Recording mic/stereo mix at the same time

[auzer666]

auzer666, please get out of your mind that what you really want to do is simple - it's not. The Windows sound system is a basic in/out affair, and that is fine for what it is designed for. Skype works, Audacity works, and your voice changer program works. They are not designed to all work together.

I'm not quite following either.

Going back to the original question:
"Can I use Audacity to record my mic and stereomix at the same time, putting my voice from the mic into it's own channel, and putting the stereo mix in a separete channel, so that I can go back and edit them individually?"

This is not a question about Audacity, this is a question about routing sound signals and as I wrote previously, the Windows sound system probably can't do this without a lot of help.

The approach that I would take is not to use Stereo Mix at all, but to run all of the audio that I want to record through a mixing desk. Then I can pan each audio source left/right as required.

If auzer666 has a really fast i5 computer (with hardware virtualization), then he can probably do what he wants by running Linux as the host system, with Jack audio system, and running the voice changing software in a virtual machine under Windows, and then using "Jack Control" to route all of the audio signals as required *** but this is not simple ***

Hey,

Thanks for all your replies, and I really don't wanna keep bothering you about this. So, can you(or anyone) just answer one last thing for me...the questions about MP3s, which are in the thread right above steve's last post.

After that, I guess I'll be done because I really don't wanna keep bugging you guys about this.

Thanks.

[steve]

Also, as far as quality goes, I've read that MP3 compression affects mainly the highs and lows in a file. So, since I'm gonna be recording voices, would the quality still be good as an MP3?

MP3 is a lossy compression format. In order to make the file size smaller, some of the information is discarded. The damage that is done by MP3 compression may be very small provided that the bit rate is high enough. However, the damage is permanent and irreparable. If an MP3 is decoded for editing (Audacity always uses uncompressed audio data) and then exported as an MP3 file, there is some damage done to the sound quality by the export encoding. Each time it is encoded the sound quality deteriorates a little more. For this reason, whenever possible you should avoid using lossy compression during the production process - if you need the final format as MP3, then encode to MP3 once for the final export, but stick with uncompressed formats up to that point. The damage is most commonly heard as a metallic "zingy" quality.

[auzer666]

Also, as far as quality goes, I've read that MP3 compression affects mainly the highs and lows in a file. So, since I'm gonna be recording voices, would the quality still be good as an MP3?

MP3 is a lossy compression format. In order to make the file size smaller, some of the information is discarded. The damage that is done by MP3 compression may be very small provided that the bit rate is high enough. However, the damage is permanent and irreparable. If an MP3 is decoded for editing (Audacity always uses uncompressed audio data) and then exported as an MP3 file, there is some damage done to the sound quality by the export encoding. Each time it is encoded the sound quality deteriorates a little more. For this reason, whenever possible you should avoid using lossy compression during the production process - if you need the final format as MP3, then encode to MP3 once for the final export, but stick with uncompressed formats up to that point. The damage is most commonly heard as a metallic "zingy" quality.

Gotcha. Thanks.

Well, I can't figure out a way to record what I want in WAV, so, I guess I'll just have to deal with the quality loss.

There are a couple programs that will record what I want in WAV, but they only record in 16k sampling rate, which is a loss in quality itself, right?

[ragnar.jensen]

One of the guys at work recommends Kristal Audio Engine for recording odd multiples of different sounds on your computer. I've never used it. Write back.

http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

Koz

+1. I often use Kristal when I have to record from several sources simultaneously.

This was taken from the Kristal website:


----KRISTAL Waver

-the sequencer Plug-In for KRISTAL
-multichannel harddisk recording via ASIO/MME
-ASIO input monitoring
-audio clip arrangement
-audio clip fade-in/fade-out/crossfade
-unlimited undo/redo
-AES31 Export

I don't quite understand these features...is it saying that it can do what I wanna do?

Yes.

Here's a recording I did just an hour ago:

Kristal Audio Engine

Kristal_recording.png (66.5 KiB) Viewed 2184 times

The top track is a mono track recorded from my microphone.
The bottom track is a stereo track recorded from "Stereo Mix". It is the sound from a movie playing on Youtube in my web browser.
Both tracks were recorded at the same time.

I then exported the two tracks as WAV files and loaded them into Audacity for editing.

Äudio tracks exported from Kristal

Narration_and_soundtrack_from_Kristal.png (49.64 KiB) Viewed 2184 times

Kristal is excellent for recording and as a host for VST effects, but I think Audacity is much better for editing.
I strongly suggest that you take a closer look at it.
--
Ragnar

[auzer666]

Here's a recording I did just an hour ago:

Kristal_recording.png

The top track is a mono track recorded from my microphone.
The bottom track is a stereo track recorded from "Stereo Mix". It is the sound from a movie playing on Youtube in my web browser.
Both tracks were recorded at the same time.

Hey,

What I'm trying to do is...not just record my mic and stereo mix at the same time, but record them on their own channels. So that, one channel only records what goes in my mic, and the other channel records everything else(and not my mic).

Do you know how I can do this?

[ragnar.jensen]

That is exactly what I'm showing in my example above.
The movie soundtrack is a separate stereo track (or channel, as you call it), there is only the movie sound in it.
The narrator's mic has its own mono track.
The movie soundtrack and the narrator mic are not mixed together.

As an editing example, here I have time-shifted the narrator track five seconds.
You'll notice that the movie soundtrack stays put.

Tracks are separate

Narration_and_soundtrack_edit.png (48.16 KiB) Viewed 2181 times

EDIT:
Here are the input sources I used in Kristal:

Microphone input goes to a top mono track

Kristal_Waver_1.png (15.61 KiB) Viewed 2176 times

Microphone to top track

Stereo Mix input goes to bottom stereo track

Kristal_Waver_2.png (21.61 KiB) Viewed 2176 times

Stereo Mix to bottom track.
--
Ragnar

[auzer666]

That is exactly what I'm showing in my example above.
The movie soundtrack is a separate stereo track (or channel, as you call it), there is only the movie sound in it.
The narrator's mic has it's own mono track.
The movie soundtrack and the narrator mic are not mixed together.

I'm still a little confused about what you're saying. Sorry.

You're saying that you got it so that whatever you say into your mic is only heard on either the left or right channel/speaker, and nothing else is heard on that channel/speaker....and every other sound coming from your computer EXCLUDING your mic is going into the other channel/speaker?

Because I haven't tried using Audacity and Kristal together, but when I tried them each individually, I couldn't record just my mic by itself on one channel because the only options I saw for inputs was mic and stereo mix...and if I do mic, then it records my mic, which is fine. But, if I choose stereo mix as well, well then it will record EVERYTHING my computer hears, including my mic....which is not what I want. I want my mic to only be recorded on one channel/speaker, not the other.

[kozikowski]

MP3 messes with the quality of the music. You can't pin it down to "it sounds muffled" or "it has no low end."

In real life, you can listen to three violins. Two of them are crappy quality and one is a concert quality instrument. In real life, you can tell instantly which one is playing and you can tell in the WAV file, too. But in the highly compressed MP3, they all sound exactly the same.

MP3 has carefully removed the sound quality of the expensive violin because, "It's not important."

This is why top end musicians hate MP3.

Koz

[ragnar.jensen]

You're saying that you got it so that whatever you say into your mic is only heard on either the left or right channel/speaker, and nothing else is heard on that channel/speaker....and every other sound coming from your computer EXCLUDING your mic is going into the other channel/speaker?

Because I haven't tried using Audacity and Kristal together, but when I tried them each individually, I couldn't record just my mic by itself on one channel because the only options I saw for inputs was mic and stereo mix...and if I do mic, then it records my mic, which is fine. But, if I choose stereo mix as well, well then it will record EVERYTHING my computer hears, including my mic....which is not what I want. I want my mic to only be recorded on one channel/speaker, not the other.

No, my microphone is not heard at all in any speaker. I've switched off listening to it. Having speakers and a live mic listening to those speakers in the same room is seldom a good idea.
In the rare event that I do want to listen to it, I do it in headphones. My headphone jack does not affect Stereo Mix. I have a 5.1 surround speaker system, but my Stereo Mix is only what is heard in the front left and right speakers.


If you pan one track left and the other right and then Mix and Render, you'll end up with a stereo track with mic on one side and everything else on the other.

Step one: Mix down the Stereo Mix track to mono. Make sure that only that track is selected and then Tracks - Stereo Track to Mono:

Stereo Mix to mono

Stereo_Mix_to_mono.png (55.19 KiB) Viewed 2170 times

Step two. Pan the tracks left and right and then Mix and Render.
In the example below, the narrator track (mic )is panned hard left and the Stereo Mix track, which is now mono, is panned hard right.

Panned left and right.

Pan_Mix_and_Render.png (55.54 KiB) Viewed 2173 times

After Mix and Render:

Final result.

Mixed_and_Rendered.png (45.09 KiB) Viewed 2173 times

One stereo track with Mic in the left speaker, everything else in the right.

--
Ragnar

[auzer666]

After Mix and Render:

Mixed_and_Rendered.png

One stereo track with Mic in the left speaker, everything else in the right.

--
Ragnar

Hmm... Yup. That appears to be what I'm looking for. I'll have to try it out your way. Thanks.

I'll try it out tomorrow, though. I'm kinda tired and I'll be going to sleep pretty soon. I'll post back in this thread and let you know how it goes.

Do I need any special hardware, though? I only have an integrated Sound Max HD Digital Audio sound card.