Getting Started

[Supreme18087]

Hi guys,

Myself along with a few friends of mine are starting a podcast.

Current list of equipment includes
1. Tracktion
2. Mackie Profx 12
3) AKG C414's (2)
4) a pair of Monitors/Speakers
5) a tablet that will be used to play music and sound effects during each podcast.

Setting everything up in terms of plugging everything in isn't the problem seems pretty straight forward. My issue is getting everything to work. Can anyone help me when it comes to recording 2 hosts at 1 times and how I can run the tablets with the music and sound effects while recording the hosts ? Thanks

[Peter Widdicombe]

Depends what you're really trying to do. You have to remember the Profx 12 is really a stereo mixer, so you're not going to get everything recorded into tracktion via the stereo out or USB out, unless you "blend" things as you hear them. Do you need to adjust the levels of all 3 after the fact? Can you live with just recording the 2 mikes, and rely on the mikes to pick up the music as background? How are the special effects done - during the recording session, or added in afterwards?

If the music is fixed and the effects can be added afterwards, then you could have pre-recorded or imported the music into tracktion ahead of time, then play that back and record the 2 Mikes as separate mono channels live onto 2 individual tracks (pan the mike channels on the mixer hard left and right). THEN add your sound effects.

If you really must do everything live, then you could use effects send from the Profx as audio channels into your computer's sound card (mono music and effects channel, also panned hard left and right), and record the 2 mikes panned above as USB from the mixer - effectively giving you 2 stereo inputs, or 4 "mono" signals. However, make sure the outputs from the music aren't fed through the main mix, or you'd wind up recording the music twice, via the USB mix, and through their individual channels.

Actually, I believe the effects send is also MONO, so music and effects would be blended. To keep them distinct, you can get cables made up to use the "insert" jacks on the mackie to "extract" audio to feed into the computer input. Note if you happen to have more input devices Tracktion can record all of these tracks separately (and possibly you don't need the Mackie for anything other than Mike preamps...).

Again, depending on what you expect to do....

[Peter Widdicombe]

You have a UR 22 AND a Mackie mixer, so technically you could have both plugged into the computer, and you could effectively have 4 audio tracks coming in, and record each on an individual track. Now, the trick might be to keep things separate, depending on what/where things are...

Suggestion?
1. Connect the UR22 -and- the Mackie both into the computer.
2. Set each to disable "treat as a stereo pair". that way, you get 2 mono inputs from UR22, and 2 more from Mackie.
3. Connect the microphones to the UR22.
4. Effects and music to 2 channels of the Mackie. Pan effects hard left, and music hard right, so they will show up on individual tracks (unless you just want both to be stereo and not capable of individually mixing them after the fact).
5. Assign inputs to tracks UR22-1, then ur22-2, mackie-1 and mackie-2. Note the mackie shows up as just USB Audio, by default. Not sure what the UR22 is.
6. Arm all tracks and record.

You will end up with 4 audio tracks, all mono, and you can pan them in the final mix. You can also monitor from the computer, where all tracks will have come in. Note that anything coming into ANY track on the mackie will be recorded; but I believe you CAN'T add mackie effects to the USB audio). So you can have several channels for sound effects and music; and the 2 mikes will get the conversation and some bleed from the room, unless they are using headphones (and that would be another issue...).

[Supreme18087]

Thanks Peter for taking the time to reply.