Hey All,

So I had this idea I want to try out. Basically I want to record myself recording in Sonar while talking about what I'm recording.

Basically I'd want to route what's going to the speakers into one channel (I'd imagine I could do that very easily with a bus or even with a cable going from my out to a separate in). Then I'd want to record my voice talking separately. What is the best way to do this without picking up all the music. I'm guessing a headset mic of some kind and I'll just have to do everything on headphones and not too loud so it doesn't bleed out into what the mic picks up. Is this right? And if so, what is a pretty good model that I can pick up? Also how would a headset mic hook up? Would it just be USB or would it actually go through one of my ins on my audio interface (and an out at the same time?). This is all pretty new to me and I'm just starting to kind of play with the idea.

The finished result should be on one track, everything I'm doing in Sonar, including playing and stopping and adding new VSTs and trying out sounds and listening through the whole thing, and stopping again, etc etc etc... And then on the second track, my voice from the headset mic.

I'm thinking I might want to do the recording of all this on a 2nd computer. In my head I can't wrap my head around how else it would work with the starting and stopping of the project I'm working on...

Any input on all of this would be greatly appreciated.

Could set up a software to record the Line output of the DAW, then have a separate device or software recording your voice, perhaps?

ok so yea, separate is the way to go then. i was trying to wrap my head around doing it within the same software and yea it didn't seem like it could work.

so then as for recording my voice. any recommendations on a good (podcaast quality, nothing special) headset-mic that i could use for recording my voice?

Maybe I'm missing the point, but why don't you just record the voiceover afterward onto a seperate track in the same project ?

because then it wouldn't be natural. the idea is to be able to record me talking in realtime while i'm doing stuff like "hmm lets try this sound... nah... that sucks... how about this one" stuff like that. and i want the music to be recorded direct and not through the mic so that its got the full quality and not rerecorded out the speakers then thru a mic.... that's why i can't just record the room.

polarbear


because then it wouldn't be natural. the idea is to be able to record me talking in realtime while i'm doing stuff like "hmm lets try this sound... nah... that sucks... how about this one" stuff like that. and i want the music to be recorded direct and not through the mic so that its got the full quality and not rerecorded out the speakers then thru a mic.... that's why i can't just record the room.

So, if the music is recorded via some kind of DI and not via open room mics, wouldn't headphones and a standard mic do the job, much as if you were recording a vocal track ? Or am I still missing something ?

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thinking ...


haha ...

you know what, i think you're right haha.

SO...

the plan would be to hook up a mic and a line in to another computer / recording device. record the line in from the line out of my music computer on one track while at the same time on another track recording the mic ...

yea that would work i think!

so here's another question, and this is probably really simple... but you can do that in Sonar right? i've never tried it, but i'm assuming I can arm more than one track at a time? arm the line in track and the mic track?

Unless I'm misunderstanding, I don't know where you're getting this need for another computer / program from...... I'm assuming here that you have more than one input on your audio interface ?
 
Assuming this is so, plug your instrument of choice into one input and route that to track 1. plug mic into another and route that to track 2. Switch on input monitoring for the tracks, arm both tracks and record both simultaneously. You should be able to hear both what you are playing and your voice in the headphones, but they will be recorded seperately to their respective tracks.
 
 

the reason why is because i want to record EVERYTHING that happens for upwards of an hour. including like if i'm playing back my recording and then hit stop (and i'm thinking that if i hit stop in sonar, it will stop recording EVERYTHING, right?). maybe i'm not clear... I want to record myself recording. the recordings i'm doing are primarily vst based synth. maybe by the end of an hour i'll have 10 tracks of layered synths making an entire song. i want to record everything that happens on that journey. even if i play a few notes and mess up, hit stop, hit delete, then try playing it again. oh that works. now i clean it up, and copy and paste it for a while, then play it back and see if the loop works well. it works great. then i start the next layer. finding sounds that work well. playing them. coming up with melodies. i want to record this WHOLE experience, stops and all.

i'm assuming that if i try to record the "session" and i hit stop, it will stop the recording. right? that's why i think i need a 2nd computer in the process. one to be recording at ALL times.

Ok, my bad, I thought you were just wanting to record the whole session of you talking and playing, didn't realise that you wanted to edit the project at the same time. In that case, I've never tried this, but maybe you could record your voiceover into audacity or something similar and then when you're done import the wav back into the project when you're done, then export the whole project from sonar.