How do I.........

[ArtyLady]

record myself whilst being able to hear myself at the same time as the backing track through the headphones? Do I need fancy equipment or can I just use my Zoom H1/Audacity/BIAB etc?

Grateful for any advice

 

[jbtsax]

Take one of the headphones off your ear and leave the other one on.

 

[Profusia]

Take one of the headphones off your ear and leave the other one on.

I'm tempted to agree with that. I find I can hear the sax fine naturally even with the cans on. Unless the backing track volume is up too high that is.

Or is it that you really want to hear the recorded quality of your tone etc as its being recorded? I imagine that might get a bit confusing hearing the sound direct and through the headphones as well.

I have a sax mute case which has an internal mic. When playing in it its best to listen to the sound from its mic through headphones otherwise there's a tendency to overblow and end up feeling distinctly light headed or tense. I sometimes plug small earphones into the sax mute, and also out put (it has 2 output ports) to laptop input for recording, and output backing track from laptop to headphones worn over the top of the earphones to hear the backing track. Wires everywhere and if I step too far in any direction there's chaos but it kind of works. The sound quality when in a sax mute case isn't good enough for recording really though. I guess it must be possible to do what you want with the right software and/or settings although you might experience latency issues. Some mics have a headphone jack I think so you can plug cans directly into the mic to know what its picking up. If you used earphones for that and then headphones on top for the backing track as I outlined above that might be another solution. Its not the most comfy solution in the world though.

 

[ArtyLady]

........

Or is it that you really want to hear the recorded quality of your tone etc as its being recorded? I imagine that might get a bit confusing hearing the sound direct and through the headphones as well.................

Yes exactly that!.....so I can hear nuances and everything which I can't hear with my headphones on (they are just small sponge covered ones) even with the sound turned down.

I did once do some recording for someone over his backing track and I could hear myself playing aswell as the backing, but he had a fancy piece of expensive kit.....

 

[Clivey]

Yes exactly that!.....so I can hear nuances and everything which I can't hear with my headphones on (they are just small sponge covered ones) even with the sound turned down.

I did once do some recording for someone over his backing track and I could hear myself playing aswell as the backing, but he had a fancy piece of expensive kit.....

To do this effectively you really need to be using a DAW they used to call them sequencers back in the day but DAWs are Digital audio workstations which include all the biggies like Cubase ,Logic and Garageband. For most people the interface is what decides what they chose to use mainly down to being in a familiar setting and also for others it may be simplicity they require.
The thing about DAWS is that the waveform is actually affected in realtime in a non destructive manner that means that until you actually " Render/Mixdown" your mix the waveforms are actually not altered at all but you hear them altered by use of a specialised Chip called a DSP. The problem of " monitoring" in realtime can bring the dreaded latency in to play which is manifested by hearing yourself a fraction behind what you are playing which is useless. On windows machines. That used to mean no real time monitoring without good gear and an ASIO driver for your soundcard but in the last few years a really clever guy invented a freebie driver called ASIO4all which has meant that people with crap onboard and older gear can actually monitor in realtime as long as the DAW they are using supports monitoring and ASIO which it should do. I still use a 9 year old cheap laptop with cubaseSX with absolutely no latency thanks to this program.. On a good DAW. this gives you access to 1000`s of Plugin freebie fx which vary from reverbs to Autotune LOL you can twiddle the knobs as you play and hear it as you go or do it in the mix down.

My experience of MAC os is very unorthodox. I run a duelboot system with Snowleopard running on the same hardware as windows. this setup is called a hackintosh and enables me to run all the MAC software native but means I have to use a hacked Driver for my Maudiophile soundcard. I have used Garageband and Logic successfully though with Zero Latency as there are controls on these pieces to enable you to alter the settings to achieve la result.

RE Audacity. This software is great it`s free and is easy to use but It is not really a DAW ( Yet) There are many limitations but they are slowly being overcome. I don`t use it as I don`t have to but hopefully there will be expert users here that can give you a rundown of all the features and shortfalls of this piece of software and how you can st up realtime monitoring.

Sorry for the geeky post but believe me It could have been even geekier LOL

 

[ArtyLady]

............(lots of foreign language!)................................
Sorry for the geeky post but believe me It could have been even geekier LOL

Head....over....top of...........

Thanks anyway

 

[Colin the Bear]

I can't play with head phones on. I use audacity and keep the mic level for the sax low. There's a little bleeding but it's better than bleedin' headphones.

 

[Profusia]

I can't play with head phones on. I use audacity and keep the mic level for the sax low. There's a little bleeding but it's better than bleedin' headphones.

Try taking your hat off Colin

 

[ArtyLady]

I can't play with head phones on. I use audacity and keep the mic level for the sax low. There's a little bleeding but it's better than bleedin' headphones.

Thanks I'll try that - so how do you do that? (sorry! lol!)

 

[Profusia]

Thanks I'll try that - so how do you do that? (sorry! lol!)

I'm not knocking that way of recording. But I'm not sure how that quite gives you what you want, if you want to hear what the mic is picking up from your sax. Essentially if I understand Colin correctly he's saying play with no headphones so you hear the backing track through your PC's speakers and hear the sax directly from the sax (i.e. not via the mic at all), turn the mic recording level down in Audacity with the slider control for it so that it picks up very little ambient noise including barely picking up the backing track from the speakers. Then when you play back, turn the sax track's volume up to compensate for the low recording level. It does work but you are just hearing your sax as normal when you play, which is fine for me. I use headphones for the B/T but don't have it so load that it drowns out my sax. Whichever way works best for you really. But neither let you hear what the mic is picking up from the sax until you play back, if that's what you really need.

PS On re-reading that, apologies if I seemed to steal your thunder there Colin or dismiss your suggestion, (or indeed if I completely missed the point). Neither was meant to be the case as I do agree your way works. Just answered the question when I probably should have left it to you to expand.

 

[Colin the Bear]

To add to my .. err... your reply, pooter speakers are usually pretty poor. I invested in some wooden (mdf) active speakers for the pc but they are still pretty poor.

For recording now I connect the headphone socket of the laptop to the audio input of an old Hi Fi amp and speakers. You get a better bass to follow and the play back is more realistic.

 

[ArtyLady]

Well call me a geek, but.......I think I've sussed it!

Open up BIAB, import backing track, hook up Zoom to the Computer, put the headphones into the Zoom, press record Audio in BIAB and playalong. ........seems to work and you can hear yourself and the backing track through the headphones!!

 

[Sue]

All this recording is alien to me. Only just started with the improv online course and want to learn the nuts and bolts so I've signed on for another Coursera free course. It appears to deal with this DAW stuff. I don't have details at moment but will share link later if anyone wants it

 

[Chris]

Even better create your own backing track in BiaB, record audio with the chord chart in front of you on the PC screen..

 

[ArtyLady]

All this recording is alien to me. Only just started with the improv online course and want to learn the nuts and bolts so I've signed on for another Coursera free course. It appears to deal with this DAW stuff. I don't have details at moment but will share link later if anyone wants it

Yep same here re the recording but BIAB is pretty user friendly if you have plenty of time.

Even better create your own backing track in BiaB, record audio with the chord chart in front of you on the PC screen..

A girl can only learn so much in one day :shocked: ))

 

[rhysonsax]

Well call me a geek, but.......I think I've sussed it!

Open up BIAB, import backing track, hook up Zoom to the Computer, put the headphones into the Zoom, press record Audio in BIAB and playalong. ........seems to work and you can hear yourself and the backing track through the headphones!!

Seems to work with Audacity too. Plug the headphones into the Zoom unit and then in Audacity set both the Input Device and Output Device to be the Zoom H2n.

That's great as I have struggled with hearing my sax properly when recording with backing tracks in the past.

Thanks ArtyLady !

Rhys

 

[Di in France]

I don't really know much about recording so I just plug my little in-ear plugs into the laptop so that I can hear the backing track, but I can still hear the sound of the sax ( not through the ear plug mic, but for real, if that makes sense). I use a zoom mic to record and this way it doesn't pick up the sound of the backing track, just the sound of the sax. I then put both the recording and backing track into audacity. It's simple, but it has to be for me to understand it.
I've just got a copy of biab which includes real band - I don't understand either of them, I open up the software and am overwhelmed by the screen!! :shocked:

 

[Colin the Bear]

It won't break, click some stuff. Hover the cursor over buttons and they tell you what they do. Start with the ones that are obvious and others will follow. I don't think I'll ever get the full potential out of biab but I get what I need. And every day some little thing extra.

 

[Di in France]

Might just do that, it looks like hard work though. I thought it would be good to make backing tracks, Chris must be a wizz, he makes some great tracks.

 

[ArtyLady]

Seems to work with Audacity too. Plug the headphones into the Zoom unit and then in Audacity set both the Input Device and Output device to be the Zoom H2n.

That's great as I have struggled with hearing my sax properly when recording with backing tracks in the past.

Thanks ArtyLady !

Rhys

Glad to be of service!

I don't really know much about recording so I just plug my little in-ear plugs into the laptop so that I can hear the backing track, but I can still hear the sound of the sax ( not through the ear plug mic, but for real, if that makes sense). I use a zoom mic to record and this way it doesn't pick up the sound of the backing track, just the sound of the sax. I then put both the recording and backing track into audacity. It's simple, but it has to be for me to understand it.
I've just got a copy of biab which includes real band - I don't understand either of them, I open up the software and am overwhelmed by the screen!! :shocked:

Yeah I can still hear the sax through my little computer earphones, but the finer nuances are a little muffled - so I'm pleased I've discovered this!

I haven't even needed to look at Real Band not quite sure what the difference is! - BIAB is enough to be getting on with, yeah just go for it Di and you'll soon start to understand stuff when you dig around a bit!