Audio is low when recording

[Arsenio Oro]

I started my transition to cakewalk from digital workstations like VS2480 and such and it is a different world. DAW's make life easier in general. But some things I can't figure out. I would take my time and learn everything without haste. But time right now is an issue and I need to know why whenever I record the guitar, it sounds low. But when I play it back it sounds as it should. I don't have latency or anything. I checked everything on my interface and it's near peaking. I checked cakewalk and there is nothing applied to the track. Everything is working well. I just want to know what's going on.

 

I use octa capture from roland. Here are my pc specs. Not that they matter that much for audio. These days any gaming desktop will be good enough for recording audio.

CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X 32-Core, 64-Thread Unlocked (5.0GHz) OC'ed
MOBO: MSI Creator TRX40
RAM: XPG SPECTRIX D50 128GB (8x16GB) DDR4 4400Hz
GPU: XFX Speedster Radeon RX 6900 XT Ultra 16GB GDDR6
SSD: XPG GAMMIX S70 2TB (OS, Games & App's)
SSD: XPG GAMMIX S70 1TB (Recording)
HDD: Seagate Exos X18 18TB Enterprise (Storage)
CONTROLLER: Roland A-800 PRO
HEAGSETS: AKG HSC271
SOUND CARD: Roland Octa-Capture
PSU: Corsair HXi Series 80+ Platinum Certified PSU

[rsinger]

I have a quad-capture. Taking the output from a speaker attenuator into the QC I can go from -inf up to 0.5 in CbB. At 0.5 it red-lines and sens is at12 o'clock and peak lights up on the QC. If I'm using an amp sim I like to be between -4 and 0 dB.

[Arsenio Oro]

Input is loud in octa-capture. I can see the signal. I can also see it in cakewalk, almost about to peak. But what comes out of the speakers is low when I am recording or in live feed. But, when I play back what I recorded is loud.

[rsinger]

OK. Is the level on the Master, if that is where your output is, does that look right?

[rsinger]

The controls are a bit different than the QC. That sounds like it could be the Direct Mix on the OC. Do you have input echo enabled when you're tracking? Input echo in CbB.

Edited May 19, 2022 by rsinger

[Arsenio Oro]

master is at 0dB on octa and so is in the cakewalk. The echo is disabled in cakewalk Didnt see anything about echo on octa. When echo is on in cakewalk I do hear it louder but thats just because the signal was doubled and it sounds doubled. Not lagged or echoed tho, Which is god. Means system is fast enough to lag it behind too much. But I hear it doubled. Man this is weird.

Edited May 19, 2022 by Arsenio Oro

[rsinger]

Try turning the Direct Mix off on the OC. That lets you hear what's going into the I/F. Enable Input Echo in CbB and that should be OK. That way you're hearing what's being tracked.

[Arsenio Oro]

omg. You wont be able to guess. Listen, I've been doing this for a long time. I mastered on classical guitar, but I took a minor on sound recording engineering. So now that you know get ready to laugh at me. it was the simplest thing and I made it more complex than what it was because I'm use to old machines which were much more complex. This daws are so much friendlier overall. Anyway, when recording it, it was on stereo. The recording was paned to the left, "for some reason". I didn't put it there lol, I swear. I have to look into that later. So, today I was leaning more to that side since my rig is slightly to the left and OfCourse when you pan a stereo track to one side it sounds slightly higher than split evenly. Isn't that just freaking mind blowing? That people always go for the most complicated thing when in most cases it's not. Ehhhhh. . . . Sorry

[rsinger]

np, glad you figured it out.

[John Vere]

The default settings for input is stereo. You have to select either right or left in the input menu to record mono.  I gets a lot of newbies. 

[Starship Krupa]

Not to worry, I've been using Cakewalk for years and still sometimes forget to record a mono signal to a mono track.

Welcome!