Audio Interface with Adobe Audition 1.5

[Paukel]

I'm using Adobe Audition 1.5 with Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 interface. I can set the input to Scarlett OR output to scarlett and it works perfectly but if I set both input and output to the Scarlett Adobe freezes and gives an error saying another program may be using the same device, but there is no other program running.  This means that I can't use it for recording. I have to use my stand alone multitracker and then play each track in turn into adobe audition which is very time consuming.

Is there a way around this problem or is this just a limitation of this old version of Adobe Audition?

Any help will be much appreciated.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Which driver are you attempting to use?  You should have a choice of two I think and it's worth trying both. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work, although if it doesn't, it's likely to be a combination of the OS and driver preventing it, I think - Audition 1.5 has always been perfectly happy to use a single device for input and output.

[Paukel]

Thanks for your reply Steve. I hadn't thought about drivers because Windows recognised it automatically but I have now downloaded the driver from the Focusrite website and it has cured the problem to a degree. I can now use the Scarlett for both in and out but I can only hear what I'm recording if I set it to direct monitoring which means I hear what I'm singing before it goes into the computer.

You see what I'm trying to achieve is to be able to hear effects when I'm singing but have it recorded dry. I thought I could do this by arming two tracks and having effects on one but I don't seem to be able to monitor what's being recorded. I've watched a lot of Youtube videos on recording with a usb interface and a computer but none of them have explained how to have effects while recording but to have the track recorded dry. This seems to me to be an essential part of a recording set up.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Audition only records dry - even if you put effects on the track. And that's by design. The problem with having effects on a track is that for them to be there, the signal from your sound device has to be digitised, pass into Audition, then be passed through whatever effects you are using, then sent back out, and converted back to an electrical signal again in your sound device. Invariably this takes some time - and in a slower machine, quite a lot of time; a significant fraction of a second. And that will screw with your head!

That's why generally, it's not the done thing to record whilst you are listening to effects, because it means that you have to have Audition's  monitoring turned on, rather than using the direct monitor path through your sound device. So you hear yourself delayed, and that's what messes with your performance. The effect is called 'latency', and it's completely unavoidable - even on state of the art computers.

And this is why there's a direct monitoring path through your sound device. It's generally guitarists who insist that they can't perform without about six effects at once, and the only way they can really manage that is to use external 'real' effects, which of course don't suffer from processing delays.

So even if you record with effects on a track in Audition, the moment you remove them afterwards, you'll find you have a dry track; those effects were being fed back to the output, but that's all they were - not recorded at all. The only way to record those effects at the time is to feed the output back to a spare input and record that. Not much point though!

[Paukel]

Thanks again Steve. Good explanation. I was aware of the latency problem but I thought there might be a way to compensate for it. I don't think there's many singers who would want to sing without any effects. I guess I'll just have to stick with the long winded way that I have been doing it using the multitracker (which allows me to sing with effects but records dry) and then playing each track seperately into the computer to add EQ, effects and mastering.

I'm wondering if I could do it by adding a mixer before the interface. I would have to play the tracks from the computer into the mixer, sing along and then use an Aux out with only the dry vocal on it back into the computer. I'm not sure if that could be done and I'm guessing that the latency would still be a problem.

I wonder how it's done in a recording studio where there's a mixer desk and computer but you can have as much or as little FX as you want in the cans.

As you can tell I'm not too well up in all this stuff.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

The answer to how 'they' (and I!) used to do it in the studio is simple - generally the only thing a singer wants in the cans in the way of effects is reverb. A physical reverb unit doesn't have latency delay, so you put that in the direct cans feed, and still record dry. Of course you can put anything else you like in the feed as well, but generally that's all they want - zero latency and reverb.

[Paukel]

But then you'd be hearing reverb on the backing track as well which wouldn't be good. I'm guessing you'd have to send a separate feed from each track and only put the vocal through the reverb unit and then put them through another mixer before the head phones. I'm sure those big studio mixers would have that facility but my wee mixer wouldn't.

I think I'll just stick with my wee setup.

Thanks again for your help. Very interesting.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

No, you don't get reverb on the backing track. All feeds can be isolated, so that the backing track is fed clean, and only the foldback channel has the reverb. It works fine, honestly - I still have a small reverb unit that will do this if necessary. The reverb doesn't get recorded at all.

Even small mixers often have foldback channels, and that's all you need to set this up. Your problem is that the 2i2 isn't a mixer!

[Paukel]

Eureka. The answer was staring me in the face. Pllugged in my A&H Zed10 FX mixer, connected the usb lead from it to the computer and opened Adobe Audition and to my surprise I discovered that I can have effects on the desk but everything is recorded dry on the computer. I can play the backing track from the computer and record the vocal at the same time. I don't need the Focusrite at all. The Zed 10 does it all. Can't wait to try a few songs with it.

Thanks again for your help..

Kenny.

[Richard M Knight]

Is it possible to monitor the vocal direct without latency using the interface but have 100% wet effects from the audition track. this will have some delay but often you add predelay to the reverb anyway.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

That's true - delayed reverb is the only effect that this works with though, and you still have to be careful about how you set it up.

[Paukel]

Hi Richard,

I think that's what I tried but it didn't work. I tried arming two tracks and having effects on one and leaving the other one dry but I found that I wasn't able to hear what was being recorded while I was recording it. I could only hear it when I played it back afterwards. The only way I could hear myself was to use direct monitoring which means you only hear the dry vocal going into the computer. I'm not sure if this was a problem with my Adobe Audition 1.5 or my drivers or whatever. I thought it should have worked and I'd be interested to hear if you can get this to work.