Spec please: microphone for son's singing

A lot of this is above my head, but I am still not feeling any the wiser about the best way I should go about connecting a 1/4-jack headphone output to what look like RCA inputs on the USB mixer I've been looking at. Is it going to work if I get that, an XLR lead for the mic and a 1/4 to RCA lead for the amp output?

It would be great if this would work as it would just leave me needing to buy the mixer and a couple of cables, but if it won't work I may need to look at another mixer or amp.
 
strumpusplunket said:
He has a Ross Fame amp (it is pretty damn old, back from when I briefly thought I might switch from classical to electric guitar as a teenager!), and also a Marshall portable battery-powered one. Both do have headphone outputs (as well as the line-out on the Ross amp), but they are 1/4-jack outputs and it looks like the inputs on the Behringer amp above are RCA (unless I'm wrong about that? Only going by the pictures, tbh).
Click to expand...

On the picture I posted above my guitars are in normal jack inputs so you go out of the 1/4" jack on the amp into the 1/4" jack on the Behringer.
The guitars are in 2 and 3.
The RCA's are for a little trick you can do with the Behringer when recording to get zero latency.

q502usb2.jpg
 
SonicSW20 said:
Then you should know that Line level inputs are not suitable for directly connecting to electric guitars or similar because the impedance of that input is too low.
Click to expand...

and you should also know that even though not perfect it will still work.
One of the first tests I do on stage if somebody's instrument isn't working is connect it directly to the mixer, if it works then we now know we have a problem with pedals or the amp.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
and you should also know that even though not perfect it will still work.
One of the first tests I do on stage if somebody's instrument isn't working is connect it directly to the mixer, if it works then we now know we have a problem with pedals or the amp.
Click to expand...

Fine as a troubleshooting step, but you never want to record or perform with this setup, which is the point.
 
strumpusplunket said:
A lot of this is above my head, but I am still not feeling any the wiser about the best way I should go about connecting a 1/4-jack headphone output to what look like RCA inputs on the USB mixer I've been looking at.
Click to expand...

Look at my picture in post 42, my guitars go into the 1/4" jacks on the mixer.
From the 1/4" jack output on the amp connect to a 1/4" jack on the mixer.
if there is a volume control for the 1/4" output on the amp turn it to low and slowly work your way up, you don't want to overload the inputs on the mixer.
 
SonicSW20 said:
Fine as a troubleshooting step, but you never want to record or perform with this setup, which is the point.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I probably got confused with what you were saying up above however my acoustic plugs directly into a 3000 watt PA through a Woody pickup and it sounds awesome.
That's not a Behringer mixer though, it's a 24 channel Presonus digital thing that my soundman controls.

presonus.jpg
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Look at my picture in post 42, my guitars go into the 1/4" jacks on the mixer.
From the 1/4" jack output on the amp connect to a 1/4" jack on the mixer.
if there is a volume control for the 1/4" output on the amp turn it to low and slowly work your way up, you don't want to overload the inputs on the mixer.
Click to expand...

Ah. I see there you have 1/4" inputs on your mixer. I was looking at the Q302USB, which looks like it has RCA only?

51BA6bcSZmL._AC_SX425_.jpg


The 502 looks a much more straightforward option then. Not too much difference in price, either. Cheers. It looks like that should do the job we need.

Just one last question on that: I notice that the 502 has XLR and 1/4" inputs for the mic. Is there much difference in which I'd use for the Behringer Ultravoice mic? I only have a 1/4" cable at the moment, but could get an XLR one if it would work better.

Thanks for all your input on this! :D
 
You'll need an XLR cable, looking at the manual the jack connection is a line in only. You can only use one of these at a time on the channel strip, so while you're using the XLR (mic) input, you cannot use the line in on channel 1.
 
strumpusplunket said:
Ah. I see there you have 1/4" inputs on your mixer. I was looking at the Q302USB, which looks like it has RCA only?
Click to expand...

I did suggest the Q302USB originally until I knew you also wanted a guitar inputted and then suggested the Q502USB which has one XLR for mic and 3 normal inputs.

And what Sonic says, use XLR for the mic.

If you are going to order make sure you get the USB.
Behringer recommend you use ASIO4ALL drivers to connect to the computer but I found their proper Behringer ones which were better for me.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
I did suggest the Q302USB originally until I knew you also wanted a guitar inputted and then suggested the Q502USB which has one XLR for mic and 3 normal inputs.

And what Sonic says, use XLR for the mic.

If you are going to order make sure you get the USB.
Behringer recommend you use ASIO4ALL drivers to connect to the computer but I found their proper Behringer ones which were better for me.
Click to expand...

I think I have it now.

Thanks for the heads-up on checking it's the USB version. I just had the non-USB one sitting in a shopping basket!! :o
You just saved me some hassle there!

Cheers! :)
 
Don't use ASIO4ALL if there are manufacturer specific drivers. Why would they even recommend that? wow! that's bad advice. Having played with both for my thing I found a signifcant difference between the two.
 
Well, I placed my order last night for the Q502USB and some leads to connect everything together.

Many thanks for all your help with your replies, especially @SexyGreyFox who suggested this mixer. :D And all those who patiently helped me understand the ins and outs of connecting different inputs/outputs together.

Looks like it should be a good solution. Fingers crossed I can get it all working. I may well be back in this thread asking for help in a day or two...
 
I am indeed back with some noob questions!

The set-up works well using the mic in the XLR input. It sounds good and works fine in Windows (just using the existing USB audio drivers and it's showing us as MIC USB Codec in the sound settings).

Now, what I have no clue about is how to get his guitar working as well and what we do once we've got it working!

Presumably it should be connected from the line out connector on his amp? But then how can we record that and his voice at the same time? If there is sound from the amp won't it ruin the recording? But with the sound down on the amp he can't hear his playing.

But more importantly I can't see how to get his guitar channle actually picked up in Windows. I've opened Audacity and I don't even know what setting I need to use to make it register the inputs. Presumably it would need two channels?

Bascially - mic on its own is fine. Guitar as well, I am completely lost. I don't know the basics of where to even start! Is there a dummies guide to getting started with this? The included instructions don't really help at all.
 
If the mic is working take it out and put the guitar in the jack input on that channel - does that work?
if so put the mic back in, put the guitar in input 2 and make sure the level is turned up on that channel.
Personally I would install the ASIO4ALL drivers or I can even put the old Behringer drivers somewhere for you to download.

I'm busy until tomorrow now.
 
Just a thought that some of the others might agree with, if the computer is using a MIC USB Driver then that might be all it is taking down the USB cable from the mixer and that's why inputs 2, 3 & 4 don't work.
Definitely install better drivers.
 
Once you've installed the drivers you need to go into the inputs setting inside audacity and route the detected inputs to a specific channel. It's been a while since I used audacity but I think even it can handle 4 channels simultaneously. I might be wrong like I say it's been several years since I stopped using it (switched to cubase). Cubase definitely needs manual setting up from within the software
 
I spent a bit of time this weekend messing around with the set-up, and I am a bit less confused, but still pretty confused!

So, the guitar plugged straight into input 2 works fine, and we can record both mic and guitar at the same time. However, the only input showing up is still Mic USB or Mic Audio Codec. They are not showing up as separate channels. This is with the ASIO4ALL drivers installed.

It's good to know the mixer seems to be working, but it's not a very good solution software-wise. He can't really play the guitar this way because he can't hear his own playing, and it would be good to have guitar and vocals going into separate channels for recording.

I've no idea what else to do now, though. The manual isn't very clear (to me, anyway!), and I am totally new to all this!
 
It's what I've kept saying - it sounds to me like what you want is an interface with headphone out and low/zero latency source playback for monitoring, as well as for overdubbing i.e layering recordings.

For the channels you might need to check the manual to see whether that device will pass separate audio streams simultaneously to the DAW software. If it can, then you either 1) just need to set up the software to handle things better or 2) need to install the manufacturer's ASIO drivers and then set up the software.

Edit: also see here for audacity specific guidance: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/multi_channel_recording.html

and make sure you have got a version of audacity that can use ASIO drivers. it sounds a bit complicated. I think it was this that drove me to ditch it and just pay for cubase in the end. It was a while ago now.
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/asio_audio_interface.html
 
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