I want to record audio books and also some songs pretty much audio I want a nice clean clear voice no noise and do not sound muffled. How do I go about doing that? With cubase LE 7 should I upgrade to cubase elements 7.I would like some help using Cubase LE .
Hello Scheerfactor,
Your goal of recording an audio vocal track for books or songs can be done in any version of Cubase i.e. LE, Elements or higher. The main things you need are an audio interface, which you probably purchased to get LE7 and a quality microphone either condenser like a Rode NT1A or Audio Technica 2020 or large diaphragm dynamics used in broadcast like a Shure SM7 or EV RE20. Obviously a good Mic Stand, Quality Mic (XLR) Cable and Popfilter and Headphones are important.
Pro’s to a Condenser, is the are hot and require little gain. Con’s are they are usually bright and will reflect inefficiencies in your room i.e. flutter echo and ambient noises like A/C. Pro’s to a Large Diaphragm dynamic are a more natural sound that picks up the source (your voice) well while rejecting more ambient noises. Con’s are they usually require a lot of gain so you’ll need a mic pre that has 60db or higher in gain.
To set up your audio interface with Cubase LE7, first, go to your hardware manufactures website to find the most recent supported ASIO or CoreAudio driver for your Audio Interface and Operating System (PC or Mac)
Please Note
If you are on a PC, please keep in mind we only recommend using your hardware manufactures dedicated ASIO driver as we do not support generic ASIO drivers i.e. (Generic Low Latency and Direct X Full Duplex Driver). However If your manufacture supplies only a generic ASIO driver, we recommend the ASIO4ALL driver which can downloaded here.
After Installing the driver, be sure your Audio Interface is connected to the computer via USB or Firewire.
Launch your Cubase Application and create or open a project.
To select your Audio Interfaces driver please go to Devices>Device Setup> click VST Audio System and at the top of the window select the ASIO driver to your Audio Interfaces. Please be sure the correct audio driver is selected before closing this window.
Next you must go to VST Connections to setup your Input/Output configuration to your Audio Interface. To find this go to Devices>VST Connections>Check the Output Tab first then click on your Device Ports and Select your Audio Interfaces output options. Next check the Input Tab and click on your Device Ports to Select your Audio Interfaces input options. If the Input or Output Tab options say “Unmapped” then click or double click the box that says unmapped and select the correct buss from the menu below. Next, click the checkbox that says always map and click “OK”. If you have more Inputs or Outputs on your audio interface select “Add Buss” to configure additional I/O then exit out of the window.
Please Note If you are running other applications such as YouTube, Windows Media Player, iTunes and Cubase at the same time, be sure in Cubase to go to Devices>Device Setup and check the box that says “Release driver when Application is in Background”.
Please Note Be sure to have the input monitor button selected on tracks you are recording and de-selected for playing back recorded audio.
Please Note When you select an external Audio Interface as your input and output device, all sound will go in and out this selected device, meaning your audio will not play back through the computers internal speakers or those connected to it’s internal sound card. You must either connect studio speakers to your Audio Interfaces’ outputs or connect stereo headphones to the interfaces headphone jack.
best of luck.