If you are planning to record your vocals at home, using your own equipment then this article is for you!
"How do I setup my microphone for recording correctly?"
To answer this question we need to clarify that there is a difference between setting up the hardware (physical setup) and setting up the software (digital setup) for recording.
Setting up the hardware (physical setup) involves connecting all of our hardware equipment to the correct input/output ports with all the proper cables.
Setting up software (digital setup) involves setting up the software (DAW – Digital Audio Workstation) correctly so the hardware connected to our computer actually generates a digital signal that will be recorded through the correct setup of our signal path
Since we got that out of the way I need to state the following
Setting up the cabling of your equipment correctly is vital in getting everything to work!Here is a step by step process in getting everything connected for your hardware setup:
Step 1: Connect your computer with a sound card via a USB .
Step 2: Connect your microphone to the sound card with an XLR cable.
**** IMPORTANT NOTE: If your microphone is a condenser microphone then you need to switch on the +48 Volts (also called phantom power) switch).****
Step 3: Connect your headphones to the sound card on the “phones out” port.
Step 4: If you have speakers, connect your speakers to the speaker output ports. Left speakers should be connected to left speaker output and right speaker to the right speaker output.
If you are using a small, compact sound card with a few inputs (like the FOCUSRITE SCARLETT 2i2) then setting up in your recording software (DAW) is going to be fairly simple and straight forward so there is nothing to worry about.
Here is a step by step process in getting everything setup for the software setup:
Step 1: Create your microphone channel.
To create your microphone input channel you need to create a new audio line input channel (Figure 2)
Step 2: Select the correct input for your microphone channel.
To select the correct input for your microphone channel you need to either select the input when you create the channel (as shown in figure 2) or you can select it afterwards by opening you mixer window and selecting the correct input in your microphone channel (as shown in figure 3 & 4)
Step 3: Select the correct input and output device for your DAW software.
You need to select the correct input and output device in the software you are using for recording.
Because you have connected a sound card to your computer and your microphone, headphones and speakers are all connected to your sound card you need to make sure that your sound card is the one that is selected as the input and output device.
By choosing the correct input and output device within the software you will create the correct audio signal path for audio to be reproduced.
*** You will find the settings for choosing Input and output device within Logic pro > Settings > Audio.. ***
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