- Hi, I'm Jordan from Kettner Creative.
In this video, I wanna show you six different ways
to connect your audio mixer to your computer.
Now, you might be trying to do some audio recording,
some video conferencing, or some live streaming.
Either way, you have an audio mixer that you wanna use,
you just need to figure out how to connect it
to your computer.
And I'm gonna show you all the different options
that you can do that.
In front of me today is a Yamaha MG10.
This is an extremely popular audio console.
This is the MG10 XU, which also has a couple other options,
which I'll show you throughout this video.
Now, the outputs of this mixer.
It has XLR outputs and quarter-inch outputs,
so if you have a mixer with RCA outputs,
I'm gonna show you how that works as well,
but I won't be able to let you hear
how that solution sounds.
Connected to this mixer, we have the Shure SM58,
which is quite possibly the world's most popular microphone,
and that will allow you to hear what's coming
out of the mixer into the computer.
Now, if you wanna see pricing or specs
for anything that you see in this video,
please check out the description below.
We have pricing and specs and info on where
you can buy everything that you see in this video.
The first cable that I'm gonna show you today
is a cable that goes from the RCA output of your mixer...
Again, this mixer doesn't have RCA output,
but I just wanna show you right off the bat.
So we go "Stereo RCA output,"
you plug those into your mixer,
and on the other end of this cable
is an eighth-inch or 3.5 millimeter jack.
Now you can plug this into the microphone input
on your computer.
If your computer does not have a microphone input,
a lot of computers do not anymore,
then you can use something like this.
This is a USB sound card.
So this will plug into the USB on your computer,
and you'll get a headphone output and a microphone input
for your computer.
So you'd plug this into the red microphone input
for your computer, and that would give you sound
to your sound card.
So I'll plug this USB sound card into the computer now,
but like I said, I don't have RCA for this mixer,
so we can't test how it sounds.
The next option I'm gonna show you is very similar
to the last option I just showed you.
This cable goes from dual quarter-inch cables
that you can plug into your stereo output of your mixer,
and on the other end of this cable,
we have an eighth-inch jack or a 3.5 millimeter jack.
Now you can plug this into the microphone input
on your computer.
If your computer does not have a microphone input,
you can use this USB sound card,
and you'd plug this into the red input
on that USB sound card.
In your computer, you go into your system preferences,
you select your sound settings,
and you select your USB audio device.
Now, I'm gonna pick up my microphone here,
and you can see that it has output.
I'll let you hear how it sounds and let you be the judge
if this is a solution that will work for you.
So, again, this is just a microphone connected
to the mixer, dual quarter-inch output
into a USB sound card.
And for me, I had to convert USB to USBC
to get it into the computer.
This is what that sounds like.
The next option that I'm gonna show you
is very similar to the last option,
again, except this cable goes from XLR
that you'd plug into the output of your mixer,
and then it goes to the same 3.5 millimeter
or eighth-inch jack.
So you can plug this into the headset
or microphone input on your computer,
or, if your computer does not have a microphone input
that would fit this jack,
you can buy one of these USB sound cards,
and you'd plug this into the red input
on that USB sound card.
Now I can speak in the microphone, and, again,
we can see that it's quite hot.
So I'm just gonna turn this down...
Check, check one, two.
There you have it.
So we connected an XLR to headphone jack cable,
ran it into a USB sound card.
We converted that USB to USBC to get into the computer.
And you can hear how this sounds as well.
The next option I wanna show you is a simplified version
of the previous three that I showed you.
This one kind of takes out the USB sound card.
It has that built into it, and it goes XLR to USB.
So plug the XLR into the output of the mixer.
Again, you can see here that this is clearly
a mono solution, and then we'll plug this into the computer.
So you'll select the USB audio device
in your sound settings on your computer,
and we will talk to the microphone.
And this is what this solution sounds like.
So you can see there that we're getting input level.
This volume is quite low on the mixer to make this work,
and that's because this cable is expecting
a mic level input from the XLR end.
So we have to turn it down quite a bit
because this is a line level signal coming out of the mixer.
So you have to tame that output to try...
Bring it somewhere close to a mic level signal,
and then it's going into the computer through USB.
And this is what that sounds like.
Next, we have one of my favorite solutions
for connecting a mixer to your computer,
and that's to use a USB audio mixer in the first place.
If you're lucky enough to have a USB audio mixer like this,
it sends a stereo output of the mixer
through a USB jack on the back of this mixer,
and it goes straight to the computer that way.
So I'm gonna grab my USB cable, plug it into the back
of the USB audio mixer, and plug that into the computer.
We'll select the MGXU in the sound settings on our computer,
and we'll speak into the microphone here.
You can see that we're getting a level that's right
down the middle, so we can adjust that if we want,
but it's a digital signal that's going into the computer.
That means that the mixer itself is doing the converting,
and it's sending a digital non-degrading signal
to the computer,
and the computer is just putting that in
as a stereo input source.
So this is guaranteed to give you a stereo input
into whatever software you're using,
whether it's Logic, Ableton, Qbase, Pro Tools,
or any other piece of audio software,
it will be as a copy of the stereo output
coming from the mixer.
So here's how that solution sounds.
The next option I wanna show you isn't quite
as elegant as the last option,
but it will work, and it'll get you just as good
of a quality of signal.
So that would be to use a USB audio interface
plugged into the output of your mixer,
and it will convert the signal to be a digital signal
going into your computer.
So we'll put that there.
We'll connect our USB cable to the computer.
That will pow...
And we'll connect that to the back
of the USB audio interface.
Then we'll connect the XLR cables from the stereo output
of this mixer into the two XLR inputs
on the USB audio interface.
(silence)
That's the first cable.
(clicking noises)
We'll do the next cable.
(Velcro tearing)
(clicking noises)
Then you'll select the Audio Box 22 VSL
and your sound input.
I'm gonna pick up the microphone here,
and you can see that we're getting a healthy level
from the solution, and we're getting a left and right output
from the mixer through the USB audio interface
into your computer.
So there you have it.
You have six different options to choose from.
You have the RCA to headphone jack into the USB sound card.
You have the dual quarter-inch to headphone jack
into the USB sound card.
You have the XLR to headphone jack into the USB sound card.
You have the XLR to USB cable into the computer,
and then you have the full on digital signal
coming from the audio mixer,
and you have the digital signal coming
from the USB audio interface as well.
So there you have it, six different options.
By far, my two favorite options,
the two that I recommend, are using a USB audio mixer,
or plugging your mixer into a USB audio interface.
I think that's how you're gonna get
the highest quality sound,
but not everybody has the same budget
or the same quality needs
for whatever project they're working for.
So I wanted to show you all of them.
Again, if you wanna see pricing or specs
for anything that you've seen in this video,
please check out the links in the description section below.
Also, if you have a comment or a question,
please leave a comment in the comment section below.
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Thank you for watching.