Hello, everyone, it's "
And today looking at how this works in the digital domain, which has a lot of similarities.
so what do we need to actually record and mix in the box?
first, off we will be needing
Our audio interface converts the signal from analog to digital (AD conversion) and also from digital to analog (DA conversion). An audio interface can be called an "AD OR DA" converter.
a
N/B: This audio interface acts like a bridge between our speakers, microphone, and the computer. So we have multiple input and output.
We connect all the output of our instruments, synthesizers, samplers, and microphones to the input of our interfaces to be able to record them.
The output of the interface is being connected to the monitor speakers, mixer, and some outboard gears. The interface works together with a piece of software called the driver.
The driver knows all of the interface's input and the output connected to it. This driver is installed on the computer that the interfaces is connected to, so this way our computer can communicate with the interface.
The next thing that would be needed is a piece of software to help us record and playback our mix with;
Recording/Mixing Software: This software help with the record, edit, and playback our music with. This software is called a [DAW] Digital Audio Workstation. In the settings we need to tell the [DAW] digital audio workstation, We'll need to tell it to use the driver of the audio interface that we're using.
This way the digital audio workstation will use the right driver and will be able to communicate with the audio interface.
Depending on the type of digital audio workstation that we'll be using, we will need to set-up and tell which input and output-ports we want to use inside the software so we can use and route this in and output in our digital audio workstation.
So we can simply say that the DAW is the recording device or our tape machine and the mixing console combine. We can continue to add new tracks and new mix channel and that is something that will be impossible when working with the analog mixing console. So this is quite some advantage when working with a digital audio. The idea of the DAW is that we can create digital tracks, on this track we can select the in and output routing settings that we can do on a hardware device as well. So we can route to different input and output of our interface to these virtual tracks.
a digital audio workstation also has visual busses and auxiliary tracks. Tracks can be routed or send to this busses, and the used bus is the master L/R bus, but we can also create aux and group busses.
basically, we have the same complex routing options as we do in the analog world.
most software mixers also have the auxiliary send. Auxiliary send are busses used to send a portion of the signal to the auxiliary bus, so this won't directly affects the channels sound.
N/B: The auxiliary bus can be routed to an output of the interface or to the master bus.
most digital audio workstations have an insert-point on the channels. these inserts are normally plugins.
N/B: plug-ins can be all types of processors like the EQ, Compressors, gates, reverbs etc. which can be inserted and used in a digital project.
Normally the digital audio workstation is been shipped with a lot of these plug-ins already added, but we can also choose to purchase other plug-ins from third-party developers.
N/B: the type of digital audio workstation that you choose to work with is a personal preference.
There are so many different types of digital audio workstations out there, but it's really hard to say which one is better.
some of the most commonly found DAW are for example;
And other free once include;
So you can see that there is a whole bunch of DAW'S out there and it's really a personal preference which one you will choose to work with.
you can check out our previous post on mixing console, signal-flow and channel strip through this links,
And as always you are encouraged to send in your questions and suggestions through comments and I will do my best to attend to them.
thanks for reading!!!!
until next time.
