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Old 10-23-2014, 09:25 PM   #1
psingman
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Default Again revisiting the monitoring dilemma?

Hi, keep going back to the monitoring issue with Reaper. If you have a mixer hooked up to your audio interface with outs from mixer to ins on interface and outs from interface to ins on mixer...why do you have to use input monitoring when you have a track armed, to hear stuff and esp. when you are adding another track while listening to the previously recorded ones?

I have tried every scenario that a lot of people keep saying will work for direct monitoring, thus no or low latency. Well, they don't work for me. So, please assist me in finally figuring out if this can be accomplished, appreciate it, psingman
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Old 10-24-2014, 01:18 AM   #2
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What mixer is it and what are you monitoring (live vox/instruments vs vsti)?
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Old 10-25-2014, 06:49 PM   #3
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Well, the mixer is irrelevant to my inquiry. How do all these companies and software suppliers, even Reaper...they say that you can do direct monitoring with your interface. Well, I have tried every scenario...you have to click on the input monitoring button on the track you are recording, irregardless. Does anyone have any other way, that this can be done, if so, please replay, thanks, psingman
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Old 10-26-2014, 02:16 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by psingman View Post
Well, the mixer is irrelevant to my inquiry. How do all these companies and software suppliers, even Reaper...they say that you can do direct monitoring with your interface. Well, I have tried every scenario...you have to click on the input monitoring button on the track you are recording, irregardless. Does anyone have any other way, that this can be done, if so, please replay, thanks, psingman
From 4.72 manual p55:
"If your sound card supports direct monitoring you will most likely wish to
use that, in which case you should not enable REAPER's input monitoring.
Consult the sound card's documentation for more information about this. If your sound card does not
support direct monitoring, then you should enable REAPER's input monitoring."

Look at Preferences ->Project -> track sends defaults

Record config - click there and set defaults not having to set manually every time, as you want it. Want monitor on by default - set it that way.

Otherwise a patchbay may be what you want. There are usually three modes for each slot in patchbay to work - that decide whether chain is broken when something is plugged in etc, and default is thru etc and other options.

I got a simple Behringer Ultrapatch Pro with 24 slots(4x1/4" each). Really, really useful to get the routing you want - and routing is indvidual for each slot.

What is your soundcard - that is vital information to help you?

Many soundcards has excellent routing options onboard - for direct monitoring, cue/headphones mixes while recording etc.
RME got Totalmix, Focusrite it's own solution etc.
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Old 10-26-2014, 04:34 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by psingman View Post
Well, the mixer is irrelevant to my inquiry
No, it is not...

Quote:
Originally Posted by psingman View Post
How do all these companies and software suppliers, even Reaper...they say that you can do direct monitoring with your interface.
They assume that you do not have a mixer ...
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Old 10-26-2014, 05:42 AM   #6
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direct monitoring with my Babyface and its TotalMix software mixer is very easy and works really well.
you have to route your signal from where it is, to where you want it to go.
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Old 10-26-2014, 07:35 AM   #7
Lawrence
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Quote:
From 4.72 manual p55:
"If your sound card supports direct monitoring you will most likely wish to use that, in which case you should not enable REAPER's input monitoring.
Yeah. That's necessary because Reaper still doesn't support ASIO direct monitoring, not sure why. Typically you would use the daw tracks input monitoring switch to monitor direct. In Reaper you have to set all that up on the audio hardware using the hardware's mixer app or similar.
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Old 10-26-2014, 09:28 AM   #8
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Someone posted that a while back about Reaper to supporting Asio direct monitoring.

As you may know I use Reaper and Presonus Studio One 2.6

Studio One 2.6 has Asio Direct Monitoring. For older interfaces ( ie Edirol Fa101) there is no software panel, you use the Daw to put the inputs to direct monitoring state.

I could not use Studio One if it did not have that

Most of the Pro daw's have it.


There is really no excuse for Reaper to not have it. Read up online it is part of the VST 2.4 Spec.

It has been resquested but who knows when it will be looked at.
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Old 10-26-2014, 09:47 AM   #9
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Imho it's best to separate monitoring- and recording paths completely.
There are several ways to achieve this, I split the signal two ways after the preamps, one side goes straight to the ADC, the other to the (analog) monitor desk, which also has the DAW out on a fader, a few FX and a rompler to give me direct "ballpark sounds" when tracking MIDI.
So the recorded audio has the cleanest possible signal path, I can leave buffers as high as needed (since I don't listen through the PC, latency doesn't concern me) and I can dial in my monitoring sound (and headphone feeds) on the fly, using real faders and knobs, without ever influencing the recorded signal ...
You can set up a basic version of this concept even with a cheapo Behringer mixer, read the block diagram and figure out what has to go where ...
ymmv,
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Old 10-26-2014, 09:48 AM   #10
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newbie here.. the only work around I have found, with monitoring in Reaper, and I acknowledge that I am an idiot with DAW recording, is using the "solo in front" option, while recording that new track, and then at the same time attempt to find the right balance with my recording playback level and how hot the track is recording.... sometimes that means I don't have a hot enough of a signal..

I shall "monitor" this thread... that's what I'm a gonna do.
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Old 10-26-2014, 09:58 AM   #11
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I use a similar approach as profrhino. The Hardware mixer provides the monitoring through the cr/out and the recording input for the daw through the Mixer Main Out . Reapers latency compensation on the audio tracks makes sure that the already recorded tracks are in perfect sync.

Asio direct monitoring is only useful for non mixer scenarios.
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Old 10-26-2014, 10:07 AM   #12
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Asio direct monitoring is only useful for non mixer scenarios.
Yeah, kinda. Everyone with a modern audio card has a digital mixer inside their audio card these days and like in my case with a MOTU 2408, no typical affordable smaller hardware mixer will have anywhere near that capability, especially not allowing multiple discreet cue mixes.

But those are real digital hardware mixers so... why not use them... especially since your I/O is permanently connected to them?

The only reason i wouldn't use Cue Mix (as opposed to another mixer for that) is pretty much my current case, having a digital mixer already... or just running really low latency where you can do all that in the daw anyway.
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Old 10-26-2014, 10:27 AM   #13
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Both approaches work perfectly, in some scenarios yours will fit better, in others the plain external.

But this all happens outside of reaper, either in the cue Mix software, or in plain hardware...

And this is one pitfall in mostly all daws. Why do we have to use the dedicated soundcard mixer and the daw mixer as separate items ? Why cant the daw mixer simply be a remote control for the cue mix or whatever is provided by the soundcard ?
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Old 10-26-2014, 10:38 AM   #14
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But those are real digital hardware mixers so... why not use them... especially since your I/O is permanently connected to them?
... it all comes down to your personal monitoring preferences.
Sure, I could use Totalmix for spaced out routing flexibility, it's a wonderful tool.
Still, for an old guy like me, having hands-on control via hardware mixer and dedicated FX is tough to beat, especially with a guitar around your neck.
As for cue mixes, the client gets the stereo playback and can dial in a "me too" feed (from the matrix out) at their phone amp, they love it and I have one less thing to worry about.
ymmv,
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Old 10-26-2014, 10:45 AM   #15
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Oh, for sure.

I haven't tried it myself but I think things like CueMix have control surface support. But sure, it always comes down to personal preference, agree.

I monitored on my d8b so for me any of it was a step backwards.
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Old 10-26-2014, 12:07 PM   #16
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What if the sound is created by the computer, such as triggering a synth with the Guitar Midi plug? Direct monitoring won't work for that, will it?
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Old 10-26-2014, 01:47 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ProfRhino View Post
Imho it's best to separate monitoring- and recording paths completely.
There are several ways to achieve this, I split the signal two ways after the preamps, one side goes straight to the ADC, the other to the (analog) monitor desk, which also has the DAW out on a fader, a few FX and a rompler to give me direct "ballpark sounds" when tracking MIDI.
So the recorded audio has the cleanest possible signal path, I can leave buffers as high as needed (since I don't listen through the PC, latency doesn't concern me) and I can dial in my monitoring sound (and headphone feeds) on the fly, using real faders and knobs, without ever influencing the recorded signal ...
You can set up a basic version of this concept even with a cheapo Behringer mixer, read the block diagram and figure out what has to go where ...
ymmv,
Rhino
exactly that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!

but you can tell this on and on and on ... I did it like a thousand times. noone cares. always the whining: my latencies are too high! most of the time the bigger the numbers the better, in this case vice versa. god knows why. :-(((

the solution to record and monitor regardless of latency is soooo simple. and an adequate mixer to set this up costs about 25€ at ebay. and you dont need a bazillion mhz PC and latency isnt of any interest.

but what do I know ...
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Old 10-26-2014, 02:02 PM   #18
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What if the sound is created by the computer, such as triggering a synth with the Guitar Midi plug? Direct monitoring won't work for that, will it?

No, if the synth input requires a real-time input, the signals will have to go through their usual paths. Only faster , more powerful machines will speed up that signal path...


>
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Old 10-26-2014, 03:39 PM   #19
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Ok, using vsti will require a low latency. Direct monitoring will mot work.

Often i use a dual recording technique on that. Record the track on a real hardware synthesizer and additionally record the midi output of that machine. Then i can reroute the midi track later to any device, whether Real or Virtual. In most cases this will not be a vsti later on...

But the latency on my machine is well below 5 msec so it is a rare occasion that i will have to use this approach.
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Old 10-26-2014, 04:16 PM   #20
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ASIO Direct Monitoring is for incoming audio signals, signals coming into your audio hardware's inputs. It has nothing at all to do with VI's, which are already inside the computer.

You can do both things at the same time though, lower driver buffers for VI's and use DM for live instruments, if you're recording both things at the same time. Probably not the best idea though because the live audio will be near 0 latency in the monitors and the VI's audio in the monitors won't be.

In some daws, with incoming signals, you also can monitor DM and latent at the same time, but send the latent signal to a reverb or something which isn't a big deal because things like vocal verb have pre-delay anyway, so there are cases where you still monitor DM even with lowish audio buffers, to get around DM not having access to plugins.

DM is, outside of something like PT, the lowest monitor latency you'll ever get while only working in the daw software, e,g,, while not using a secondary hardware mixer of some kind. No computer with a buffer, no matter how small, will ever have latency as low as that.

Last edited by Lawrence; 10-26-2014 at 04:29 PM.
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Old 10-26-2014, 11:47 PM   #21
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Quote:
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Often i use a dual recording technique on that. Record the track on a real hardware synthesizer and additionally record the midi output of that machine. Then i can reroute the midi track later to any device, whether Real or Virtual. In most cases this will not be a vsti later on...

But the latency on my machine is well below 5 msec so it is a rare occasion that i will have to use this approach.
Exactly.
That's how I use the rompler I mentioned before.
Most of the time I don't even bother recording its audio output, only MIDI.
Works fine for most bread'n'butter sounds, like drums, bass, piano, pads etc.
Maybe obvious, but in case your CPU is already maxed out and you can't bring latency down enough to record comfortably with sounds generated ITB - just export a downmix of the big project, load it in a temporary, empty project and record your new track to that playback. If your computer can't do that @ 128 buffers or lower it's not suited for audio, simple as that.
ymmv,
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Old 10-27-2014, 02:24 PM   #22
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As Crootnik states, I will be monitoring too, hehe.

Anyway, I read all the threads and am getting a better handle on what was discussed and am trying to digest it. What I am driving at,is I tried a lot of the other scenarios except the one Prof Rhino mentioned and they don't work, unless you click on the input monitoring button on the track being recorded
FWIW, I have a cheapie Behringer and a Tascam 164 mixer for backup. I have it set up so it works well with my interface, so am not touching it for now. However, I keep reading about direct monitoring with no latency. So, how do you click on let's say the new track you are recording while playing back the drum or instrument tracks already laid down, i.e, how can you listen to what you have previously recorded at the same time that you sing or play for the new track? I guess what I am asking is, how can you achieve any of this without clicking on Input Monitoring, in the drop down box, TIA, psingman
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Old 10-27-2014, 05:29 PM   #23
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in my TotalMix for my RME Babyface,
I have both the software playback (thats whats already recorded), and the new track, routed to my headphones.
thats how I can do it. (I almost never overdub. just not into it at the moment. but, I just did it, to check and see, to try to help you.)
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Old 10-28-2014, 06:49 PM   #24
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OK, got it, have to route to headphones or something like that, will fiddle with it manana and report back, psingman
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Old 03-03-2015, 04:04 PM   #25
psingman
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Default Monitor mix on Tascam MKii knob from input to computer needing help on?

H'lo, I want to do direct monitoring from my Tascam MKii using a Tascam mixer that I have, but it seems using sub or alt outs only works but won't let me use the headphones on my mixer and nothing is coming out the stereo outs of the mixer, hmmm.

I have been reading that you can't do asio direct monitoring in Reaper but I can definitely hear the recorded tracks while recording, say a vocal on top, using the usb interface headphones with the input to computer knob and it isn't bleeding in either. I must be right on the verge of figuring out how to use my mixer with the usb interface but can't get over the hump. Any ideas much appreciated, almost there with this monitoring dilemma, psingman
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