Monitoring while recording and second track sounds funny?

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Need help.

I’m using a Zoom G3 direct into my laptop through the USB. Two issues…

  1. How do I get Audacity to let me hear what I’m recording, while I’m recording it (monitoring, in other words)? I can hear it during playback, but not while recording.

  2. When I layer a second track on top of a first track, say some riffs over rhythm chords, the riff recoding sounds all warbly, like it is cutting in and out. I presume this has something to do with processing speed or something. Any advice?

Thanks.

2

Plug your headphones into the headphone socket on the G3.

3

Got it. So I have to monitor from my Audio Interface, so to speak, not the computer? Makes sense.

Any idea on question #2?

4

Yes. See the “Startup Guide” for your G3.

Not without hearing it.
If you press the Mute button on the first track and then play you will be able to hear the second track on its own. That should tell you if the problem is on the second track or is some strange interaction between tracks 1 and 2.

5
  1. How do I get Audacity to let me hear what I’m recording, while I’m recording it (monitoring, in other words)? I can hear it during playback, but not while recording.

Also, see [u]this page[/u].

Got it. So I have to monitor from my Audio Interface, so to speak, not the computer? Makes sense.

The BIG advantage is that you don’t have the latency (delay) that you get through the computer.* The disadvantage is that with your interface, you may not be able to monitor the backing-track through the same headphones. Sometimes a little mixer is helpful for monitoring.

  1. When I layer a second track on top of a first track, say some riffs over rhythm chords, the riff recoding sounds all warbly, like it is cutting in and out. I presume this has something to do with processing speed or something. Any advice?

So the tracks sound OK separately, but not when mixed? Are you making an MP3? “Warbling” is sometimes associated with low-bitrate MP3 compression.

With the Zoom G3 it might be an interaction of similar effects on both tracks, especially timing-related effects like delay/echo, reverb, or temolo. Try recording one track “clean”, and if that helps you can try entirely different effect chains on each track.

The most common issue with mixing is clipping (distortion), because when you mix the signals are summed and it gets louder.


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  • There are “tricks” for minimizing latency, and higher-end interfaces (including your G3) have optinal low-latency ASIO drivers (which don’t work with the standard version of Audacity). But lowering latency tends to bring-out other problems, and it’s better to avoid the issue altogether with zero-latency hardware monitoring.
6

I think it may be clipping, as it also sounds fairly distorted. What do I do in that case?

7

You can check that by looking at the playback meter (http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/meter_toolbar.html)
If the meter level goes all the way up to 0 dB then the clip indicator will “light up” indicating that the level is too high.

Set your recording level so that no individual track goes above -6 dB while you are recording.
Then you can use the “Mixer Board” (http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/view_menu.html#mixer) to adjust the playback level of each track, taking care that the overall mix level never goes all the way up to 0 dB.

The main recording/playback meters can be dragged out of the interface and stretched to the full width of your monitor, which will make them much easier to read.

8

Unlike the old tape/cassette recorders, pushing the level into the red should never occur in digital recording. Digital audio is totally unforgiving about peak level. 0dB is the absolute maximum level that a sound card can handle without distortion, so it is best to work well under 0 dB, and if necessary nudge the levels up a bit after recording.