Setting up XENYX Q1202USB

Audacity Help Forum Windows
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My XENYX Q1202USB will be received tomorrow. I’m using a Dell laptop with Win10. I have installed Audacity and been able to record via a USB and monitor with headphones.

I intend to use the mixer to mic an acoustic drum set and add drum tracks to files provided by others using the Q1202USB mixer and Audacity. The drum tracks are intended to be separate from the playback track but part of the playback file. I understand the latency issue between live playback and monitoring via Audacity, so I have purchased the mixer to fix by monitoring via the mixer. I understand the latency issue between the playback and the new track and know how to adjust in Audacity.

I seen much discussion here and on YouTube about problems monitoring a playback while monitoring live mics and recording new tracks to accompany the original. I have seen the “mix-minus” setup solution online. This solution negates the usefulness of the mixer USB connection, which doesn’t make sense to me. I’m hoping to get some clarification.

Questions:

  1. Assuming I use the USB cable, setup the Audacity USB input/output preferences between the mixer and laptop, set up the 4 drum mics correctly and use headphones to monitor - is there any problem expected to monitor the playback and the live drum input while recording the live drums as a new track to accompany the playback track?

  2. Is the “TO PHONES/CTRL RM” button pressed and the “TO MAIN MIX” button not pressed in order to make this work?

  3. Everything I’ve seen says I can’t and shouldn’t use the Behringer AISO drivers. Is this correct?

Thanks for any information you can provide.

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  1. Assuming I use the USB cable, setup the Audacity USB input/output preferences between the mixer and laptop, set up the 4 drum mics correctly and use headphones to monitor - is there any problem expected to monitor the playback and the live drum input while recording the live drums as a new track to accompany the playback track?

With acoustic drums you shouldn’t have to “monitor” yourself at all! :wink: You just need to hear the existing back-up track in your headphones and you should still be able to hear your drums while wearing the headphones.

If necessary, there should be a way to monitor your backing-track and your live sound through the mixer (so don’t the live drums don’t get latency through the computer). But I don’t know how to set-up your mixer for that.

  1. Is the “TO PHONES/CTRL RM” button pressed and the “TO MAIN MIX” button not pressed in order to make this work?

Sorry, I don’t know anything about that mixer .

  1. Everything I’ve seen says I can’t and shouldn’t use the Behringer AISO drivers. Is this correct?

Correct. Installing the ASIO drivers shouldn’t hurt anything but Audacity (as distributed) is not an ASIO application and it only uses regular Windows drivers. Almost all of these “little USB mixers” are plug-and-play with the Microsoft-supplied drivers.

BTW - You only get the stereo-mix through the USB. Your mixer is not a multi-track recording interface.

There is some information about multi-track overdubbing with Audacity [u]here[/u].

There will be latency in your recording but that can be compensated for, so that your backing track and new recording align. See [u]Latency Test[/u].