Am I doing it all wrong?

[Jay-]

I am all hardware with a 4 channel sound card. (Digital and 2 analog)

So I setup an audio track and Im tracking 4 channels of Midi and now I find that the two audio tracks are also recording the other two synths!

For a noob like me, is this called busing or what?
Do I just make some virtual outs (Echo mia audio card) then "buss" the inputs to that so it will not record on my other tracks?

So to sum it up its bouncing all my midi hardware to my new audio track.


I need to spring for a good 18 channel firewire mixer but Im short on cash this life time.,

[masstronaut]

How many synths are you supposed to be recording?

You have four (mono) channels on your soundcard. If you want to record four synths you'll need to have one going into each channel. That might be tricky with the digital input unless you have a separate digital mixer so 2 mono analogue channels and one stereo digital is probably what you'll be able to use simultaneously.

If you are using ASIO audio drivers (as you probably should be) those inputs will show up as two stereo pairs in your audio software. Make a track for each, you should also be able to split analogue pair into two mono inputs. Then you can record each input to its own track.

[Dubreak]

To OP,

Yeah, Echo do 'Virtual output ports' but not 'Virtual input ports' I'm sorry to say. The 'Virtual outputs' are like ASynchroniousInputOutputs in that they can be useful for freeing up more outputs for use with multiple simultaneous Audio Applications running (so you don't get "The specified Soundcard outputs are already in use" type errors). These 'Virtual outputs' are blended back in together at the Final Output stage of the soundcard.

To record the two hardware synths at once you need one synth to have SP/DIF digital out, or else you are stuck with having to actually physically swap synths around between takes via the 1/4" analogue inputs on your card.

Erm hold on, quick edit.... so you are now recording two synths, so you must have one hooked up digitally eh? If this is indeed the case, then yes there must be a setting in the 'virtual routing' section of the mixers interface... or an equally important routing page in your DAW of choice.... so I suppose "What DAW are you using?" would be a good place to start, haha!

[Jay-]

Yeah, I best spring for a second interface for my "New" audio tracks like guitar or voice when all the synths are playing back.

I keep forgetting its nothing like when I was all VSTi where I could route the audio.,

I think the answer is create a WAV track for EACH synth and mute the Midi unless I go back to edit.,

Hmm. Its all clear now!

Thanks!