Anyone ever used a EM-U 0202? Playback/Record Volume

[Capture pt]

Hello,

So when I go to record my Volca with my EM-U 0202 it's a bit of a pain,

On the direct monitor it's loud enough,

But when it's into my DAW (FL Studio) it's REALLY quiet. Like barely registering on the meter quiet.

However if you turn up playback volume in Windows - the record volume raises also to normal levels.

Which is great if you just want to record one sound, or rip a vinyl, or a synth line already written - but if you want to jam along to whatever you have in your DAW it's impossible as everything is playing back at 100% volume and you still can't hear the synth!

Is there any way around this?

I can only really think of two ways - neither of which are ideal:

1: Compress the shit out of the quiet signal so I can jam at normal listening levels, once I'm happy record with volume up and compression off. Doesn't really help if I want to record whilst jamming.

2: Route through my Xio synth which records via it's built in soundcard & USB - use the blank Int patch so there's no effects processing on top of the signal. Means I can't use my Xio at the same time as my Volca, but at least I can jam with one or the other at normal volume.

So has anyone ever used a EM-U 0202 and gotten around this or figured a way to raise the record volume inside Windows without raising playback?

(Or if anyone could recommend me a cost-effective upgrade to my EM-U unit I could hunt for 2nd hand that would be cool also.)

Note: I am not using the gain nobs on the front - they are set to 0db - whilst they do raise the volume, not enough to record loud enough or jam with so fairly useless.

Cheers!

Let me know if clarification is required - that might not of made perfect sense.

[nowaysj]

I use the Emu 1616m, with Patchmix, their virtual mixer. Does the 0202 use Patchmix. I assume it does. A very powerful mixer capable of very flexible routing, so much so, it still to this day leaves me scratching my head.

[Capture pt]

I think the 0404 and 0202 USB didn't ever get patchmix support, which sucks

[nowaysj]

OH ouch, didn't know that. Sorry to hear it. Patchmix is pretty sick. I can take audio from youtube, run it into ableton, send that output to a hardware fx, and then bring it back in and send it to flstduio. Hehe.

Lemme look into the 0202 bidness.

[nowaysj]

Yeah man, I couldn't read your first post for some reason, like my brain wouldn't let me do it.

Do you have your synth plugged into the two inputs on the back, one is a 1/4 inch, the other is a combo jack, xlr/1/4 inch?

If so, I believe that you have to turn up the knobs on the front to an acceptable level. Those knobs control the gain of the preamps in the 02. A preamp is an amplifier that is used to boost line or mic level signals. In this case, line level coming from your synth.

If I'm misunderstanding your setup, lemme know.

[nowaysj]

Yeah, I've thought for a moment more. You need to turn the direct monitor way down, and turn the preamps up. You should turn the synth almost all the way up. Listen to your synth's output as you turn it up, somewhere around 90-95% all the way up on the master volume you're going to hear the thing get real noisy. Back it down until that crazy noise goes away. Then you should have a toasty signal for your preamps. You shouldn't need too much gain, but you should need some. I don't know if the output of the volca's is that high, or that xio synth, or whatever it is you're recording!

The direct monitor feature is pretty dope, it lets you listen to your signal in real time, without latency, which is great. A lot of sound cards you can only monitor audio once it has gone to the daw and back out, introducing ~20-30 ms of latency. Which sucks if you are a virtuoso like me (irony). But, I think you're hearing a really loud direct monitor signal, and so are turning your preamps way down.

[Capture pt]

Hey man thanks for replying -

The issue was strange. Even with the preamp dials cranked the whole way, unless you had the windows "master" volume up full it would still hardly register on the DB meter.

Anyway, I found a fix. I bought a 2nd had Focusrite 2i2 for £60. Problem solved!

[nowaysj]

haha!