What have I forgotten how to do? (Reaper/monitoring)

[Armistice]

So I haven't recorded any vocals for over a year and everything else I've been doing is straight out of some box or other into the computer via SPDIF... ie. no microphones.

I'm trying to record vocals and I simply cannot figure out why I can't hear the vocals as I track through Reaper. I've done this a million times in the past but just can't see what I'm doing wrong....

So I can hear the backing track and I can bounce that around wherever I want via the interface UI, but I can't get the vocals coming through the headphones - now they ARE being recorded, no problems, I just can't monitor them as I record. And yes, I've tried all three positions of the track monitoring button - all the same. Nada.

I got around it temporarily by plugging the headphones into the interface and doing some re-routing there... so I'm not sure if this is an interface thing (strong suspicion) or a Reaper thing, but I haven't changed anything that I'm aware of, since I last recorded vocals.

Any suggestions?

[JD01]

You got a direct monitor button on your interface?
Don't you normally have your headphones plugged into your interface?

[CrowsofFritz]

You got a direct monitor button on your interface?
Don't you normally have your headphones plugged into your interface?

This, but @Armistice if you want to monitor using the DAW, click that Play button next to the “Mic/line” section.

[Tadpui]

That is strange. Normally if it's armed for recording and the monitoring for the track is set to either "on" or "auto", you'll hear it back.

Any FX inserts active on the track, or is it totally dry?

It sounds like you've been able to direct monitor through TotalMix (@JD01 @CrowsofFritz ...RME makes it a little more complicated than other interfaces to direct monitor. There's no single button to press, instead it's done through routing with their mixer app. But same end result.)

My first thought was that the track wasn't armed for recording, which disables monitoring for that track. But if it's recording to a waveform, then obviously it's armed.

If you click on the "sends/receives" button for that track, is the Master Parent Send box checked? Do the meters on the master move when you speak/sing on that track, or just the meters on that one track?

[Armistice]

You got a direct monitor button on your interface?
Don't you normally have your headphones plugged into your interface?

No, I have my headphones plugged into my headphone amp - have for years - so two people can listen - singer and engineer. Useful for Jongleurs stuff when I'm recording the other guy.

RME doesn't do buttons - it's all controlled via Total Mix, the UI. Last night was the first time I even realised that the interface had a headphones output. Never used it.

[Armistice]

That is strange. Normally if it's armed for recording and the monitoring for the track is set to either "on" or "auto", you'll hear it back.

Any FX inserts active on the track, or is it totally dry?

It sounds like you've been able to direct monitor through TotalMix (@JD01 @CrowsofFritz ...RME makes it a little more complicated than other interfaces to direct monitor. There's no single button to press, instead it's done through routing with their mixer app. But same end result.)

My first thought was that the track wasn't armed for recording, which disables monitoring for that track. But if it's recording to a waveform, then obviously it's armed.

If you click on the "sends/receives" button for that track, is the Master Parent Send box checked? Do the meters on the master move when you speak/sing on that track, or just the meters on that one track?

Exactly - it normally just works by default.

New track. Armed. No inserts on track. It records fine. I can hear the backing no problem. Pretty sure it was registering on the master track, indeed I was later attempting to do a second harmony line against the first I'd recorded using the headphones/interface method.

Not sure about the Send routing. I'll check that when I get up.

I'll also do the latest Reaper upgrade it's been nagging me about since about 5 minutes after I last installed one, on the theory that they broke something in that version I'm using and quickly patched it with another.

I'll report back later in the day. Too early for this stuff now.

Cheers.

[CrowsofFritz]

What I mean is, is the number 2 in this picture pressed?

https://ibb.co/H7q0sgM

[rayc]

Interesting set up. I have my headphone amp, (used for the same reason though a little redundant no), running from the headphone out of the interface which gives me the direct option but it's an SSL and Reaper doesn't get in the way. When I was using my older, better Scarlet interface I often had obscure problems arrive via the Mix Control software. Sorry, I can't help.

[Armistice]

What I mean is, is the number 2 in this picture pressed?

https://ibb.co/H7q0sgM

Yep - it's set up correctly - just not working... anyway, fixed, see below..

[Armistice]

Interesting set up. I have my headphone amp, (used for the same reason though a little redundant no), running from the headphone out of the interface which gives me the direct option but it's an SSL and Reaper doesn't get in the way. When I was using my older, better Scarlet interface I often had obscure problems arrive via the Mix Control software. Sorry, I can't help.

My set up seemed completely logical to me - I just assign the master outs to a couple of the actual outs on the interface, pipe L & R to the headphone amp, pipe the L & R outs of the headphone amp to the monitors and then I never need to worry about Total Mix routing - or almost never.

When recording vocals I just put the backing track low in one ear and the recording vocal higher in the other ear - people can then do what they like with the cans on, one can off, halfway thing.

I'm not much of a "levels" guy, but are the levels via a stereo headphone output the same as the levels via a line out on an interface? I would have thought headphone outs would have a boosted level, and dropping that into a headphone amp would cause you problems with overloading / clipping of the signal - only as you're listening to it, obviously, not in the recording.

When recording I just flick the Mute button on the headphone amp and listen via cans only.

[Armistice]

So I don't know exactly what I did - except upgrade Reaper - but it's working now. There was nothing in the upgrade notes about fixing this problem, but this wasn't necessarily the next sequential upgrade anyway...

My other theory is because I've recorded everything else, and the mix is running already at about -6db on the master, that perhaps it was there but I just couldn't hear it because at that level a normal mic recording isn't going to stick out so much... been a while since I did this, and anyway, I'm going to have to turn all the tracks down anyway to do final mix/master so I did that as well.

Can hear it clear as a bell now! Who knows...

Other interesting thing was, as I was verifying it all worked OK I realised it was actually pretty quiet, so I set up and got the other half of the backing vocals done - there'll be the occasional bird squawk and car shushing past that I'll have to deal with but the BVs are very repetitive group of the same short phrase mainly, done one of two ways, alternating - so simple enough to snip a problematic one out and drop one in from further along if I need to...

Cheers all, we're back in business.

[Tadpui]

Glad that you got it sorted! That's definitely a head-scratcher, but I'm leaning towards your same explanation...that there was a bug of some sort in that particular version and it was subsequently fixed in a later release. That's my best guess, at least. On to the recording part of recording, then!

[rayc]

I would have thought headphone outs would have a boosted level, and dropping that into a headphone amp would cause you problems with overloading / clipping of the signal - only as you're listening to it, obviously, not in the recording.

Yes, getting a clean sound took some tweaking of out & input but I found the sweet spot & it sits that way.