Record audio pre-fader from another track

[Watchful]

Can't figure out how to do this and I'm sure someone here has, cleverly.

I'm interested in creating a vocal recording chain, but Waveform doesn't let you put plugins on the input to clean up a signal *before* it's recorded.

I'm thinking two audio tracks.

Track one takes the input from the physical mic, applies a fader, high-pass filter, de-esser, compressor, and mic emulator. Then a send to track two, then a final fader. I can mute this track and not hear incoming recorded audio by turning down the second fader, but it still sends processed audio to track two. I can control the heat of the input from the first fader and let the compressor handle the rest.

This puts a nicely cleaned-up and warm audio signal into track two. Vocalist doesn't hear track one.

In track two, I put the return. This will be my actual recorded audio: light compression, gain staged, and nice and clean. I can mute this track, so again the vocalist doesn't hear track two, either.

However, I can't figure out how to record that audio. There's no way to arm track two since there's no input--just the return. If I point track two to receive from track one, or change the output of track one to track two, either is post-fader, so I get silence.

It's almost like I need a null input on track two, so that the track *thinks* it has an input, lets me arm it, and then I can record the audio from track one via the send...which will be the clean audio from track one.

Does this make any sense? Is there something obvious I'm missing?

As always, thanks in advance. Someone here is going to know at least one way to do this.

[lay it prodctions]

Okay its easier than you think. no need for the return track, just use the bus track you created to record from. Setup your mic channel in the way you like on a new track select to the input tab and select "Route From Audio Track" and select the final track in your chain as the input. Now you can arm to record and start recording from this track. Remember to keep the first track input set to "Live Input Monitoring and this work like a charm to create Mic chains and print tracks live. I hope this helps.

[Watchful]

Thanks for writing back!

I'm probably misunderstanding, but that's still not letting me mute both tracks--the idea is that the vocalist doesn't hear his or her voice through the headphones. It seems that when I mute the mic track, it stops sending any audio to the recording track.

I can mute the recording track, but the voice still comes through over the mic track.

That's why I originally went to the use of a pre-fader send, thinking the audio on the mic track would route to the recording track and then mute, letting the recording track hear (and record) the mic track, but with both tracks silent to the master bus so that the vocalist only hears the music.

Basically, I can use the audio interface's HPF to perform that function and reduce the hot mic's gain, but I'd still like a bit of compression added *before* the mic is recorded. That's really what I'm after, and I bet you can find a better way to do it.

Functionally, I typically arm the mic track and record away, adding compression and EQ and filtering and de-essing *after* the track is recorded; I was hoping to create a track that passes the mic audio through, performs some of those features via plugin, and then records the result. As I've noted, that's the easy part--the hard part is muting that audio so the performer doesn't have to hear the vocal line in the background.

[Watchful]

Here's what I tried.

Untitled.png

MIC TRACK pulls in audio from the mic, runs it through a highpass filter, compresses it, deesses it, and then sends UNCOMPED VOX.

UNCOMPED VOX records the cleaned up audio, then returns it.

If I set UNCOMPED VOX to receive audio from MIC TRACK, it still works, so no problems there.

The issue is if I lower the fader or mute MIC TRACK: no audio records.

If I leave MIC TRACK off mute or at 0db, I can record perfectly--but the vocalist's audio outputs through his or her headphones. I'd imagine that if I put the send pre-fader, I would shortcut the fader so I could mute both tracks, but "UNCOMPED VOX" still hears "MIC TRACK". Again, it works as long as MIC TRACK is not muted or faded down.

[fde101]

If you have an unused output on your audio interface, you could direct the output of track 1 to that (so that it is being sent to a connection that is not connected to anything) and NOT mute the track.

Then take the input of track 2 from track 1 so you can arm it.


I don't think you should need to do this, but I'm not really seeing any good options for this in Waveform otherwise... another approach is to record it without the plugins, then process it through the plugins later. You are dealing with digital data going into the plugins either way, so it's not like there would be a difference in audio fidelity.

It is a rather curious requirement, however: normally you will want the vocalist to hear something of themselves in the headphones.

[Kang]

Input FX would be a really cool feature. Maybe Waveform 12?

It would be fun to use in conjunction with "allow inputs to appear on multiple tracks," which I think would give you what you want if I understand correctly.

[Watchful]

That it would. I admit I'm complicating things as the audio interface can fix most issues before anything gets recorded, but I'd like to be sure. The problem of course is you can over compress a recorded signal or under compress that way; then the recording is damaged. Putting a compressor on an input can add some easy second compression just for the loud notes!

[lay it prodctions]

Okay do this. Record with mic input on one track now send that track to your compressed track. Now send this track to another blank track and mute this track. Now on a final blank track arm the input of the track with the output of the compressed track and make sure to have live input monitoring on for both armed tracks and you will now record the dry and compressed signal while only hearing the compressed signal.

[Watchful]

That's basically what I wound up with, but appreciate you confirming the work flow (figures this crowd would have a bunch of suggestions). This has been very, very helpful--as have each of you! Thanks, everyone!

[lay it prodctions]

No problem