Audio editing programs for home music recording - problems, solutions and chat

[editor]

It's free for as long as you need it to be

As for Audition - never used it, but if it can't export multitrack wavs that will import to any DAW it isn't fit for purpose, that's about as basic an audio editing task as there is...

I'm following tutorial here but I get a 'record warning' with some weird shit that 'no tracks are armed for recording' and no help as to how to arm a track. Annoying start.

Going to try looking here Making Your First Recording - Reaper Accessibility Wiki.

Pressing F7 arms and unarms the track. It's a toggle. Each time you press it, you'll hear your screen reader announce whether the track is armed or unarmed. If you find yourself confused about which tracks are armed at any point, you can have your screen reader report that information by pressing Control+Shift+F7. You can also unarm all tracks in one shot by hitting Control+F7.

Literally none of this works.

So I worked out how to arm a track but there is the most ridiculous lag coming from the speakers.

 

[fishfinger]

I'm following tutorial here but I get a 'record warning' with some weird shit that 'no tracks are armed for recording' and no help as to how to arm a track. Annoying start.

Going to try looking here Making Your First Recording - Reaper Accessibility Wiki.

Literally none of this works..

There are very good video tutorials here:

REAPER | Videos

Oh, I see you've already found them

 

[editor]

There are very good video tutorials here:

REAPER | Videos

Oh, I see you've already found them

I'm rapidly losing interest in this. The PDF guide has 440 pages, FFS. I just want to be able to monitor a track and drum along to it, record my drums and maybe add a couple of tracks of percussion on top. And I'd like to crack on with that without having to spend hours/days trawling through a complex interface and mahoosive manual

Any idea why there's a huge lag through my speakers as I record my voice?

 

[fishfinger]

I'm rapidly losing interest in this. The PDF guide has 440 pages, FFS. I just want to be able to monitor a track and drum along to it, record my drums and maybe add a couple of tracks of percussion on top. And I'd like to crack on with that without having to spend hours/days trawling through a complex interface and mahoosive manual

Any idea why there's a huge lag through my speakers as I record my voice?

Do you have an audio interface? You'll need one if you are trying to avoid latency. You may have some success using an ASIO4All driver with the built-in audio. Ideally a dedicated audio interface with its own ASIO driver is best. This will be true whatever audio software you use to record with.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

https://dlz.reaper.fm/userguide/ReaperUserGuide619c.pdf

Page 57

 

[editor]

https://dlz.reaper.fm/userguide/ReaperUserGuide619c.pdf

Page 57

Yes I worked out the arming business, but why is there a really noticeable gap in the speakers as I'm recording my voice?
The interface is bloody tiny on my laptop too. I'm thinking that there's way too much learning involved in this program for my needs.

 

[editor]

Do you have an audio interface? You'll need one if you are trying to avoid latency. You may have some success using an ASIO4All driver with the built-in audio. Ideally a dedicated audio interface with its own ASIO driver is best. This will be true whatever audio software you use to record with.

I appreciate your help but my heart sinks when I start reading fiddly tech stuff like this. I'm really looking for an extra-simple basic recorder.

I do have an external USB soundcard (see below) - would that help?

 

[fishfinger]

...but why is there a really noticeable gap in the speakers as I'm recording my voice?
...

Latency.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Yes I worked out the arming business, but why is there a really noticeable gap in the speakers as I'm recording my voice?
The interface is bloody tiny on my laptop too. I'm thinking that there's way too much learning involved in this program for my needs.

When you say a gap, what do you mean? Why would you want your voice coming out the speakers as you record it?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

I'm free if you want to give me a ring and I'll try and talk you through bits if you want btw

 

[editor]

When you say a gap, what do you mean? Why would you want your voice coming out the speakers as you record it?

A really noticeable delay. I'd want to monitor what I'm recording (I'd normally use earphones) but I just tested it out using the laptop speakers.

 

[fishfinger]

I appreciate your help but my heart sinks when I start reading fiddly tech stuff like this. I'm really looking for an extra-simple basic recorder.

I do have an external USB soundcard (see below) - would that help?

View attachment 245898

If there is a dedicated ASIO driver then select that in Reaper (or other choice of recording software) as your sound source.

 

[editor]

I'm free if you want to give me a ring and I'll try and talk you through bits if you want btw

My head's hurting a little bit too much today but I may take you up on your kind offer at another time.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

A really noticeable delay. I'd want to monitor what I'm recording (I'd normally use earphones) but I just tested it out using the laptop speakers.

Well monitoring on the speakers is never going to work because the mic is going to pick them up and create a horrible noise.

If you're recoding a vocal you really need a proper interface that can give you a latency free headphone output...

 

[editor]

If there is a dedicated ASIO driver then select that in Reaper (or other choice of recording software) as your sound source.

Just tried and got 'error loading ASIO driver'.

 

[fishfinger]

Just tried and got 'error loading ASIO driver'.

Is your soundcard plugged in?

 

[xenon]

As long as the tracks are exported from Audition in entirety, even if they're silent for much of the song, you can drop them into Reaper or any multi track audio system. Ask them to tell you the tempo too as it saves pissing around with trying to get things to fit.

E.g. In reaper, you set the BPM in the project settings tab. (Shortcut key alt, enter.)
Add as many tracks as you need.
Bass
Guitars
Keys
Vocals
etc.

On each track import the relevant wav file at 0.00

Add another track for your drums, set the correct inputs outputs monitor mode and arm.

One of the things I love about reaper, is there's shortcut keys for almost everything and if there's not, you can create your own.



Just looking at that drum kit, Yamaha DTX402K, I don't think it has an audio interface, rather just midi over usb. You might get away with using the onboard sound for recording but it's not ideal. Latency would be an issue.

You can get audio interfaces pretty cheap now, if you haven't got one you can get your hands on. I mean a pro / semi pro one, not a cheapo usb dongle soundcard thing. Something like a Focusrite Scarlet or Behringer uPhoria for less than 100 quid. Which I appreciate is just still more expense though.

 

[xenon]

I'm following tutorial here but I get a 'record warning' with some weird shit that 'no tracks are armed for recording' and no help as to how to arm a track. Annoying start.

Going to try looking here Making Your First Recording - Reaper Accessibility Wiki.

Literally none of this works.

So I worked out how to arm a track but there is the most ridiculous lag coming from the speakers.

Heh that wiki is written by a load of us blind Reaper users. I've put a little bit on there.

Hold on I'll read rest of thread before replying....

 

[xenon]

OK ideally you want an interface that supports asio. This is the least latent driver system for Windows audio.
If your device doesn't support asio, try wasapi.
You should see the device in the device settings in reaper. Get to settings with ctrl P. You might want to come back to the paths section later to see where it's going to record.


Assuming you have to use wasapi, use the default settings. I don't use that one, so not sure off hand.

Starting with a blank project.

Add a track with ctrl t, give it a name.
Let's say this is your drum kit.
Here's where my non mouse use lets me down cos I use an extension called Osara which makes Reaper accessible but basically you want to choose the input on this track for the thing your drum kit audio outs are connected to.
The output from this track will by default go to the master track. Which in turn goes to the audio outs of the soundcard thing you're using.

Toggle arming on / off with F7
Personlly I don't use that and instead have each track armed automatically when focoussed.
Toggle monitor on / off with F8

Reaper is very context specific. You have tracks, items and takes. Items are like train carriages. They can be empty or contain takes. And yeah, they sit on tracks. You can glue them together, delete them, edit the midi if it's a midi track.

When you first record, it will create an item containing the take.

You might want to go back to the options to see where it's saving the project.
You can set a specific folder per project in project settings, alt enter.

 

[xenon]

Oh yeah, the master track is by default hidden. You probably don't need to touch it at the moment if you can hear anything though.

 

[editor]

So I've managed to get myself a copy of Adobe Audition, but my initial attempt at making sense of it all has met with dismal failure.

Here's what I need to do:

Singer sends me Audition multitrack of song.
Using a Yamaha electronic kit, I want to be able to listen to the track, drum along and record my ideas on top of these tracks, and then perhaps add some percussion parts.

The Yamaha kit has USB but the laptop didn't seem to recognise that as an audio input. It also has a headphone socket, so I could of course use that, but then I'm guessing that I'm going to need some sort of USB interface to hook it into the Thinkpad (the laptop only has a earphone socket and no mic in).

So I've worked out how to create a new track (!) but how do I set up a recording monitor mix and record my kit?

Oh, I've installed the ASIO driver as recommended on the other thread.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I'm probably way off here as I am no way near as technically minded as you are. . . But on my Mac I have to tell it which usb device I want to receive audio input from and which I want to output. This I did externally, not within the programs. I don't know audition, or PCs though.
The usb output from the drum might be midi? I have an electronic kit and that's the only real output I have that's not stereo or headphones. If I use it I play into logic via USB and use logics kits. Again, I don't know audition so I doubt I am being at all helpful.

 

[editor]

I'm declaring myself stumped. I've got my head around the basics of Adobe Audition but I can't find any way to be able to set it up how I need it.

Here's what I need to do:

Record drums by playing along to a multitrack recording (with click track) AND hear my drums as I'm doing it. And then add percussion on top later. I need to retain the multitrack capability so I can remove the click track later and have some control over the mix (so recording from headphone out isn't going to work)

So far I can't find a way to do the above without latency (echoing) making it impossible to make a recording.

I've tried downloading the ASIO drivers but encountered problems. Let me talk y'all through the set up.

I'm using a Yamaha DTX402K Electronic Drum Kit (online manual here)

This lets me play back music through the controller and hear the drums on top via headphones.


There is a USB out which requires a Yamaha driver to work (and thus overrides the ASIO driver in the Audition software). This can be set to output just the drums or drums & audio.

The only botch I can think of thus far is to play back the track on my phone and record my drumming via the USB and the attempt to import and sync that track on to the demo recording. Fiddly and a real pain for dropping in small percussion parts later (if it even works).

Would a sperate USB audio interface solve the latency problem?

All suggestions welcome!

 

[RubyToogood]

Just unhelpfully adding my vote for Reaper. You can continue evaluating indefinitely by just waiting for the nag screen to timeout.

 

[editor]

Just unhelpfully adding my vote for Reaper. You can continue evaluating indefinitely by just waiting for the nag screen to timeout.

I don't think that's going to fix my problem with latency though, no?

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Would a sperate USB audio interface solve the latency problem?

All suggestions welcome!

When I had a latency issue with logic is was solved with minimal tracks and processing when recording . . . and most effectively more RAM.
It is now unnoticeable.

I now go through a focusrite for audio but still go straight in for midi via usb.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Do you have a Mac for this or is it PC?
Garageband is a much much much smaller version of Logic but is free (as I am sure you know). I think for recording midi and basic audio recording it would do everything you need. I know I can do everything you are asking very easily in Logic. If it has to be audition, then I don't know.

 

[xenon]

I don't think that's going to fix my problem with latency though, no?

Going out in a bit, will try looking at that manual later. But yes, generally a separate audio interface is needed for low latency. Asio drivers as mentioned are the driver that does this.

But sounds like your drums have an audio interface, I thought it was just midi when I looked before, not sure.

You want to set your buffer as low as possible, without getting crackling or drop outs. Even relatively cheap asio interfaces can do 64 buffer size, which gives you no noticeable delay at all. Buffer size, sometimes called blocksize. Usually set that in the interface's own control panel but some will let your DAW software control it too.


Minimising the amount of background running processes, disabling antivirus scanning on the folder / drive you're recording too can help. But for effectively recording one stereo track shouldn't need all this on a fairly modern system.

Internal soundcards are garbage for this sort of thing though.

e2a


Confusingly it does seem to have an audio interface but very scant details on it, bit rate, sample rate etc.
"
You can set whether the USB audio input is sent to the USB
out or not. When set to "Output," the audio data input from
a PC (for example) is mixed with your pad performance and


they are sent together to the USB out. When set to "Not output,"
only your pad performance is sent to the USB out,
even if the audio data is input and played from the PC.
"

 

[xenon]

When I had a latency issue with logic is was solved with minimal tracks and processing when recording . . . and most effectively more RAM.
It is now unnoticeable.

I now go through a focusrite for audio but still go straight in for midi via usb.

Ram isn't the issue. It's the Focusrite along with a reasonable CPU that fixed that for you. More ram is more helpful for big sample libraries.

 

[editor]

Do you have a Mac for this or is it PC?
Garageband is a much much much smaller version of Logic but is free (as I am sure you know). I think for recording midi and basic audio recording it would do everything you need. I know I can do everything you are asking very easily in Logic. If it has to be audition, then I don't know.

It's a 8 year old PC laptop.