Karaoke Forums

Hi,

I have a question as to which is the best way to record vocals onto karaoke tracks on a pc.

Right now I am doing the following: I play the mp3 tracks on my pc; connect pc line out out to yamaha MG82cx mixer; connect mic to mixer; connect stero output from mixer back to pc (line in) and record as a mp3 file in Audacity.

The results are decent and I can use the mixer to get the desired vocal reverb which is great. However, I have noticed that recording this way, the music in the recording does not sound as crisp as the original karaoke track so I am wondering if there is a way to record my vocals (with reverb) onto the same mp3 music track. How can I use the mixer to do this.

I know I can do this with a Lexicon alpha but then how would I set up the connections such that I can still use the reverb on my yamaha mixer. Thanks in advance for your help/advice.

I'll start with the last question first. Dump the Yammie mixer completely and use the Alpha to record directly into Audacity, or better still, Cubase (which came with the Alpha).

Import the mp3 as a stereo track into either program, then record your vocals as a second track while you play the first back and monitor through phones. Audacity doesn't have a way to apply effects to your vocal in real-time, but Cubase does.

If you use Audacity, apply reverb to the vocal afterwards using Audacity's plugins. If you use Cubase, you use the Pantheon reverb as an effect on the vocal track.

Eliminating the mixer will improve the quality of your final recording. Why? (here's where we get to your first question)

You've shortened your signal path, and simplified your gain structure. The only signal actually traveling through an amplification stage will be your vocals, whereas before it was *everything* traveling through multiple gain stages.

Computer Line out = gain stage.
Mixer Line in = gain stage.
Mic in = gain stage.
Mixer Line out = gain stage.
Computer Line in = gain stage.

Every gain stage is an opportunity to introduce distortion and noise into the signal. If you use the Alpha to record directly, the music stays digital(this is important too . . . stay tuned) in the computer, and the vocals only pass through a single gain stage before it's digital conversion Which brings us to . . .

The Alpha op amp you're using as a gain stage is far better and cleaner than the op amps used in your computer's line in and out. Not only do the computer op amps inject huge amounts of noise into the signal compared to the Aplha, with your original setup, the music was getting clobbered going into AND coming out of the mixer. So you've eliminated 4 gain stages and lowered the amount of noise injected by the remaining gain stage exponentially.

Oh yeah, the digital thing . . .

Digital to Analog conversions and Analog to Digital conversions introduce noise into the signal too. Conventional wisdom is to avoid them whenever possible. The conversions done by the Alpha again are far better than the ones done by your computer's sound card. In effect, with the mixer in the chain, the music was getting a dirty double whammy both ways.

Hope all this is helpful!

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Dave's not here.

Great advice, really appreciate the clarity and the simplicity of your explanation. Thanks very much.

A couple of questions though about Alpha, actually I am considering the Lambda as it has 2 mic inputs)

1. How good is the Pantheon real time reverb in Cubase- I have heard that getting quality real time reverb with plug ins is very difficult. This is important to me as my singing definitely improves when i can hear the real time reverb of my own voice over my monitors.

2. Is there a latency problem while recording through the alpha/lambda in Cubase?

3. Is there an audio interface such as Alpha which has built in (hardware) reverb and compression. that would be the ideal for me I guess.

Thanks again for your help.

Edit: The Pantheon is an excellent 'verb plugin!
One and two are actually the same question though. There's always latency when using a computer to record. How much? It depends on . . .

1) how fast your processor(s) are.
2) how fast you disk drives are
3) how much memory you have
and especially . . .
4) HOW MUCH ARE YOU ASKING THE COMPUTER TO DO AT ONE TIME.

It doesn't take a blazing fast processor to stream a stereo track and record a vocal track with little to no latency - even with adding a few plugins to the queue. If you're working with a large number of tracks then you need to worry more about latency. For what you want to do, I don't think it'll be an issue.



The higher end DAW software supports outboard processor cards for handling FX plugins. The one I'm most familiar with are the ProTools integrated hardware and software systems. That's probably getting into more than you want to spend though.

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Dave's not here.