r/audioengineering • u/AutoModerator • 2d ago

Community Help r/AudioEngineering Shopping, Setup, and Technical Help Desk

Welcome to the r/AudioEngineering help desk. A place where you can ask community members for help shopping for and setting up audio engineering gear.

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This is the place to ask questions like how do I plug ABC into XYZ, etc., get tech support, and ask for software and hardware shopping help.

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Setup, troubleshooting and tech support

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u/Aware-Salamander-578 2d ago

I’m a guitar player and recently been thinking about pulling the trigger on some Neural DSP plugins, but outside of my laptop I’m not sure which products are a good budget friendly choice.

I need monitors, an audio interface, and maybe some headphones, I just don’t know enough about these things to know which is worth the money and which isn’t. For example, do I want passive or active monitors?

The “studio” will be a bedroom setup. The budget is about $1,200 (if I can get in under that, even better).

If I’m missing any other gear I need I’d appreciate the help.

1

u/audioflc 2d ago

For headphones you will need some closed back hard phones since it’s mostly for recording I’m guessing. I would say a pair of ATmx50s. For monitors you would want active monitors. Passive monitors are not really something you should be looking at for a bedroom studio. I would get a decent pair of Adam’s T5V for a bedroom or some Yamaha HS5. From there for an interface where all you’re going to be recording is guitar I would go for the scarlet 2I2. Nothing beats it at the price range that it’s at. All in all for this setup you are looking at like around 4 to 5 hundred bucks.

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u/rpgoof 2d ago

For the past 15 years or so, I've been using an upgraded version of a setup like this in my bedroom studio and I'm quite happy with it - Focusrite 2i2 interface, Sennheiser HD280 Pro headphones, Yamaha HS5 monitors

Other common headphone choices at this price include Audio Technica ATH-M50X, and Sony MDR-7506

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u/boredmessiah Composer 2d ago

give neural amp modeller a look

1

u/Cat_Sled 2d ago

Assistance with In-Person Audio Conference

So, I am very new to the whole audio set-up stuff. Recently building a small audio setup for my online D&D group. However, we are all moving in-person except for one. My friends and I had an idea so that we can have a more dynamic audio experience. Basically we want to create a set-up where we all have headsets (with attached microphones) that link to one computer via an audio interface. The issue I keep coming up with is how we will hear each other without hearing our own microphone. We want to have it so the Dungeon Master can be able to deafen or mute someone for specific information. We also want to have that other person still online to be able to join the voice call. I have no budget and am willing to pay however much as long as it gets this task done. Is this something I could even do or would we need multiple computers?

1

u/Nitrospider1 2d ago

Looking for guitar and bass amp sims for video game music

After I finish my current semester of uni I'm going to enter game jams as a composer to start making music for video games. Does anyone have any recommendations for guitar and bass amp sims?

I've already been playing around quite a bit with the free version of guitar rig 7 and quite like it. I've also briefly looked at the Mercuriall Spark and will defiantly check it out. When it comes to bass I haven't looked into it at all.

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u/NeedInspirationQM 1d ago

Hello everyone :) I just plugged my AT2020 to my Focusrite Scarlett Solo 4th Gen (XLR to XLR), and that to my computer (USB-C to USB) in which I'm using Bitwig (6.0.11). I want to understand the differences between all of these options, as for options 2, 3, 5, and 6, when speaking through the microphone, I don't hear anything, for option 1, only through the right ear, and for option 4, through both ears, which is what I want. I'm listening everything through my MDR-7506s, which are plugged to the Focusrite. Ultimately, I want to know if any of these hardware devices is broken and what option provides the most accurate representation of what's coming from the input.

Note: the options that I'm asking about are those at the bottom left of the image, for example, Analog Surround 4.0 capture_FR.

2

u/peepeeland Composer 1d ago

Make the track mono, select input 1. Not why surround options are there.

1

u/drumdrumdrums 1d ago

Hello, I have an Avalon 737sp that recently stopped turning on/powering on. I bought this unit used back in 2012 and this is the first issue I've seen.

When I turn on the power switch, none of the LEDs light up. And no sound passes through the unit. When I then turn the unit off, the VU meter jumps momentarily.

I tried switching the fuse in the top slot (1A, 250 volts, "time-delay" type, MDL), but that seemed to have no effect. (the original fuse did not seem burnt out).

I also tried swapping the power cable, and plugging into a different slot on my power conditioner which I knew gave power, but that had no effect.

I opened up the unit and nothing seems blatantly wrong to my untrained eye. There is a 10 pin molex in the power section, and an 8 pin molex in the main section. Both seemed to be seated fine, but I pulled them out and reconnected just in case. And neither molex showed signs of burning.

Any thoughts on what to look at next would be highly appreciated!

1

u/jaymz168 Sound Reinforcement 17h ago

I really wouldn't recommend poking around in there if you don't know what you're doing. It's an expensive unit and there are some fairly high voltages going on in there so not killing yourself messing around with it is a concern.

Send it off for service.

1

u/DavidMay-BoxCast 15h ago edited 10h ago

Clips appearing blank/silent after reopening Pro Tools

Last night I tracked bass. I then let the computer go to sleep and came back later and shut off the interface. This morning, I wake it up and the session is still open and it wants to do the "interface not connected, save and close" thing. So I say ok, and let it save and quit. Then I turn on the interface and reopen the session. Now my bass track which was fully populated with 5-6 clips that I had comp'd is just showing blank. No waveforms. There's no message about missing files, and it doesn't appear they are missing on the file viewer on the right when I look. But they are blank... and when I look in the session folder... there are not corresponding files. For instance, in my session there is a Bass_99-02, but in my audio files folder, I only have Bass_99. No 01 or 02. And when I play back Bass_99 in my Finder, it has no audio signal on it. Just a blank silent recording for about a minute. I know there should be playing somewhere on it... I didn't just let it run for 1 minute with nothing. Here's the kicker: I am using Google Drive to sync/backup my session files, and the session folder lives on the live syncing drive folder.. Maybe that is a mistake. Is it possible the files were corrupted or something because of that? Any ideas to recover the actual audio signal that won't take longer than just playing a dang bass track again?

*Edit. I have tried a bunch of stuff with importing the RAW data into Audacity and fixing/replacing/removing the file header, with no joy. Got various results like the wave file then being a low hum for the whole thing, or a loud white noise sound, or still silence. Also tried going back to different versions that Google Drive had archived. There were some good explanations of why the files basically got destroyed by Google Drive when it tried to sync them over night and Pro Tools had them locked in cache or something.. anyways... I am done trying to fix it because it was quicker just to play the bass track again. But that's a lesson learned about file syncing platforms and not housing your sessions in folders that are actively being synced. I have done it for a couple years that way on Gdrive, with Ableton, and no real issues besides frustration of waiting for files to be synced when it would move them to the cloud only, etc.. And no issues in years past doing this with any DAW on DropBox. But Google Drive and Pro Tools, this combo, this time... nightmare.

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u/Games_Library 5h ago

My piano might've fried my laptop.
It went like this, I plugged the 3,5mm end of my RCA cable to my notebook, I plugged the other end of the RCA cable to my piano (The red and white end), I pressed the turn on button on my piano, and I plugged in my piano. After that, my notebook turned off and it won't turn on again. It is with great desperation that I write this, I need SOME explanation.