When I record vocals into Au3 I do so without any effects on the channel insert. Once the .wav is recorded the next steps are to maximise the waveform and make sure it's free of noise or other unwanted artifacts. Au3 provides some very useful presets and effects. I wonder if there is a recommended 'step by step' procedure for utilising these? My own workflow is as follows:
De-noise
Normalise to -3db
Compress
Limit to - 3db
EQ
I would like to know if that is the correct workflow and it seems logical to me to leave the EQ until the mixing stage, so it would be premature to EQ any sooner. Echo and reverb are added during the mixing phase either in the channel strip insert or via a bus.
I was previously running Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit on an Acer 5720 with dual core processor. There were some corruption issues with that so I've since had Windows 7 installed but am having some problems:
1) Echoback in the headphones when attempting to record vocals
2) Skipping/pops/clicks - and total freezing requiring shut down and restart using the Task Manager.
There's plenty of room on C & D drive - 54 gig and 32 gig respectively. I'd been advised to save all music files to the internal D drive, as opposed to an external Maxtor HD. It would be better to have the files read internally for faster reading time, as opposed to the external drive and USB. Somone else didn't concur with that advice and said the opposite was true, because of the disc spin rate being faster in the external drive: 5,400 rpm internal as opposed to 7,200 rpm external.
I turn off the internet connection whilst recording and also disable Norton, so as to minimise CPU load and hidden processes.
One other unfortunate problem is that I can't seem to get my external sequencer or Au3 midi sync'd -so each music track has to be recorded in real time, then aligned manually! If the midi timecode would work, I'd not have to do that chore and everything would be kept in perfect time throughout a song. Without the midi sync, tracks tend to drift slightly so then need to be cut up and pasted so that they line up in correct sync.
Thanks to anyone who might reply and I guess others must have had similar problems!