Overdub and monitor on same track

Cubase
1

Goals:

A) Record vocal audio on to a track.
B) Listen to previous recorded audio on that same track and overdub (punch in/out) new audio at specific time.
C) Listen to your voice on your microphone with no lag, using my RME interface for direct monitoring.

I’ve found one way to do this and want to verify it’s the “right/best” way.

  1. Enable direct monitoring
  2. Set up 1 Cue mix called Cue1-Vocals in the Control Room
  3. Set up a Headphones mix in the Control Room
  4. Set up a Monitor mix in the Control Room
  5. Set the Phones to C1 (headphones)
  6. Set the Main to Mix (speakers)
  7. Turn off Main of course if you are in the same room as the mic. :slight_smile:
  8. Create an audio track for your vocals. Mic in / Stereo out
  9. Create audio track for Mic Monitor. Mic in only

Mic Monitor track: Turn on Cue 1-Vocals (pre fader) and increase the volume (this sets the direct monitor level into the headphones of the real time input of the Microphone coming in on this track) This is so the vocalist can hear themselves through the mic. Click the MONITOR button. You now hear the mic.

Stereo Out track: For now, for simplicity sake also turn on Cue 1-Vocals (pre fader). This allows the headphones to hear the overall mix (which includes the elusive track for overdubbing)

Set your punch in/punch out points on your Vocal Audio track and you are good to go.

Is there a better way? I do realize if you wanted to use the tape machine monitor mode, this almost does it. You can’t hear the mic until the recording part, which could be fine. But you have no independent control over the level of your mic in your headphones. It changes depending on the fader on the vocal track. The same fader also changes to the level to your headphones from your mic, thus I still think there is an advantage to setting up a monitor mic track. The disadvantage would be if having your mic on before and after the punch in is a problem for you.

This seems to be working, but it took a little “figuring out” :slight_smile:

2

Hi,

The easiest way is to set Preferences > VST > Auto Monitoring to While Record Running.

Then you can play the track back and once you jump to the record (Punch-In), the Monitor button is enabled automatically.

1 Like
3

Yeah that works with Tape mode as well. The only issue with that is that you can not control how loud the voice in your headphones and set a level for the track already recorded audio. This is because the fader controls the level of the input to your headphones only. So if you set the fader at -6dB because that is the good for the mix it very well might be too quiet for your headphones!

So that is another reason to have the cue track off of the Monitor channel, so that you can control the mix in the headphones and the mix on the track independently.

Thanks for the reply!