Problem recording in Reaper posted by...

Problem recording in Reaper

Posted on Aug 07, 2008 09:29 pm
joeyjoey
Member Since: Aug 07, 2008

Hi everyone,

I just bought the EDIROL UA-25EX USB audio interface as well the Audio Technica 2020 Condenser Microphone from my local store last night. I set up the mic and then plugged everything as follows:

AT2020 Mic TO UA-25EX [XLR TO XLR] - Phantom Power ON
UA-25EX TO Computer [Square'ish USB to USB]

I installed the UA-25EX Drivers succesfully onto the computer, rebooted, and the Edirol UA-25EX had it's lights on. I'm currently using Reaper until I can get Cubase, so I open Reaper. I go into the Audio options and set the UA-25EX as the input and my Intel Integrated Sound Card as the output (my speakers are plugged into the intel integrated). I then proceed to make a new track into the project. I right click on the track, select Record: Input, and then enable the record button for the track. Now at this point I can see the track volume from the dB meter is going up and down accordingly to how loud I sing into the microphone, so obviously the input is being picked up by the computer, and the track, I'm assuming. I'm ready to test this thing out. I hit the main record button, the track begins to record, but no matter how loud I sing it doesn't record anything onto the track, just a flat line. I'm clearly seeing the dB meter thing going up and down while I'm singing and recording, but nothing records.

I'm thinking maybe it's something I need to set in Reaper? Something I didn't set properly? Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Joey

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Noize2u
Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Aug 07, 2008 10:07 pm

pjk is our resident Reaper dude. He'll catch this and give ya some info on it.

I will say one thing though. Using two different sound cards, especially an onboard sound card is not a good idea. You can have timing and conflict issues doing that. In the past it wasn't a big deal, and sometimes it does work. But often times it does not, and causes problems such as those you are experiencing.

Not positive that is the issue, but it could be.

pjk
Prince CZAR-ming
Member
Since: Apr 08, 2004

Aug 08, 2008 08:38 am

Hey Joey, welcome to the HRC.

Not knowing all the parameters, I'll cover a few basics first;

Is the phantom power turned on for the mic. AT2020 is condenser, so it'll need it.

Is the gain turned up on the interface. I think it's sensitivity. That needs to be up, but I think yours is already, if you're seeing signal.

I say these because if the signal is down low, then it may not show up as waveform in the track view, but it's actually doing something, just a teeny amount.

When you speak into the mic, and see the meter going up and down, to what strength does it get to? if it's not getting above, say -40db, or more than halfway across the meter, then you probably won't hear what it's recording.

Now, when I right click, on a new track, I see all kinds of menu options that I don't need at the moment. What I do is 1) insert new track, 2) click on 'R' to arm track, 3) select which input to record from.

On my laptop with US122 (reaper ver 2.14), I set the input by clicking right on the meter. This gives you a menu of input options (mono inputs, stereo inputs, midi inputs, etc). On my laptop, I get several options saying "record: input, or record: output, etc". Make sure you're recording the input, and not the output of the track.

If none of those make a difference, try setting the software interface to WDM drivers instead of ASIO (if asio is set). ASIO only lets you use one interface at a time, so it may get shut down if you are using ua25 for input, and onboard sound for output.

If that doesn't work, try setting your output to the ua25 as well, and skip over using the onboard sound altogether, like Noize mentioned.

Personally, I never use onboard sound if I don't have to. Why use cheap output conversion when you've got a decent interface sitting right there, waiting to be used.

If none of those do it for ya, then i'm kinda stumped. I would suggest posting a ? over on the reaper forums. They're pretty decent over there, with quite a few sharp tacks helping out on issues.

Plus the developers (Justin, Christophe, Schwa) get involved quite often in the forums.