Hi Kevin,
today I feel wrung out, worn, torn and whatever.
Hurricane yesterday.
After I had upacked deliveries and had done some household necessities, I had to repair my cat´s home outside in the garden - in wind and pouring rain in order not to allow rain coming into her house.
Emergency repair with florist wire and sticky tape, that didn´t want to stick on her wet house in the rain.
When returning to my kitchen (hoping I could start installing the new audio software + USB box) - still in my wet clothes, with dirty hands, holding cat´s dirty food bowl in one hand and repair utilities in the other, the telephone rang.
(Friend asked on medical + technical advice. Cost me one hour daylight for planned work. Well, - at least not 2 hours like the day before with a 90 year old lady.
)
I then preferred mounting the microphone stand and inspecting my guitar + new Shadow pickup first.
I decided to better "install" the new pickup permanently, than to only fix it temporarily. (Otherwise there would always be a cable hanging out of the guitar´s sound hole. Don´t want to loosen the strings every time, in order to be able to unplug the little pickup-cable´s plug inside the guitar and as well wouldn´t want to have the cable attached all the time instead. So I chose I should remove the guitar´s old knob that holds the guitar strap and replace it with the pickup´s knob = combined knob + socket for plug.)
Didn´t find a correct 13 wood drill in my toolbox - ordered one at amazon. Knob replacement and pickup installation has to wait.
Let me know how you get on with the USB Audio Box - sounds interesting!
Then downloaded 5+ gigabytes of software (manuals, drivers, software, soundsets), because the printed documentation advises to do so, although everything gets delivered already with the box on a DVD.
Only the audio driver was newer than on that DVD. Some other 3rd party software (
Native
Instruments: Komplete 8 Players) from the Presonus server wasn´t even up to date. (Was updated by the
NI company later.)
Installation of the audiobox:
First I started installing the downloaded driver ver. 1.3 for audiobox.
With USB cable not connected, I got a message "no suitable device found". (although the docs read "install driver, then connect the box).
Plugged in USB cable in pc. Windows 8.1 started installing an own driver. I afterwards installed the downloaded latest one, though.
Message: "Error during installtion - restart pc!"
Restarted pc. Installed driver again. OK. (Hardware manager showed correct device - no faults.)
Test:
First test with microphone + headphone attached to the box.
I had an astonishing clear live signal (my voice). Was satisfied with quality (too early).
I couldn´t get audacity to record anything, though. Tried different settings. No way.
Disconnected the box - tried a different USB port (no good idea - box not found on different USB port). Had to use the original port from driver installation again. Still no sound in audacity.
Thought: Maybe Studio One must be used and audacity doesn´t fit. (
It does, though.)
Then followed installation and registration of the complete audio software. (Except Melodyne - I will have my 30 trial days only , when the box works well and I know to handle Studio One.
Hours of downloads, installation, registration!
Yesterday, I had breakfast at 3pm, coffee at 7:30pm and lupper or sunch at 3am this morning. 5 hrs sleep tonight.
Should have spared my time and should not have downloaded anything but the driver and should just have taken the DVD for installation. The programs update anyway, if necessary.
Final Result:
I could record in the end, in Studio One first and later in audacity too, but s.th. is wrong with the recorded signal (distortion, crackling sound).
(Some other customers have this, too - I visited the company´s board, today.)
Latency is much to high. Will have to find out, how to set values and will have to optimize windows pc settings for audio recording.
(
Background tasks preferences, energy saving, antivirus, etc. - perhaps even disabling onboard sound.)
In case, I can´t improve the sound, I´ll even have to send in the box for repair (all is registered already).
For heaven´s sake! Well, today is April fools day!
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lossy mp3:
Well, only of importance for professional productions (records, one wants to sell).
StudioOne Artist can not export mp3, but e.g. wav. For burning CDs, exactly the right format, - for smaller uploads, one could import wav in audacity and export as mp3 from there.
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Melodyne sounds pretty expensive
Yes, but seems to be worth it, if it works. (Bought seperately ~105 € for Essential version at amazon.).
I will try it some day (30 day trial) and decide then.
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Always nice to have some new gear arrive ie; mic stand etc...I'm a bit "lo-tech" when it comes to popfilters...I used a Youtube DIY one - basically an old pair of tights (not mine) stretched over a coat hanger (re-shaped round) it works pretty well!
I saw DIY vids on that before ordering my popfilter. Would have had to buy all ingredients for such a filter - including tights and then it wasn´t that cheap any more, but only more work for me to do.
Hope the new gear is good
The Shadow pickup seems quite good. Tested it, holding it above the guitar strings.
The microphone stand seems to be good, the popfilter, too.
Studio One software seems to be pretty good, although one has to get used to different handling - compared to e.g. audacity.
Reading the handbook seems do be profitable.
Now I hope, I manage to get the audiobox to record well. Then all would be fine.
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It´s 3:45 pm and I didn´t have breakfast.
(And another email is still waiting to be answered, and my cat to be fed and ...)
No music upload, today. Just to lazy, just too late.
Have a nice time (all) :thum:
