Mastering Mixers & Levels

A basic recording set up with a PC at its core will have a sound source, such as a guitar, keyboard or microphone, attached via a cable to the PC's sound card. If the card has a Line-In input use it, otherwise use the (sometimes) noisy microphone input.

Pre-Amps

If you can lay your hands on a pre-amp - even better, because it will boost your signal and make things sound generally nicer. Noise can be reduced and some pre-amps have amplifier simulation to add a bit of character to your din. Some valve-based guitar amps have Line-Out jacks, which let you pipe out the sounds. Increasing the amp's volume will affect the sound you get from this output so bear this in mind before embarking on a late-night recording session.

Setting Levels

Avoid going into the red at all costs.

If you are using a pre-amp, make sure you set its levels and tone controls before running through this procedure. Once everything has been wired up and switched on, open the software mixer on your PC. You'll also need a program that supports audio and features a level display. Programs like Cubase, Sound Forge and Cakewalk will all suffice. Play or sing and watch the level meter on the screen. Twiddle the software mixer's setting until your loudest sounds cause the meter to reach into the middle of the yellow zone. Try to get the loudest signal you can, because this will reduce the amount of noise that appear in your recordings, but never allow red to appear. When you record digitally, overloading the input will cause clicking and unpleasant distortion. This distortion is unlikely to sound good, even if you are doing "experimental" music, and is very different to the results you get when overloading an analogue mixer.

External Mixer Levels

If you have your sound sources connected to an external mixer, which is fed into your sound card's Line-In input, make sure that you set its levels before turning to the PC. You can do this by following the steps above, but reading the mixer's own display. Don't worry too much about entering the red zone, because you won't get the digital distortion you experience with the software mixer.

Sound Card Inputs

Select the input you want to record from. You can only choose one.

Open the software mixer by double-clicking the speaker icon in Windows' system tray. Choose the Options menu and go to Properties. Choose Recording and select every option you think you will use at some time. A good choice might be MIDI, Wave, Line-In and Microphone. Next, repeat this process but open the Playback output list and choose everything. When the mixer shows you all of the possible outputs choose you ones you'll use, probably MIDI, Wave, Line-In and certainly the Master Volume control, and mute all of the other options. This will reduce the amount of extraneous noise you hear when listening to your efforts.

Monitoring

If you decided to allow playback from the Line-In input, as suggested above, you will be able to monitor your performances live through the PC, whether recording or not. This is more useful than it sounds. If you use effects plug-ins in real-time, rather than applying them later, you can listen to the overall result and change your playing or vocal style accordingly. However, some sound cards, especially so-called non-professional models, cannot deal with everything happening at once. The recording will sound fine afterwards, but during a session you can often notice a considerable (and distracting) time delay between plucking a string/singing a word and hearing it come out of the speakers. This is called latency, and the way around it is to monitor directly, instead of through the sequencer or hard disk recording software. Sadly, you will lose the software effects, but you'll still hear the results of any pre-amps and in-line gadgets such as guitar effects pedals.

Latency

This irritating phenomenon occurs when the PC cannot access the sound card fast enough. The result: you play a note and it sounds half a second or so later. The solution: software drivers that optimise the way the PC sends information to the sound card. Creative Labs' sound cards are renowned for producing latency when used with software like Steinberg's Cubase VST. Cubase uses a technology called ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output), and ideally users would own an ASIO-compatible sound card. However, Creative Labs is yet to produce such drivers. Keep an eye on our news section for future developments.

Author: Simon PG Edwards 9 November 1999

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