Question about tracking vocals to Cubase/Nuendo users

[mark007]

Hi guys,

A beginner type question...

I have Nuendo 3 and will be tracking my own voiceovers. I'll be monitoring myself using headphones. Now, my headphones are lacking a little bit in the high frequencies - i'd like to hear a little more detail there to make sure I don't make mouth noises, too much sssss etc.

I was told that one way of doing it would be to set up a second track, not record-enabled, with some EQ activated and hear the EQ on the headphones while recording the vocals to the other track....

Is it true, could I do something like that without recording the EQ? (I basically wanna record my signal "dry" but would like to hear the EQ in my headphones...) And if so, how exactly do I set it up?

thanx

[underworld]

that's pretty easy to do if you monitor THROUGH Nuendo. Depending on the latency of your hardware, you should be able to monitor the track you are recording to in Nuendo. on that track, simply adjust the EQ as necessary .... those EQ changes are not printed to the recorded track ... they are stored in the mixer channel and you can change, bypass, or reset them after you record the track extremely easily.

if you DO monitor THROUGH Nuendo, you want to make sure you are not simultaneously monitoring through your hardware since that will usually cause weird phase or delay problems with what you hear in the monitor.

[NandoOg7]

Why don't you get a cheap little behringer mixer and take your audio out of your computer and eq it there. No latency to worry about and no eq is being recorded, just a thought.

[mark007]

underworld: are you 100% sure the track does NOT record the EQ if I have EQ enabled on this particular track?

I do monitor through Nuendo... For interface I'm using M-Audio Audiophile 192. You said I have to make sure that I simultaneously do not monitor through hardware as well... would you mind explaining - i'm pretty much a novice here..

[underworld]

Originally Posted by mark007

underworld: are you 100% sure the track does NOT record the EQ if I have EQ enabled on this particular track?

I do monitor through Nuendo... For interface I'm using M-Audio Audiophile 192. You said I have to make sure that I simultaneously do not monitor through hardware as well... would you mind explaining - i'm pretty much a novice here..

I won't say 100% since I'm on Nuendo 2 and I haven't used 3 (or 4) - so I can't say 100% that there isn't a button to push for tracking the eq setting which you may have. But I'm certain that it's possible (and I would be VERY surprised if the default is not as I describe it). Nearly every modern DAW works this way. In any case, it's EXTREMELY easy to test, right? Just record a track with the EQ tweaked, then on playback hit the eq bypass button. If you can bypass the EQ, it's clearly not printed to the recorded track. The same is true for any "insert" effect you use while tracking.

As for the simultaneous monitoring comment... in most systems you have the option of "zero latency" monitoring through the A/D interface. What this means is that when you record a track, you monitor what you record only through the hardware interface. In other words, your mic signal goes into the M-Audio device, and that device routes/mixes your mic into the output signal for monitoring. In this scenario, your monitored signal has not gone through Nuendo and has not been effected by Nuendo (and in most cases, it has not been converted to digital even).

The other option is "latency" monitoring. In this scenario your mic signal goes into the M-Audio device, gets converted to digital, sent to Nuendo, processed by Nuendo (for example, any "inserts" on the track including EQs or other effects), routed to an output bus in Nuendo, routed back to the M-Audio, converted to analog where you monitor it. The plus-side of this approach is that you can apply effects to the track while recording. The downside is that the additional conversion and processing causes a delay between the mic input signal and what you hear in the monitors.

For some voice-over work, the latency effect of monitoring through Nuendo is probably not consequential (for example - narration for radio and TV commercials). For tracking vocals and instruments in songs, it can be critical if the latency is too large since there's a slight delay between what you play and what you hear. If you are doing voice-over for animation, this could potentially be an issue.

The point is that Nuendo monitoring is controlled by Nuendo, and hardware or direct monitoring is controlled by the hardware or software interface for the hardware - meaning that you can have both on at the same time. When you have them both going, you will most likely hear an obvious phasing or delay between the two which can often sound really bad and is usually just plain annoying and of little value. The reason I bring it up is if you are currently monitoring through the hardware, you will need to disable/mute that before monitoring through Nuendo to avoid the simultaneous monitoring scenario I mentioned.

Hope that clears it up.

[underworld]

just another thought here... if the root problem is that you are monitoring through headphones which are not that accurate, then a better solution might be to simply invest in a better set of headphones. I really like my Ultrasones for fairly accurate EQ and imaging .... not as good as monitors, but when working solo - they are great.

That approach would probably give you better mileage for what you are doing since it would address not just the lacking high-end, but also give you a better idea of what's happening with your sibilants (ssss), and placement around the microphone (including distance and on/off axis positioning), placement of yourself and the mic within the room, and so on.

Just a thought...

[andygomez]

as long as you are using the EQ in the audio track you are recording and monitoring through ( the track with the record enable button on it ) and not the input channel. All inserts and sends are post the recorder/harddisk. Look in the manual for the signal flow diagram.