HELP: cant hear effects during recording.

[roblandry]

i am very new to this home recording but not new to recording in general. i have a new mackie usb mixer directly plugged into my vista computer through usb. i am running cubase le 4. i have no problems hearing my voice when singing and also during recorded playback but no matter what effects i add to the mix i cant hear them during recording in my headphones. but i can during recorded playback. all i get is flat vocals until playback. this is driving me crazy trying to figure out how to fix. please help anyone.

[MetalDave]

If you want effects while playing, you should use outboard effects and only in the monitors. I would record the tracks dry and add effects later. this way you can play with it more. As far as hearing effects as you are singing/playing... Most artists would rather not. I guess I can understand you want it to sound colored but if you can sing it good dry it will sound even better wet. <does this make sence? Outboard effects would work though. I am not sure about your hardware but I am pretty sure you can route the effects through the monitor bus...

[roblandry]

thank you that does make some sense. i will try that tomorrow. just sounds wierd to sing dry. i like to hear the effects so i can adjust them. i dont know what the reverb for ex. would sound like till i've recorded it and play it back. then i have to readjust and try it all over again. i think what your saying is that i can hear the effects after i record dry when i add effects. but will i be able to hear the effects as if live during recording? thanks again for any help.

[MetalDave]

If you use outboard effects, you will be able to hear the effects as you record and then when you go back and listen to the recording. If you record them dray and go back and add effects, you will be able to hear those effects when you add other tracks. I hope this answers your question.

[tacman7]

i have no problems hearing my voice when singing and also during recorded playback but no matter what effects i add to the mix i cant hear them during recording in my headphones.

You have to look at how your hearing your voice.

Usually your hearing your voice through your sound interface. You have to mute that. Then the sound goes into cubase and into an audio channel where you click the monitor button. You add an effect, like reverb to the audio channel then you actually record the dry signal but hear the signal with reverb.

So you have to monitor your signal through cubase. You need a pretty snappy computer and audio interface to do this. I'm not sure how an outboard mixer setup like yours will do but worth a try.

You do have some sort of software audio panel to control what comes into the computer? That's where you would mute your vocal normally. Your situation might require you to mute the channel on your mixer so you can't hear it but still have some sort of send to get the signal into the computer.

You need a good understanding of your signal path in your setup.

[MetalDave]

like this?

I am not sure about your hardware but I am pretty sure you can route the effects through the monitor bus...

[roblandry]

thanks guys for your quick and informative replies. i have unfortunatly found a new problem where i can no longer get cubase to hear what i send into the computer. it just stopped. ive tried changing my input from full duplex to direct sound and so on. just cant fix it. i can import an audio file and play it back through my usb mixer. i just cant seem to send signal to cubase. very confused and frustrated. on the other hand i understand what you are saying about recording a dry sound then adding effects. i just think there should be a way to add the effects during recording so you can adjust the incoming sound to your liking and hear them on a live record. what happens now is kinda silly to have to adjust after but i tried it and it does work. thanks again to all.

[scooterlow]

Are you starting a new project when your having these issues or opening an existing one? Sometimes Cubase will get a glitch in a song and you have to start over with a new song to get audio- midi in or whatevers not working back. I have has cases where I had to re-install the software when that would happen, but of course that's a last resort.
And yes you can add fx to a live track easily. You have to have your latency under control first or it will have a large delay time in between your singing and then the fx being heard. I'm using sx3 but it may be the same. I go to device setup > vst audio bay and check mark the direct monitoring box. Now if I have a reverb on an insert of your vocal track you can hear the verb as you record . This is most useful for recording guitars using vst amp plugins that way you can hear the distortion and processing of the vst while you record and go back and change sounds after the fact also.

[scooterlow]

oh yea, and it could be a audio driver issue.

[tacman7]

i just think there should be a way to add the effects during recording so you can adjust the incoming sound to your liking and hear them on a live record.

There is, that's how I work using the methodology described in previous reply.

There is enough to learn if you have a pro audio interface like one of the firewire or pci interfaces. You have to route the signal where you want it with the included software, once you get it setup your pretty much good to go.
It's all in the box.
Your moving a lot of the process "out of the box"
Not impossible but a much more daunting task.

Your needing to send your mic into the box then into cubase where it's recorded then effects are added then it's sent back out to your mixer where you finally hear it. So you need to understand the ins and outs of cubase, the usb driver/setup for your mixer, and finally your mixer.
Then set it up.

In the driver/software you have to setup sends to the asio host, that's how sound gets to cubase. In cubase you need to setup devices/VST connections to connect these sends from the driver/software to a bus. Then when you create an audio track you have to chose this bus as your input.

The more you work with it the more you'll understand it.