Hearing Yourself While Singing?! -ACID Product Family

Subject:Hearing Yourself While Singing?! Posted by: spinweb Date:12/9/2004 8:15:28 AM OK. This may be a stupid question, but.... I'm using my laptop and an Echo Indigo I/O 24-bit sound card along with ACID to record some songs. I have a Shure SM58 Mic and I'm using my POD as a preamp (yeah, I know it sucks and I've made my case to Santa for better gear). OK, when I sing along to a rhythm track, I stand at my mic with headphones on which are playing the rhythm track. Groovy. I can hear THAT great. I have to have the rhythm track piped in via headphones, or it'll bleed into the vocal track. So my problem is that I can't hear what I'm singing very well. To improve it, I pull my headphones off of one ear, so I can sort of hear myself singing. However, it's not a GOOD sound I hear. No FX, nothing. And the volume ain't great either. Can someone tell me how to do this so I can REALLY hear myself? How do pros do this? Thanks, Rick
Subject:RE: Hearing Yourself While Singing?! Reply by: JohnnyRoy Date:12/9/2004 8:47:37 AM Rick, ACID does not do live input monitoring :-( (Vegas does). The “Pros” would plug their headphones into their hardware mixing console and monitor their vocals live from the mixer. Think of ACID as just a digital tape recorder. You want to monitor the “live” performance not the “recorded” performance. You also want to record “dry” which is another reason why you might use a mixer to add some reverb to the live feed to the headphones so the singer is happy, but record the dry feed to ACID so you can control the FX in post. In a pinch just do what you are doing now except put cotton in one ear. This will make your voice a lot louder in your head. If you’ve ever seen a singer put their finger in their ear when they can’t hear the live monitors, this is why. ~jr
Subject:RE: Hearing Yourself While Singing?! Reply by: spinweb Date:12/9/2004 10:44:12 AM I'm probably going to purchase the Taylor K4 PreAmp for my acoustic and I've been told it works pretty well as a vocal preamp, too. If I use that, can I somehow route the incoming vocal signal to my headphones? I also have a BOSS BR-532 digital 4-track. Can I use that as a vocal slave? How the heck would I, even if it's possible? It's got midi, but my DAW does not yet. Thanks, Rick
Subject:RE: Hearing Yourself While Singing?! Reply by: JohnnyRoy Date:12/9/2004 12:43:39 PM You can route buses in ACID to hardware devices (providing your sound card has multiple outputs). This would allow you to take a mix from ACID back out to a mixer for monitoring and feed that into your headphones along with the live recording. Honestly, the cotton idea is a lot cheaper. ;-) ~jr
Subject:RE: Hearing Yourself While Singing?! Reply by: Iacobus Date:12/10/2004 8:33:22 PM Adding to what JohnnyRoy said, if you had a multi-I/O audio interface with a mic preamp (Echo's Gina3G comes to mind), you could monitor your vocals while recording while barely lifting a finger, as these types of interfaces are designed to let you do such a thing. Iacobus ------- RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid Pre-order Instant ACID mD at ACIDplanet Guitars 4 Kids

Subject:Hearing Yourself While Singing?!

Posted by: spinweb

Date:12/9/2004 8:15:28 AM

OK. This may be a stupid question, but....

I'm using my laptop and an Echo Indigo I/O 24-bit sound card
along with ACID to record some songs. I have a Shure SM58
Mic and I'm using my POD as a preamp (yeah, I know it sucks
and I've made my case to Santa for better gear).

OK, when I sing along to a rhythm track, I stand at my mic
with headphones on which are playing the rhythm track.
Groovy. I can hear THAT great. I have to have the rhythm
track piped in via headphones, or it'll bleed into the vocal
track. So my problem is that I can't hear what I'm singing
very well. To improve it, I pull my headphones off of one
ear, so I can sort of hear myself singing. However, it's not
a GOOD sound I hear. No FX, nothing. And the volume ain't
great either.

Can someone tell me how to do this so I can REALLY hear myself?
How do pros do this?

Thanks,

Rick

Subject:RE: Hearing Yourself While Singing?!

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:12/9/2004 8:47:37 AM

Rick, ACID does not do live input monitoring :-( (Vegas does). The “Pros” would plug their headphones into their hardware mixing console and monitor their vocals live from the mixer. Think of ACID as just a digital tape recorder. You want to monitor the “live” performance not the “recorded” performance. You also want to record “dry” which is another reason why you might use a mixer to add some reverb to the live feed to the headphones so the singer is happy, but record the dry feed to ACID so you can control the FX in post.

In a pinch just do what you are doing now except put cotton in one ear. This will make your voice a lot louder in your head. If you’ve ever seen a singer put their finger in their ear when they can’t hear the live monitors, this is why.

~jr

Subject:RE: Hearing Yourself While Singing?!

Reply by: spinweb

Date:12/9/2004 10:44:12 AM

I'm probably going to purchase the Taylor K4 PreAmp for my acoustic
and I've been told it works pretty well as a vocal preamp, too. If I use
that, can I somehow route the incoming vocal signal to my headphones?

I also have a BOSS BR-532 digital 4-track. Can I use that as a vocal slave?
How the heck would I, even if it's possible? It's got midi, but my DAW
does not yet.

Thanks,

Rick

Subject:RE: Hearing Yourself While Singing?!

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:12/9/2004 12:43:39 PM

You can route buses in ACID to hardware devices (providing your sound card has multiple outputs). This would allow you to take a mix from ACID back out to a mixer for monitoring and feed that into your headphones along with the live recording.

Honestly, the cotton idea is a lot cheaper. ;-)

~jr

Subject:RE: Hearing Yourself While Singing?!

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:12/10/2004 8:33:22 PM

Adding to what JohnnyRoy said, if you had a multi-I/O audio interface with a mic preamp (Echo's Gina3G comes to mind), you could monitor your vocals while recording while barely lifting a finger, as these types of interfaces are designed to let you do such a thing.

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
Pre-order Instant ACID
mD at ACIDplanet
Guitars 4 Kids