Hear plug-in while recording

[Cutlerbri]

Does anyone know a clever trick so I can hear the effect of the plug-in while I'm recording? For instance, on a vocal track I want to hear the effect of the AIR flanger plug-in while I'm singing and recording it. Would this be a software thing or a hardware thing? My interface is only an Mbox 2 but is there a way?

Config:
iMac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Mountain Lion
Mbox 2
Pro Tools 11

Brian

[jasonthurley]

Of course, but you may have to set you buffer longer than the desired monitor latency will be.... for instance route the record armed track to an aux and add your verb to the aux.... turn up the send to the desired level... hit record and sing and the verb is there.... If you have reocrd errors you may have to increase your playback buffer and this will push the timing of your vocals back (if this is an adequate amount of latency for you to record with then it would be fine)

The verb (if routed to your master buss (like your recording track should be)) will be in your headphones as you sing.

You will have to set your MBox 2 MIX knob to hear playback only... which is all the way to the right I believe.

If you want to use a flanger on the direct feed, just insert the flanger on the record enabled track and make adjustments, then record...

[jasonthurley]

There is no reason to record the effect to the track as you can record with it in the mix and make adjustments to the plugin/mix percentage later after your done recording....just fyi

[Cutlerbri]

Thanks, Jason. Yeah I'm sure it's not "best practices" and I usually record vocal tracks dry as a bone and process the signal later. I was just wondering if there was a way...

And I suppose one would do it the same way if playing an electric guitar through SansAmp and wants to hear the over driven sound in the headphones. In other words, to "play to" the effect. Yes?

[jasonthurley]

Exaxctly,

If you wanted to print (record the effect on the vocals in realtime) you can insert your phaser (or whatever you want, reverb should be inserted on an aux and the vocals sent to the aux, just fyi...)

send the recording track to a 2nd bus (you can select more than one bus if you hold alt/option (mac) i believe... so you can have it sending to your master output then hold alt and click output again and select a bus, now its sending to both the master out and the bus you selected),

add another audio track setting the input as the bus you assigned the output of the recording track to, arm but mute the 2nd track.

Now record and you will record both the dry signal on the 1st track and the vocals with the effect on the 2nd.....

I use Amp simulators all the time and basically just plug my guitar in directly to the preamp, insert the amp simulator and monitor the results coming out when I play, as long as I only have this going on (not a bunch of tracks and plugins going on) I can reduce the buffer to be pretty close to in time with my playing, atleast good enough for me to track with (If I had an HD system at home it would be different )... but I usually always just record using the plugin on the dry/direct input, so I can always go back and change the AMp simulator a bit or automate it to tweak out specific parts after I have it recorded.