how to hear guitar through speakers in mixcraft

[j.evang]

I'm new to recording software, please excuse my ignorance.

i've been trying to figure out how to record electric guitar to mixcraft so that the sound is heard through my speakers and not headphones. this should be a simple thing to do, but i get confused by terms like input/output, interface/sound card etc...i've recorded electric guitar before through the interface but the only way i could hear back what i was playing was by plugging in headphones to the USB interface.

here are pictures of the audiogram 3 and my speakers:

http://www.apollomusiconline.co.uk/yama ... -234-p.asp
http://alesis.com/m1active320usb

what i usually do is grab two instrument cables, plug one in on one end to my guitar and the other to my amp- that goes without saying. then i also plug in another instrument cable to headphone jack on my line 6 amp on one end, into the black instrument jack on the audiogram 3. this is all while the audiogram is plugged in to the computer as well. in addition to all that i plug in headphones to the "PHONES" jack on the audiogram. am i doing this right or is there an easier, less awkward way?

what i want to do is make it so that i can hear my guitar through my speakers. is there some setting i have to adjust in the preferences in mixcraft? fyi my speakers are connected through RCA cable, i.e. from the speakers (red/white part of cable) to the microphone jack on the laptop.

thanks in advance for your time. if this seems like a somewhat dense explanation of my situation, again, please excuse my ignorance, i'm new to this. i would use terms like input/output if i understood them....

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

You could plug your speakers into your audio interface. When you use ASIO or WaveRT exclusive, all the sound goes through one sound device in order to provide lower latency.

Greg

[TrevsAudio]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Have a look at this video - it explains it all..

Basically, think of the Yamaha as a transfer box.. 'Input' you guitar; make sure the USB is connected to your computer and the 'outputs' on the back will go to your speakers.

Hope this helps!

[j.evang]

i understand i need the speakers connected to the interface but what cords do i need for that? it looks like a TRS cable, which looks just like an instrument cable but being that there are two jacks (on both the interface and the speakers) i would need a dual TRS to dual TRS cable, correct? or perhaps a dual TRS to RCA would work as well?

I'm pretty sure i'm overcomplicating a simple task here...

[TrevsAudio]

Hi!
From what I can see, looks like a normal guitar cable will suffice.

Is the output on the back of the Yamaha not a quarter inch jack... or maybe a 'newtrik' which accepts either a 1/4 inch or an XLR? There should be a 'left' and 'right' - see what the connection type is on the Yammie and the speakers - just grab a cable with the right connections on each end.

[j.evang]

i'm still hung up on the terms input and output, input is what you "put in" in this case the guitar sound, right? and the speakers bring the sound out" therefore it's the output?...

the pictures provided in the links i posted show the back of the yamaha and the back of the speakers.

the type of connections on the yamaha are like this from what i can tell.
channel 1: XLR (for use with condenser microphones) or instrument cable (for guitar)
channel 2 and 3: two TRS jacks and then two RCA jacks. each connection type corresponding to the right and left speakers i'm assuming..

what i need to know is the type of cord i need to connect the interface to the speakers. i already have the guitar/amp connected, i'm just only getting sound through headphones rather than the speakers. do i need a dual trs to trs cord to connect to the dual TRS jacks on the audiogram 3 and the Alesis speakers?

do i need this cable? http://www.guitarcenter.com/Hosa-Dual-T ... 1128902.gc

[TrevsAudio]

Ha! a vital clue - you say you have your guitar and amp connected?

You need something to 'output' from your amp to the audio interface. Maybe the amp has a headphone output? In which case a cable from that to the 'input' of the Yammie. If not you'll need a mic to capture the amps sound; plugged into the Yams input.

On the back of the audio interface should be an output - left and right. Just match those fittings with the speaker inputs.

[gypsy101]

just plain ol' 1/4" guitar cables from the Yamaha L&R outs to the 1/4" jacks on the speakers.
that's it.

as far as preferences in Mixcraft,the default should be out to the interface/speakers if you have ASIO selected. if using WAVE RT or WAVE(big latency w/ WAVE) you may have to go to your speaker icon on the taskbar,right click, & select the Yamaha interface as the playback device.

"fyi my speakers are connected through RCA cable, i.e. from the speakers (red/white part of cable) to the microphone jack on the laptop."

why are your speakers connected to the mic jack on the laptop?
this is your first problem.

[j.evang]

okay, so i need to get another 1/4'' cable

gypsy, could you tell me why this is a problem? i was having speaker noise issues with the speakers connected to the computer via USB (clicking, popping, crackling noises) so connecting the speakers via RCA cable to the laptop seemed to do the trick. why is this an issue? is there a way of connecting the speakers via RCA without using the mic jack? perhaps i should return the speakers.

i outlined the situation with the speakers here: http://forums.acoustica.com/bbs/viewtop ... =4&t=15352

[gypsy101]

okay, so i need to get another 1/4'' cable

gypsy, could you tell me why this is a problem? i was having speaker noise issues with the speakers connected to the computer via USB (clicking, popping, crackling noises) so connecting the speakers via RCA cable to the laptop seemed to do the trick. why is this an issue? is there a way of connecting the speakers via RCA without using the mic jack? perhaps i should return the speakers.

i outlined the situation with the speakers here: http://forums.acoustica.com/bbs/viewtop ... =4&t=15352

most likely you had crackling,popping,etc. is because of latency/buffer settings in ASIO.
now pluggin speakers into a mic input jack would cause the speakers to act as a microphone of sorts.
mic is an input jack.
speakers are an output jack.
does the laptop have an external speaker out? that is what you want to use although I would just adjust the ASIO buffer settings in/& use the Yamaha audio interface as the recording AND playback device. chances are it's soundcard is better anyway.

[j.evang]

i have speaker crackling and other noises even if ASIO is not selected as sound device. usually i use WaveRT in mixcraft, given that my OS is Windows 7 and WaveRT is (i'm told according to this site) the default in that case.

There are speaker noises both in and outside of mixcraft when the speakers are connected via USB.

For example, when the speakers are setup through usb and i play back any audio track, i notice that if i turn the FILE volume muted and the SPEAKER volume UP, crackling noises come through the speakers. I do not notice this in the other computer in my house. this tells me something is wrong with the way my PC is set up.

Even worse, when i attempt to play back a sample audio track out of the mixcraft library, i don't hear drums or bass or guitar sounds, i hear nothing but distortion, buzzing, random sounds. whereas beforehand (when i wrote the post on this forum) i could actually hear the sample tracks, albeit with some background noise. it seems opening up mixcraft makes the speaker issues worse.

as for my laptop, i'm not sure if there's a speaker Out on here, but it's a Toshiba Satellite C655:

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/toshiba-sat ... 21930.html

as far as I can tell, all i see is a microphone jack and headphone jack, along with two usb ports and two other slots that do something i'm not familiar with...

is this computer even suitable for intensive audio recording in the first place? perhaps there's an issue with the onboard sound card?

i'm getting away from the inital focus of discussion (the audio interface) but the source of the problem seems to be with the speakers given that they're all i have connected to the computer right now.

[Mark Bliss]

Microphone jack = input (To soundcard) For microphone only.
Headphone jack = output (From soundcard) Headphones, or powered (active) speakers.

That computer is a single core Celeron and has 2G ram, its going to be limiting, but should work fine set up properly, for recording/playback of a few tracks. You will run into problems with more than a few tracks or adding effects etc, but this isn't likely your basic problems.

I'd suggest, (as has already been suggested more or less) using the interface as your audio input/output device and not connecting anything to the computers soundcard. Trying to use one for input and the other for output seems to be confusing you. Discontinue for now trying to use the mic/headphone jacks on the computer, and discontinue trying to use USB for those speakers.

The back of your interface has three sections.
The input section for channel one is a combination connector. You can connect an instrument level input via 1/4 inch cable OR a microphone level input via XLR. Same plug.
Input for Channel 2 is for LINE LEVEL inputs. You have the choice of a pair of 1/4 cable or a pair of RCA cable connections for a stereo (L/R) input. This is where you would connect to a signal from a mixer, CD player, etc.
The other section on the back of your interface is OUTPUT connections. These are also line level connections that you would connect to a mixer or active speakers such as your M1's. (Active means they have their own amplifier to increase the signal level from LINE level to AMPLIFIED level.

Read your interface and speaker manual fully.
With the interface plugged into the computer via USB, Turn all the level, gain, volume, whatever knobs on the interface and the speakers down, hook up the speakers to the output of the interface, and plug in the power for the speakers. (Their amps require a power source, just like common computer speakers.)
Plug in your guitar to the interface directly for now till you get things working better. Combo connector, Channel 1.
Turn the volume knob (Physically on the guitar) all the way up for now. With Mixcraft open, an audio track armed and its input assigned to your interface, left channel and Mixcrafts track level set at default, (0 or unity) slowly turn up the interfaces gain or volume knob while playing, until you get a signal on the track meter in Mixcraft that is starting to get into the yellow when playing somewhat hard. Now adjust the level on the speakers to get some comfortable level of sound.

Let's see if that gets you going and proceed from there, to get other settings sorted out.

[outteh]

Hey there. Been watching this post for a while and have some points of reference for you. First off, your M1 speakers have their own built in amplifier. You need to ensure you have power to them when you use them. The RCA inputs on the back are for a connection to your audio interface. This gives you the cleanest sound connection. Many times USB connections get interference from all sorts of things in the computer, particularly the USB drivers. Since this connection is attached to the main card or bus it inherently can pick up pops and crackles. You don't need to use your built-in sound card on your computer at all since you have an external audio interface. Connect the stereo out of your interface to the speakers using the RCA cable. Anything you want to record, guitar or mic, plug it in to the audio interface. On your Line 6 amp there is a headphone/line output that is a 1/4 TRS connection. TRS is not just a 1/4 guitar cable. It is a balanced connection. If you look at the plug end you would see three sections on the plug not just two. This allows the cable to also be used to carry a stereo signal and is cleaner and less susceptible to noise interference. Using a TRS cable, plug the output of you Line 6 to one of the line inputs of your interface. If you want to plug a guitar or microphone directly to the audio interface without using the Line 6 amp, plug it directly into the audio interface into the mic/instrument connection. Ensure Mixcraft preferences are set for your audio interface, recording and playback, and use the ASIO driver that comes with your interface. Hope this helps.

[Mark Bliss]

Looks like we cross posted Tom!

[outteh]

Sometimes twice is better!