Live Mix Recording
This message I recieved vai my contact form from a gentleman named Francois.
How do I record while mixing songs to later be burned to cd?
There are a number of ways for you to record one of your live-mix sessions and using a computer is just one of them. Now I am assuming that Francois is in fact using a CPS to mix with, so my first recommendation is to use a seperate somputer or CPS to do the recording. To do so, you will of course need a means of cabling the audio output of your mix to the audio input on the second computer. You will also need a means of monitoring the audio as you are mixing - this is best accomplished using a mixer. Last but not least, you will also need to use a program to record the mix so that you are able to edit and save the audio in a lossless format for burning to a CD at a later time or date.
What Do I Need?
In other words, you will need two computers, a quality mixer, a pair of headphones or studio reference speakers, good sheilded audio cables (preferably balanced), software to mix with, software to record with and a good quality CD/DVD-ROM burner to get some good recordings of your live mixes on CD.
Obviously your CPS is going to already have the software installed that you mix with and hopefully it has a high-quality audio card built into it. The computer you are using to record with will of course also need to have a high-quality audio card as well as software to record with, such as Adobe Audition or the equivalent. Good, shielded and preferably balanced audio cables will help to keep out unwanted noise from your recordings, so you also need to use a decent mixer that will not introduce a bunch of line level noise - unfortunately this eliminates the use of most DJ mixers, use a studio or live mixing board for the best results.
How Do I Do It?
Its really not that complicated once you have the proper equipment. Hook your CPS up to a good mixer and connect your recording computer to one of the record or line level ouputs of the mixer. You will also need to plug your headphones or tie your studio speakers into one of the outputs of the mixer too. Set your computer to record and monitor the input levels while you are just playing some music from your CPS and adjust the volume levels. Once you are ready to begin, start your computer recording before you start mixing. Mix to your heart’s content then stop the recording.
Once you are finished recording, you then edit your raw recording to get rid of the silence or junk at the beginning and the end of your recording. If needed, you can run a gain scan on the edited recording to boost the volume level some - but don’t over do it! Once you are done editing, save the mix as a wave file to your computer in a folder called My recordings or whatever you like to call it. Now you are ready to burn it to CD and share your latest funkadelic mix with your friends.
FYI: There is already an entire chapter of the Advanced CPS Concepts book dedicated to going into much greater detail and examples of this very subject. Stay tuned for a release date!
Tags: audio, computer, cps, disc jockey, dj, hardware, live, mix, recording, software
