[Tekker]

This is a short tutorial on how to adjust the volume levels using your soundcard's mixer window (for standard and onboard soundcards). At the end there is also a tutorial on how to use the soundcard's mixer with a recording program to adjust the volume levels so that you will not clip while recording. To demonstrate this I will use the free recording program Kristal Audio Engine.

Contents:
• Soundcard Mixer
• Setting Volume For Recording Program



Soundcard Mixer

To open the soundcard's mixer, double click on the speaker icon in the task bar.

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NOTE: If you do not see the speaker icon, then go to the Control Panel and open Sounds and Audio Devices then under the Volume tab, check the option to Place volume icon in the task bar. The speaker icon should now be visible in the task bar as shown in the image above.

The first screen when you open the soundcard's mixer is the Playback Mixer.



We will go into these controls later, but first click on the Options menu, then Properties.



This is where you can select which volume controls you want to see (so you can adjust them) and also where you choose to adjust the volume levels for playback and for recording. Choose to adjust the volume for recording (I generally make sure all of the volume controls are selected except for video) and press ok. You should now be looking at the Recording Mixer.



This is where you adjust the volume for recording. First you need to make sure that whichever input you are plugged into on your soundcard is selected. For example, if you are plugged into line input on your soundcard, then select "Line In" in the recording mixer. Likewise, if you are plugged into the mic input on the soundcard, then select "Microphone" in the recording mixer. The fader determines the volume that is sent to your recording program. The section below describes how to use the recording mixer to set the volume for recording program.

NOTE: In the recording mixer, if you select Stereo Mix (this could also be called "Record What You Hear", or something similar depending on your soundcard) then this will record "everything" that goes through your soundcard. In otherwords, if you have a backing track playing on one track in your recording program and you try to record your guitar to another track with the stereo mix selected, your new track will contain BOTH your guitar and the backing track. Or if you record with a click track, your click track will be recorded along with your guitar. This is usually not desireable, so if you notice this happening then go into the recording mixer and select the line input (or the mic input if that's what you're using) instead of the stereo mix.

Now we'll go back to the playback mixer. The playback mixer is used to control the master volume, media file playback (wave), cd-rom volume, as well as the volumes for the line in and mic input. In the playback mixer, adjusting the volume for the mic/line input does not affect the volume of the signal that is sent to your recording program. These volumes only adjust what you "hear" while you're recording. So for example, if you are plugged into the line input you can turn the line in volume all the way down in the playback mixer and you won't hear anything through your speakers, but your recording program will still get volume from the line input as long as the line input is turned up in the recording mixer.

[Tekker]

Setting Volume For Recording Program

For this section I will use the free recording program Kristal Audio Engine, but the concepts will apply to any recording program. I will only use Kristal to illustrate the basic concepts, as each recording program will be a little different.

First, in your recording program arm a track for recording and then choose the input that you are plugged into on your soundcard. In my case I am using only the "left side" of the line input. The line input is selected in my soundcard's mixer and therefore the analog in shown in the pic below represents the line input.

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When you play your instrument you should be able to see the input meter moving for the track you are about to record on. In the picture below, my volume is set to high and the meter indicates the signal is clipping. This is what we are trying to avoid so we'll need to fix this.



To fix the clipping problem, open up the soundcard mixer on top of your recording program and go to the Recording Mixer (as illustrated above).



With the mixer on top of your recording program, you can make volume adjustments to the input that you are using on your soundcard (in my case, I'm using the line input) while playing your instrument and watching the input meter in your recording program. It is important to make sure that you play the loudest section of your song so you can be sure you will not clip at any point in your recording. Try to give yourself at least 3dB of headroom just in case you get some wild peaks. It's a little hard to judge in Kristal since there is no dB scale for the input meters, so just eye-ball the meters and give yourself plenty of room. The meters in the image above look alright and that's the highest peak I get while playing my loudest.

NOTE: Another thing to make sure of if you are using a mixer, or a preamp, etc. is even if you are not peaking in your recording program, you still want to make sure that you are not driving the soundcard's input to hot from your mixer or other equipment. You can clip at the input of your soundcard and then compensate for this by turning the volume down low enough in your soundcard's mixer so that your recording program's meters won't indicate any clipping. However, this won't fix the clipping at the soundcard's input. So make sure you are not sending to hot of a signal into your soundcard.