mgh
for your headset, just use that as normal with your internal soundcard. unplug/set the internal card for Skype the Roland at that point.
 

Thanks MGH, Sorry I'm not sure what that last sentence meant. Was the meant to be then?

Would I keep having to change the settings back and forth?
 
I am having trouble mastering the soundcard settings within Skype, Audacity and Sonar. It all seems like a foreign language to me!
 
thanks

I think he meant unplug the Roland and tell Skype to use your internal soundcard.

Sanderxpander
I think he meant unplug the Roland and tell Skype to use your internal soundcard.

this. damn laptop trackpad/keyboard! i'm sure if you get into music recording/production you'll change hardware pratice, but for now this'll be easiest way to do it.

so - most people will have lots of different cables/connectors/mics etc to do various things as audio plugs/cables/connectors are notoriously difficult; so I have a small mixer connected to my soundcard, and plug things in/out of there as needed -
consumer level kit has minijacks and RCA connectors, proper recording kit usually uses 1/4" (6.5mm) or XLR connectors, but there's also S/PDIF, lightpipe, ADAT, Ethernet etc etc etc...
 
advice - never throw any bit of lead/connector away...but do buy a few decent leads!
 

Paula, do you happen to know, or can you find out, what is the maximum amount of RAM that your Motherboard can utilise?
 
If it's more than 4Gb, you might want to seriously consider adding more.
4 is about the bare minimum to get by with, adding more will make your whole experience a little less frustrating.

Bristol_Jonesey
Paula, do you happen to know, or can you find out, what is the maximum amount of RAM that your Motherboard can utilise?
 
If it's more than 4Gb, you might want to seriously consider adding more.
4 is about the bare minimum to get by with, adding more will make your whole experience a little less frustrating.

Well, if working on 32 bits, 4Gb is just the max you can get...And I do not find 4GB to be very frustrating, except when using BIG sampler banks. It depends too on hard drives, processor, track number and the length of the project you're recording.
 
For coffetime, I would try the full USB soundcard thing except if you get troubles with WDM drivers for system sounds. I would disable in BIOS mainboard soundcard and set windows drivers to USB card(that's what I do with my focusrite card). The main advantage is to have only one soundcard so most of the config is automatic. I would also set sonar to use exclusively the ASIO drivers. It shouldn't be bothering since, most of time, you don't watch youtube videos when using sonar.To set windows audio,just use control panel "Sound" applet.
 
Also, I'm surprised you wanna use "PC consumer speaker system" (a green minijack) and "Headphones with microphone". Clearly your new soundcard seems to be the most "High-End" part of your system. 
Your headset should have 2 minijack outputs.To plug it, just buy 2 Female minijack to male jack adapters.One stereo and one mono. (well 2 stereo may work)
Disable phantom 48V power.You will have to test both Hi-Z and Lo-Z and use the better one.
For the direct monitoring,I don't know. In fact, I find it very strange no to have separated "Monitor" and "Phones" pots...You'll have to experiment.(I definitely wouldn't buy this audio interface)
Then plug your headphone to the "phones" plug with the stereo one and your microphone to the "Input 1" plug with the other.
You then just have to use the "sens 1" potentiometer to set the microphone gain.
If sonar is properly configured (and windows too),it should work.
 

Well, in the interest of not sounding like a snobby snarky snark:
 
I can not stress enough, if you are doing any kind of recording or music making with your computer, your audio interface and monitoring system (speakers) are engine of your race car. You wouldn't join the Indy 500 with a tricycle, so don't skimp. The investment here will save your soul in time and yes money in the long run.
 
Here's the good news: a good, small audio interface (which I think you already learned) is quite affordable these days. yay! Good monitors or headphones are another story. Though far cheaper than in days of yore, you really want an accurate listening environment. If you're doing portable work that means a kick-ass set of phones. If you're in your own space, that means some good studio monitors AND some attention to your room. 
 
But to backtrack: on-board sound? HECK NO. Computer speakers? OMG HECK NO. Believe me, the first time you take some mixes out on another sound system you'll be horrified at how terrible they sound. 

 

mgh
so - most people will have lots of different cables/connectors/mics etc to do various things as audio plugs/cables/connectors are notoriously difficult; so I have a small mixer connected to my soundcard, and plug things in/out of there as needed -
consumer level kit has minijacks and RCA connectors, proper recording kit usually uses 1/4" (6.5mm) or XLR connectors, but there's also S/PDIF, lightpipe, ADAT, Ethernet etc etc etc...
 
advice - never throw any bit of lead/connector away...but do buy a few decent leads!

I know! - I have a sports bag full of cables. I already have one of those  WE1189A Adaptor 6.3mm mono plug to 3.5mm mono jack sockets you linked to, but it's in permanent use on the headphones for my big keyboard.
 
will bear in mind I could use a mixer at some point, thanks.
 

Bristol_Jonesey
Paula, do you happen to know, or can you find out, what is the maximum amount of RAM that your Motherboard can utilise?
 
If it's more than 4Gb, you might want to seriously consider adding more.
4 is about the bare minimum to get by with, adding more will make your whole experience a little less frustrating.

 
Not sure how to tell. Does this tell you?
 
Full Description: iBUILD™ Intel i5 Performance Custom PC, Gigabyte GZ-X2 Black ATX MIDI Tower Case , Corsair 500Watt PSU, ASUS P7H55-M 6x Rear USB 2.0 2x Front, Intel® Core™ i5 650 Dual Core 2x 3.2Ghz 4MB Cache (4 Threads) Turbo Boost, Standard CPU Cooling Fan, Samsung 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz, 250GB 7200RPM SATA II, 22x DVD RW Lightscribe Black SATA, Microsoft Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit , Intel i3/i5/i7 built-in graphics,
 
Not sure which bit is the motherboard. But I read that from the motherboard you can find out if more ram can be added on this site:
http://www.crucial.com/
 

guigz2000

Bristol_Jonesey
Paula, do you happen to know, or can you find out, what is the maximum amount of RAM that your Motherboard can utilise?
 
If it's more than 4Gb, you might want to seriously consider adding more.
4 is about the bare minimum to get by with, adding more will make your whole experience a little less frustrating.

Well, if working on 32 bits, 4Gb is just the max you can get...And I do not find 4GB to be very frustrating, except when using BIG sampler banks. It depends too on hard drives, processor, track number and the length of the project you're recording.
 
For coffetime, I would try the full USB soundcard thing except if you get troubles with WDM drivers for system sounds. I would disable in BIOS mainboard soundcard and set windows drivers to USB card(that's what I do with my focusrite card). The main advantage is to have only one soundcard so most of the config is automatic. I would also set sonar to use exclusively the ASIO drivers. It shouldn't be bothering since, most of time, you don't watch youtube videos when using sonar.To set windows audio,just use control panel "Sound" applet.
 
Also, I'm surprised you wanna use "PC consumer speaker system" (a green minijack) and "Headphones with microphone". Clearly your new soundcard seems to be the most "High-End" part of your system. 
Your headset should have 2 minijack outputs.To plug it, just buy 2 Female minijack to male jack adapters.One stereo and one mono. (well 2 stereo may work)
Disable phantom 48V power.You will have to test both Hi-Z and Lo-Z and use the better one.
For the direct monitoring,I don't know. In fact, I find it very strange no to have separated "Monitor" and "Phones" pots...You'll have to experiment.(I definitely wouldn't buy this audio interface)
Then plug your headphone to the "phones" plug with the stereo one and your microphone to the "Input 1" plug with the other.
You then just have to use the "sens 1" potentiometer to set the microphone gain.
If sonar is properly configured (and windows too),it should work.
 

 
I'm afraid while I am learning, I am actually watching YouTube Sonar tutorial vids while in Sonar - so it looks more and more likely that I will need to use my laptop for Sonar. And I think that's only 3gb ram!
 
(Can't use the laptop for Youtube and desktop for sonar, as I need the more powerful one for work; internet marketing - includes lots of YouTube!)
 
The second half of your post is difficult for me to understand at 1am, but I will study it tomorrow. (I thought monitors were screens, but what do I know?!!)
 
Thanks for your help guys. I'm sure I will get there eventually!

 Yep..on Windows x86 you get 3Gb. I said 4Gb because most of time you use 2 memory sticks of equal size to get there. 
Your laptop is more than sufficiant to use sonar.Don't worry with memory until you find it's not enough. My previous pc had 3gb on windows XP and I rarely ran out of memory (only with 1Gb soundbanks). If you windows is x64, well you get 4Gb and it should work too. You'll have plenty of time to upgrade memory when there are problems since upgrading will force you to change both your memory sticks. As an indication, my band studio setting was cubase 6.0 with windows XP and 3Gb RAM .We recorded songs which were something like 120 tracks without memory problems.
 
Concerning the youtube thing, try sharing the audio driver in sonar .You may find there's no problem.Just try and if it doesn't work, try an alternative.
 
Usually, in studio language, speakers may be refered as "Monitors" since they enable to monitor the sound. I agree it may be confusing.
 
One last thing, on a laptop you may not be able to disable onboard soundcard in BIOS. You still can do it in windows device manager, or just not disable it (for a laptop I wouldn't). You then just have to check all the sounds get to you usb soundcard (sometime it's quite bothering). The solution is to experiment.

...wicked
Well, in the interest of not sounding like a snobby snarky snark:
 
I can not stress enough, if you are doing any kind of recording or music making with your computer, your audio interface and monitoring system (speakers) are engine of your race car. You wouldn't join the Indy 500 with a tricycle, so don't skimp. The investment here will save your soul in time and yes money in the long run.
 
Here's the good news: a good, small audio interface (which I think you already learned) is quite affordable these days. yay! Good monitors or headphones are another story. Though far cheaper than in days of yore, you really want an accurate listening environment. If you're doing portable work that means a kick-ass set of phones. If you're in your own space, that means some good studio monitors AND some attention to your room. 
 
But to backtrack: on-board sound? HECK NO. Computer speakers? OMG HECK NO. Believe me, the first time you take some mixes out on another sound system you'll be horrified at how terrible they sound. 

Thanks. I really appreciate your advice - you're totally right of course, but I am broke as I am struggling to get my biz off the ground. So even if I could buy monitor speakers, they would have to be under £100. (I already spent £30 on just plugs and cables today because I didn't want to buy online and wait til next week to get them!)
 
I am having a hard time finding "monitor speakers" that will produce stereo sound, because the only cables I can find are all mono. And considering I am spending money on better gear, it seems backward that I will end up with mono sound.
 
For example, the ones I can afford have phono sockets on the back and the only cables I can find that would fit that and the new sound card are these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5M-Twin-2x-MONO-6-35mm-1-4-Jack-to-2-RCA-PHONO-Male-Plugs-Cable-Lead-/360409816234?pt=UK_Computing_Sound_Vision_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item53ea195caa
 
but they are mono. I don't get it. Does it mean EACH one individually is mono, but if you use them both, it will still produce stereo? or does it mean the end result will be mono? If so, why would anyone want mono?
 
thanks a lot
 
 

guigz2000
 
Your headset should have 2 minijack outputs.To plug it, just buy 2 Female minijack to male jack adapters.One stereo and one mono. (well 2 stereo may work)

 
It is this I am having trouble finding. I can only find mono cables for both regular computer speakers and for monitor speakers.
 
Is it possible you could link to the mono+stereo (or stereo cables) that you mean please?
 
thanks a lot
 

guigz2000
 Yep..on Windows x86 you get 3Gb. I said 4Gb because most of time you use 2 memory sticks of equal size to get there. 
Your laptop is more than sufficiant to use sonar.Don't worry with memory until you find it's not enough. My previous pc had 3gb on windows XP and I rarely ran out of memory (only with 1Gb soundbanks). If you windows is x64, well you get 4Gb and it should work too. You'll have plenty of time to upgrade memory when there are problems since upgrading will force you to change both your memory sticks. As an indication, my band studio setting was cubase 6.0 with windows XP and 3Gb RAM .We recorded songs which were something like 120 tracks without memory problems.
 
Concerning the youtube thing, try sharing the audio driver in sonar .You may find there's no problem.Just try and if it doesn't work, try an alternative.
 
Usually, in studio language, speakers may be refered as "Monitors" since they enable to monitor the sound. I agree it may be confusing.
 
One last thing, on a laptop you may not be able to disable onboard soundcard in BIOS. You still can do it in windows device manager, or just not disable it (for a laptop I wouldn't). You then just have to check all the sounds get to you usb soundcard (sometime it's quite bothering). The solution is to experiment.

OK thanks, I am going to spend this weekend seeing if I get any joy with the stuff I already have, just in case I can hear a peep out of Sonar. (I resorted to opening up Programs > (x86) last night and playing 1 second wav clips of instruments, just to hear something in Sonar - lol!)
 
thanks