Trying to Record...Failing.

[xzin]

So, I'm kind of a noob when it comes to sound recording tech. I own an M-Audio FastTrack recording interface. I'm trying to record a guitar part into FL Studio. The instructions it came with are for the software they use, but I don't know how to use it. I own both FL Studio and Adobe Soundbooth, but I can't figure out how to get it to record into either. Any advice would be amazing, thank you very much.

[DusK]

I'm not sure how you'd set up whatever software would have come with the FastTrack (I use a POD Studio Pro UX1), but once have your processed signal, it should be assigned to sends. Usually it's sends 1 and 2. Figure that out from the manual or something.

Pop open FL Studio, hit Options -> Audio settings, and select your FastTrack from the drop-down menu at the top.

I record using Edison. You'll want to set a mixer track's input to "Send 1 - Send 2", and open Edison as an effect on that channel. Bring up the Edison window, hit record, play, stop recording when you're done. Then just click and hold the Drag button and bring it into FL Studio's playlist; it's the second button from the right.

Usually, I set Edison to record on play, so it snaps to grid correctly, but if your comp's a bit on the weak side, you might not be able to set your buffers low enough to do that. I also usually mute my Recording channel in FL Studio because the phasing from the slight latency screws me up a bit, but isn't noticeable in the final unless I have to boost my buffers to 256 or higher.

Of course, there are other ways to track guitar in FL Studio, like using its built in recorder, but I found Edison to be the quickest, easiest, and most useful option.

[Nabeel Ansari]

I think Edison is the worst possible idea for recording into a song project. Because then you have to save the file, then open it as an audio clip and put it in the playlist.

Why bother?

Just record into the playlist. Quick and painless and takes two clicks. If you need to slice it around, do it right in the track on the playlist. If you need to REALLY get fancy with the editing, then simply go to the audio clip, right click and hit edit. It'll open edison, then you can make your changes there and save over itself.

[DusK]

I think Edison is the worst possible idea for recording into a song project. Because then you have to save the file, then open it as an audio clip and put it in the playlist.

Why bother?

Dragging it from Edison to the playlist actually auto-saves it as "Dragged sample #" in your sliced beats folder or your whatever folder your current project is set to in Project General Settings and sets it to wherever you dragged it to on the playlist. It's actually way quick. I've never had to do all those steps.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Dragging it from Edison to the playlist actually auto-saves it as "Dragged sample #" in your sliced beats folder or your whatever folder your current project is set to in Project General Settings and sets it to wherever you dragged it to on the playlist. It's actually way quick. I've never had to do all those steps.

Even then it's still easier to just record straight to playlist.

[ectogemia]

Dragging it from Edison to the playlist actually auto-saves it as "Dragged sample #" in your sliced beats folder or your whatever folder your current project is set to in Project General Settings and sets it to wherever you dragged it to on the playlist. It's actually way quick. I've never had to do all those steps.

I did not know this. I thought doing quick edits in EDISON was super cumbersome what with all the saving, searching, and reloading into a new audio clip. This will save a ton of time. Thanks

Even then it's still easier to just record straight to playlist.

Learn to give people some credit, man... there are shades of grey between black and white.

[DusK]

I did not know this. I thought doing quick edits in EDISON was super cumbersome what with all the saving, searching, and reloading into a new audio clip. This will save a ton of time. Thanks

I don't even do much editing in Edison tbh. Most of my editing occurs on the playlist itself. What I do is just kind of another way of doing what Neblix does, just with a bit more setup and the advantage of looping a section of the track and doing multiple takes without having to click anything while I'm playing. That and the whole not saving the audio until I drag it onto the playlist, which saves a lot of HDD space when you're doing music like I do that's almost entirely audio tracks.

Learn to give people some credit, man... there are shades of grey between black and white.

Well, he's half-right. Recording directly into the playlist like he described is about as easy as my setup. And that works great if you're just recording something here and there. But switching over to Edison and handling all your tracking there for songs that are pretty much all recorded audio is just easier to work with in my experience. He's just unfamiliar with how I handle it is all, so he doesn't know exactly how quick and easy it is to do once you have it all set up.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Learn to give people some credit, man... there are shades of grey between black and white.

You should try taking your own advice some time.

[SnappleMan]

Hahahaha, kids.