While recording an instrument (mic’ed guitar or direct bass for example) I am not able to find a way to increase the monitor volume of the track I am recording to allow it to be easily heard. The meter shows that the recording track levels are good, and after recording is done, the track levels are good. It is just hard to hear what you are playing because the level in the monitors (headphones) are very low for the track you are recording! Is there a way to boost the volume of the track you are recording so it can easily be heard. I know that one option is to turn down the levels on all the other tracks, but they honestly aren’t that high to begin with.
I am running Cubase 10 and using a UR44 interface. I have it set for direct monitoring (turning off direct monitoring didn’t help).
This is probably a simple problem to solve, so thanks in advance.
In my Templates I always have an Audio Track dedicated to monitoring Inputs. I can crank its level as loud as I want at the fader or in the Pre section if even more gain is needed. You can also use it to swamp the input in reverb for that ‘I really can sing’ feeling. And because it is only used for monitoring not recording nothing can get messed up by it.
Thanks for the feedback. I must admit to being pretty inexperienced with some aspects of Cubase, but you have given me some areas to research.
I have to ask…
Do you have the headphone volume controls on the UR44 cranked up?
Also… are you using the control room for your headphone routing?
I do have the headphones output cranked up. The issue is the volume of the track I want to monitor relative to the backing tracks (bass, rhythm guitar, etc.), not the overall volume of the headphone output. I do not use control room for headphone routing. I am pretty new at Cubase, but I did run across a video that talked about this. I’ll do some research in that area.
In my Templates I always have an Audio Track dedicated to monitoring Inputs. I can crank its level as loud as I want at the fader or in the Pre section if even more gain is needed. You can also use it to swamp the input in reverb for that ‘I really can sing’ feeling. And because it is only used for monitoring not recording nothing can get messed up by it.
I am not sure I understand what you are saying (don’t worry, its me not you). I am recording the guitar into a mono audio track. Is this the track you are referring to?
Yeah you want to have it set up that way. But what I’m talking about is in addition to that - an extra track that never gets recorded onto. Its sole purpose is take the audio coming into an input (e.g. a guitar mic, a vocal mic, DI box, whatever) and play it back to me in my headphones. To use it I just set its input to the source I want to monitor and unmute this monitor Track (best to keep it muted when not in use).
Here’s the benefit. The way you have things now the guitar level is too low to hear while recording. Now you could make it loud enough to hear by using the Pre section of Track you are recording to. Here you can increase the level until you can hear it fine. So you’ve solved that problem, but… turns out that creates another. With the Pre turned up your audio gets recorded too hot. To get around this I use one Track for recording but not monitoring the audio, and I use an entirely separate Track for monitoring but not recording. That way you can adjust the levels independently.
Prock is right you should look into the Control Room. When it is on you can use the Cue Sends which are designed to let you send entirely different mixes to the phones and monitors.
