Recording vs. Monitoring/headphone levels

[Russell Hansen]

When recording audio guitar and vocals- I go thru and set up each track with effects etc to where they sound good and are at good levels- but  during the performance(actual recording) together I can't hear my vocals loud enough to control pitch and dynamics etc - I don't want to turn up my pre-amp on AI for the vocals as it saturates/over modulates.  Is there a way to set the sound for recording and the adjust it for monitoring while I record?  Sorry if this is a stupid question - thanks for anyone's help.

[scook]

Depends on how monitoring during recording is performed.

Most audio interfaces have a way to adjust the mix of the direct and DAW signal.

If everything is monitored through the DAW try dim solo or create a send for each track to a "monitor" bus and route that bus to interface. This provides level control separate from what the master bus receives.

 

[mark skinner]

An easy way I've found to solve this is to output the vocal track I'm recording to the interface (instead of Master) Then just turn down the master fader until all the other tracks aren't overpowering. My interface direct monitoring is on.  The volume knob adjusts the vocals , the master fader adjusts the backing tracks. Vocal track back to master and master fader back to 0 when I'm done.