your computer's normal audio output, but in many cases that's not what people do, because of scenario no 3, below.

3 - While you are recording your tracks, you need to be able to hear your previously recorded material mixed together with what you are playing. Now, this CAN be done exclusively through headphones, and if you are recording anything with a microphone, like a vocal or a mic'd guitar, you need to do it with headphones rather than with speakers, so the previously recorded tracks don't bleed over into the track you are recording. For instruments like keyboards, or DI guitar or bass, though where there's no live mic to worry about picking up the sound in the room, it is often just convenient to skip the headphones and monitor through your speakers. For that you need the speakers to come through the mixer if you want to avoid any delay problems that come with monitoring the mixed signal through your software and out the computer's normal audio output.

It is this scenario 3 that leads to the recommendation of hooking your speakers up through the mixer. Once you've done it that way, rather than fiddling with cables all the time, it makes sense to just use that output path for scenarios 1 and 2 as well. There also may be configuration settting that would need to be adjusted to send the computers audio out by USB to the mixer vs out to the internal soundcard. Even if you go the "Monitor only with headphones" option, you may have to toggle this setting back and forth if you want to use the internal sound card for scenarios 1 and 2 and the usb out for scenario 3. That may not apply in all settings, but I know XP computers can be finicky about where the sound info gets sent depending on how things are setup. If you use the mixer for all 3, you can set it up once and not worry about it.


None of this means this is the only way. I don't even have this mixer. It just seems to me like the best way to set it up in light of other setups I've seen....

J
 
As for your first question, I can't say for sure, but it sounds to me like Audacity monkeying with you driver/audio configuration settings. Are you using an ASIO driver? You need that no matter what you are doing. No offense to the Audacity folks, but I suggest you go download Reaper (and don't forget to send the $40 when you love it:)).
 
Not sure about the ASIO driver ? Can I check some way ?

Thanks for your input Bud,got my cr@p setup properly and rolling .... slowly ....still .... ;-)

Recordings are very low level ,but sure I'll find the answer somewhere around here.

And going the "reaper" route ...
 
Oh ...and I'm on your "scenario 3" option ... x1832 mixer to laptop. Just need to remember which button to press when to send the signals where ever you need them when ever .... Life's a learning curve ... :-)
 
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