Yeti USB Mic -- Cannot Enable

[Sridhar Raghavan]

Connect a USB Microphone

January 29, 2022 16:20

Rather than using an Audio Interface with a dynamic or condenser microphone, a USB microphone is a simple way to start recording with better sound quality than using the mic/headphone connection on your machine. Most USB microphones are plug and play, so you should be up and running in no time!
 

To connect a USB microphone to Cakewalk by BandLab:

Connect your device to your machine prior to starting Cakewalk by BandLab

Launch Cakewalk by BandLab

Go to Edit > Preferences, or press P when the Start Screen is closed to open the Preferences menu

Under Audio > Playback and Recording, set your Driver Mode to WASAPI Shared (Windows 10), or WDM/KS (Windows 7 or 😎

Under Audio > Devices, make sure your device is selected as an Input device. If you’re using the headphone output, also check the Output category. 

Click Apply and OK to save your changes!

The above text is  from the Documentation. 

What I am facing?

I am able to record/play with my Yeti Mic with Audacity and other apps.
But I am not able to get it to work in Band labs.
I cannot select it.
Sorry, If I missed a topic that addresses this specific issue.

Below are three screen shots showing the configurations.
Hope some one can help to nail the issue and get beyond it.

Thanks in Advance.

 

[Sridhar Raghavan]

Just wanted to add the following to get some obvious things out of the way.

Audacity was not running when I am on Band labs. 
I closed and opened Band labs. 
I am on Windows 10, with latest free version of Band Labs.

[scook]

Try deselecting all I/O devices first.

[John Vere]

 

Be warned, overdubbing audio using generic audio drivers will result in a timing offset of up to 1/16 note. USB mikes are gereally for Podcasting and not recomended for serious audio production where timing and sync is critical. 

1-Audio Set up 

 

106-Why ASIO is important 

 

Edited February 11, 2022 by John Vere

[Sridhar Raghavan]

SCOOK

Right on the money!! Thanks for the fast response. 

That worked perfect. I unchecked all devices and then enabled Yeti and recorded.

Just one observation, with Yeti enabled, I am not able to enable the Realtek and Stereo Mix. 
I guess/hope that disabling Yeti will allow me to enable them - and get back to that.

I am sure you will have more insights about this.

 

[Sridhar Raghavan]

John Vere thanks for the quick pointers to your Videos. I will certainly watch them soon.

Thanks also for the insight about USB versus Using via Mixers/Audio Interfaces.  I wanted to see how well USB/Yeti Mics works, and use them accordingly..

I have an 8 Microphone mixer [and several quality XLR Microphones, Condenser and others ] which is my staple for all Family Music Recordings and House Concerts. It is 10+ years old but works very well for my needs. But it is heavy and has large foot print. Importantly has only Audio Line Out,  to be fed to Laptop via Line In.  Unfortunately most of the Laptops have gotten rid of Line-Ins or just give only Combo in mono mode [not sure at what impedance] .  Even my High End Gaming Laptop has the same issue.

I am hoping to get a multichannel USB (3.0 ) Audio Interface. Will look at your videos for insights into them.

 

[scook]

32 minutes ago, Sridhar Raghavan said:

I guess/hope that disabling Yeti will allow me to enable them - and get back to that.

It should.

I have no experience with USB microphones.

The last time I used onboard audio was over 20 years ago.

[msmcleod]

Setting the driver mode to either WASAPI Exclusive or WDM should allow you to select all devices.

A couple of possible downsides:

1. Not all devices support WASAPI Exclusive
2. Depending on what devices you have, you may need to reduce the project bit depth to 16 bit  - not all devices support 24 bit.
3. You may have to manually set each device to the same bit depth/sample rate within Windows itself, and make sure it matches Cakewalk's settings.

WDM should work as a fall-back to WASAPI, but you'll probably not get good a low latency on that mode.   In reality, I've found WDM to be fine for recording with FX off, but I usually have to switch back to WASAPI or ASIO afterwards to work with any reasonable latency.

I'd normally recommend against USB mics in general, especially in Windows as:

1. You're stuck with the pre-amp & audio interface built into the mic, so you can't use a better pre-amp even if you wanted to, and if the USB drivers go out of date, you can't use it any more.  An XLR mic will work with any pre-amp / audio interface you want, and you never need to worry about drivers (well, not for the mic at least).

2. ASIO on Windows generally only supports one device at a time, so you're stuck with using WASAPI or WDM as most USB mics don't have an audio output to stick your headphones into.
 

[John Vere]

1 hour ago, msmcleod said:

ASIO on Windows generally only supports one device at a time, so you're stuck with using WASAPI or WDM as most USB mics don't have an audio output to stick your headphones into.

So therefore you will have sync issues. WASAPI mode is just fine for those who only use loops and Midi but any one who needs to add vocals or live instruments needs an ASIO audio interface or they are hooped 

[Sridhar Raghavan]

MSMCLEOD, JOHN

Very good points and caveats. Truly appreciate these forewarnings.

I have experienced some of these issues with Native Instruments -- which seems to take over the audio devices in exclusive mode - such that I cannot even play YouTube when NI is open!!  I will revisit that front soon, as I am hoping to leverage those assets/instruments with Cakewalk. Would love to have your wisdom related to that as well.

I just did my first test of recording Audio while playing the MIDI tracks.  Worked very well. Adding a screen shot below.

I then played all the tracks.
Midi tracks to my Korg Keyboard;
Audio Tracks to Big Monitor Speakers. Plays nicely.

I  could not see any lags or sync-offs, at least not yet.
Will do some more tests.  

I can also play the Audio via my Korg Keyboard - which I do all the time, but did not at this time.
Yeti also gives me  an Audio Output Jack where I can plug in my headphones.  I have used this also many times. Works nicely.  For this I need to direct my laptop audio output to Realtek (and not the big Monitor). So did not check that at this time. 

Feels like I can really start recording Audio and Midi together on Cakewalk. Really excited. 
I think I may have ramped up to a reasonable initial plateau to be productive as well as explore/harness more/advanced features.

Nice to see integrated Notes for jotting down all the key details related to a project - rather in some external place.

regards
 

 

[John Vere]

Glad to hear it’s all going well. 
If you’re curious about how well your system is syncing you can try a loop back test 

Its tricky with a mike because there’s not direct audio route. 
 

Take a Midi drum track and freeze the instrument to create an audio track. You want a nice obvious transient spike 

Now create a new audio track and set the mike as input and set in record standby DONOT turn on input echo or you will get feedback

place the mike 6” from the speaker and play the drum track testing the level 

Now record a measure

Place the now time right on the original transient and zoom way in and take note of where the newly recorded tracks transient is . 

For my tests I used a buffer setting of 256. A lower setting will give you better results but my system can’t handle lower settings on a day to day basis. Every system will be different.

The tests always came out with ASIO being right on but all other drivers were late by various degrees  with MME being the worst and WASAPI exclusive the closest but still off by 1/32 

So if you can work at lower buffer settings the amount of off set might not even be noticed. And you can adjust for this in the sync and cashing options 

 

[Sridhar Raghavan]

Thanks John, you laid it out clearly. I was hoping to do some test to assess the delay. And this will come handy.  You may have more ideas about using some plain DELAY Effect (or physical shifting of an audio track, as needed) to compensate for the lags and get things musically aligned. Would love to hear your thoughts on that. 

Edited February 12, 2022 by Sridhar Raghavan

[John Vere]

Well the best method would be to figure out how many Milliseconds the new audio is late, or sometimes early, 

To do this set the time line on milliseconds. 

In my first screen shot which is demonstrating Midi latency, you can see the frozen audio track is about 400 ms late of the Midi note but below that is the Loopback using ASIO mode and that track is right on to the Audio loopback. 

So then you enter 400 ms in the adjustment box under sync and cashing( I think it's a negative number so might have to try both - and +. and then re do the loopback test to see if it is now close enough. A little bit is not noticeable but 400 ms is a lot. 

Once this set you should be good to go and not have to think about it.  

This shows testing my Tascam interface. Not all modes are supported by some drivers. 

Edited February 12, 2022 by John Vere