Setting up home recording studio - help!

[KillerCharlie]

I have the following gear:

Piano keyboard
Mixer
Powered studio monitors
PC with m-audio 192 pci card

I'm really not sure how to plug things in.
I'd like to use the mixer to control both the keyboard and PC output to the monitors, but I also need to route the keyboard through the computer (so I can record or use external keyboard samples or something).

To be honest, I haven't looked too hard into this but will start soon. I'm a newbie at this and I'm sure you guys know what to do a lot more than I do.

Thanks!

 

[The Boston Dangler]

ummm, you haven't exactly supplied much information. and, a recording studio is a little more than "plug A into B".

can you post links to each manufacturer's product page, and plenty of pics?

 

[KillerCharlie]

I linked to sound card - it has two sets of balanced analog I/O and a set of MIDI I/O. The monitors are just regular monitors with balanced input. The keyboard has analog output as well as MIDI out. The mixer is just a cheap Behringer mixer.

 

[herm0016]

L/R of mixer into soundcard. speakers out from sound card. keyboard into either one stereo channel or 2 mono channels on the mixer. midi to sound card. then hook up whatever other sources you have to the other channels of the mixer.

 

[KillerCharlie]

Ah, okay, so keyboard goes both to mixer and PC. (midi)

So which one of these is correct?
Keyboard out -> mixer in, sound card out -> mixer in, mixer out -> monitors
or
Keyboard out -> mixer in, mixer out -> sound card in, sound card out -> monitors

Oh, and I need the ability to record the piano directly (not midi). Is this possible?

One of the things I like to do is play along with songs on my PC - I would like to be able to control the PC and the keyboard volumes with the mixer, but I'm not sure that can be done.

 

[herm0016]

hmm. ok. you can use the output of the aux sends or groups for recording to your computer. then output your soundcard to a channel on the board. also have the keys on another channel of the board. then you can hook up the monitors to the main left and right of the board output. this should work for monitoring your keys and what you are recording. i think this should work... otherwise option 2 on your last post should work too.

keys out to mixer in, mixer aux send or group out to sound card, sound card out to mixer. mixer main out to monitors.

 

[KillerCharlie]

For now I'm just going like this:

keyboard out -> sound card in
sound card out -> monitors

Unfortunately, I'm not getting any sound from the keyboard. PC audio plays just fine. When I look at the control software, it is definitely seeing the signal from the keyboard. I looked everywhere and it doesn't seem to be muted, so I'm not sure why I'm not getting any sound from it.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: KillerCharlie
For now I'm just going like this:

keyboard out -> sound card in
sound card out -> monitors

Unfortunately, I'm not getting any sound from the keyboard. PC audio plays just fine. When I look at the control software, it is definitely seeing the signal from the keyboard. I looked everywhere and it doesn't seem to be muted, so I'm not sure why I'm not getting any sound from it.

Sounds like your mixing software for your soundcard is not routing line in to the main outputs. You have it connected correctly. If you have sidechain connections on your mixer it is best to use them so you always have the sound card's outputs directly to your monitors/amp.

 

[biggestmuff]

Originally posted by: KillerCharlie
For now I'm just going like this:

keyboard out -> sound card in
sound card out -> monitors

Unfortunately, I'm not getting any sound from the keyboard. PC audio plays just fine. When I look at the control software, it is definitely seeing the signal from the keyboard. I looked everywhere and it doesn't seem to be muted, so I'm not sure why I'm not getting any sound from it.

That'd be the way that I'd tell you to connect everything. Ditch the external mixer and just use M-Audio's software mixer. It's a good mixer, but takes some getting used to.

You don't have the software mixer setup properly. On the Monitor Mixer page, are the "WavOut 1/2" faders up? What about the "H/W in 1/2" faders?

And a simple question where some people get confused, are the stereo analog outputs from the keyboard connected to the M-Audio interface? You aren't just connecting the keyboard's MIDI IN/OUTS to the audio interface, are you?

 

[KillerCharlie]

Sorry for not updating this, but thanks for responding!

Shortly after my last post I realized that that was the point of the outputs I was using - to only output PC sound and not the line in. There's a second set of outputs that output everything