Using audacity with Yamaha Silent Brass

[josiah2405]

Hi, I'm using Audacity 1.3.12 on Windows Vista

I'm a trumpet player interested in recording for fun, so I recently bought a Yamaha Silent Brass system so I could mute the sound (very important as I live in an apartment building) yet plug it into my computer.
However, as I was trying to test it out, I noticed that recording a single track is fine, but when I recorded a second track on top of it, there were two main problems:

1. The sound was only recorded about 0.5 seconds after playing (i.e. the first 0.5s of playing was not recorded)
2. The second recording also recorded the first one (for example I tried recording my trumpet over a drum track, but then some of the snare and bass etc was recorded onto the new track as well)

As a result, I can only currently record my trumpet on its own (ie no multitracking or what not)

Can anyone help me with this? I'm sorry if its actually a simple problem cos I'm relatively new to these sort of things. I'm not sure if its a hardware of software issue.. And I don't think its a problem with Yamaha since recording a single track is fine..

Also any brass players care to share their thoughts of recording using silent brass?

Thanks for the help!

p.s. For those who doesn't know what the silent brass is, basically it works by having a brass mute with a pickup which i can connect to a unit provided, then i can plug earphones into it but I used a male to male audio cable to plug it into my computer.

[steve]

There may be more than one solution to this issue. Generally it is better to go with the simple solution rather than a more complex (and possibly expensive) solution, but first could you give a bit more information about the equipment.
How "silent" is the silent brass?
Which is more important - the recording or the playing experience?
Would it be acceptable if you could only hear other tracks through your headphones and not the live trumpet? (would you be able to hear the trumpet sufficiently acoustically?)
I presume that you are currently recording with the computers built-in sound card? If necessary, would you consider buying a USB external sound card?
Is your computer a laptop or a full size computer?

[josiah2405]

Well its doesn't exactly cut off all the sound but suffice to say it is no louder than watching a movie with speakers on, or normal talking, which allows me to practice even at unearthly hours.
The playing experience is definitely more important, but I see recording as an added bonus, esp because I play other instruments as well and recording and mixing allows me to be a "one man band" of sorts
Yup I don't need to hear the live trumpet, and if I really needed to I could just listen from one side of the earphones so my other ear can hear the sound that normally "leaks" out of the mute.
I'm using a laptop at the moment, and I wouldn't really want to buy a sound card because I'm hoping/saving up to buy another laptop/computer later in the year (current laptop is borrowed).
Oh yea I don't know if this helps but I can use the silent brass system to plug my trumpet into my bass amp with no issues. Also I've never tried recording (using my android phone - I'm on a tight budget!) a track over another one before this, I usually record my instruments separately and mix them later.
Thanks!

[steve]

Update to Audacity 1.3.14 beta (Unicode) http://audacityteam.org/download/

Use the Device Toolbar to set the Recording Input Device to the input on your computer that you are using (probably "Mic In". Definitely not "Stereo Mix").

Open the "Transport Menu" and ensure that:
Overdub: Selected (enabled)
Software Playthrough: Not Selected (disabled).

In order for the second and subsequent tracks to synchronise with the first track you will need to run the "Latency Test". See here for details: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Latency_Test

Don't expect to get brilliant sound quality from a built in (on board) sound card - they are usually very low quality (lots of hiss), even on expensive PCs.

[brassbow]

I also am a brass player and have tried silent brass. One problem is that because it is a mute first the tone is changed to the sound of almost a cupmute. You could run it through the amp with the echo setting but the amp volume should be way down other wise it overdrives the computer and distorts BADLY. Now you can play with the eq using 400 800 1600k frequencies to adjust for more a trumpet sound but it takes a LOT of work. Better sound from a $5 wired mic then the silent brass.

[mlbradleyii]

For latency issues - this is unfortunately always going to be a little off.. it may be miliseconds, it may be seconds... depends on your computer speed, but you have to keep in mind that anything incoming first has to be processed by the computer before it is recorded and/or played back... that in itself is a guaranteed delay, even if it isn't very noticable. If you're saying that it's not recording the first 0.5 seconds, you might want to allow for that time in the recording... playback, as already mentioned, would require a latency test for that to be improved.

Please explain this more about your second question (the 2nd track with extra instruments). From what you mentioned, it sounds like it could be the result of a variety of things since the 'drum track' could have merged from an existing audacity file or the recording through your headphones.

I agree with @brassbow... if your sound quality is poor, an external mic and an equalizer adjustment will probably give you much better results - i've tried it and I have to say it's better for me. I know this is not the topic of this post, but it IS about recording (where quality is the highest concern). I had a lot of trouble with getting good quality out of my Silent Brass unit (it was so bad I thought my unit was defective). But the mute works, and there's always an option of an external mic.