there are two parts to your USB audio
interface setup there's the actual
connecting of the cables and then
there's the software setup and in this
video I'm going to show you both I'm
Zane from simple green tech and on this
channel I do weekly audio tech tips
tutorials and reviews to help you
conquer the tech and unleash your
creativity and now as you can see and
behind me I have a stack of gear over
here that's outside of my normal setup
and for this video I'm using the very
popular focus right - I - to demonstrate
the USB audio interface setup for
beginners now if your audio interface is
different than this one don't worry the
basics are still going to be the same
and I've linked to all of this gear in
the description below just in case you
want to check any of it out it's great
beginner gear and it's pretty affordable
stuff too now let's jump in and first
we're going to look at the cable
connections for our USB audio interface
I'm just going to do a simple setup of
microphone instrument which is my guitar
headphones and studio monitors if you
have a mixer that you want to include in
your setup I've linked to another one of
my videos in the description below that
goes over that now let's look at
connecting our microphone you want to
use a male XLR - female XLR cable for
microphones those XLR - quarter inch
cables won't give you the best quality
and if you use one you can't use the
phantom power if your mic requires it
now let's connect the male end of the
cable into the interface and the female
will go into our mic and in this case
it's the MXL 990 microphone which is a
condenser mic and does require phantom
power now we'll simply connect our
headphones into the front jack and i'm
pretty sure every audio interface has a
quarter-inch headphone jack so if you
have the small style of jack on your
headphones you'll need to grab a quarter
inch adapter next you can connect your
studio monitors and typically these are
quarter inch cables going from the
interface and into the monitors you may
have an interface that has RCA outputs
and you'll need to get a cable like this
as it has RCA on one end and
quarter-inch on the other
also some studio monitors like these
Mackie CR threes have both RCA inputs
and quarter-inch inputs so they are very
flexible with how you connect them
and finally if you're recording an
instrument like a guitar you're going to
want to plug into the instrument input
as most interfaces will have a specific
instrument input or a dual input and
some might have a switch like mine does
here and this one you can switch to
instrument or line a line input is not
the same as an instrument input but
there are some interfaces that can
detect what you're using so it can
detect if you have a line input or an
instrument input and you don't have to
worry about any switches or anything you
may want to check your manual just in
case it's not too obvious on your audio
interface all right I just want to
interrupt and ask if you're enjoying
this video so far and getting some value
out of it can you please hit that thumbs
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out and I appreciate it so much
now let's get back into the USB audio
interface setup okay with all of our
cables connected we can now connect our
interface to our computer for this
you'll want to use the USB cable that
came with your audio interface now once
you connect it to your computer it might
install automatically and even if it
does I still recommend going over to
your manufacturers website and seeing if
they have an updated driver some USB
audio interfaces will just install a
generic driver so be sure to get the
best performance out of your device and
download the driver from the
manufacturers website if you locate an
updated driver or any driver at all on
this website be sure to download it and
install it over whatever the default one
was
and once it's installed open up your
digital audio workstation also known as
a da or da W and if you don't have one
yet I've linked to a video showing you
some of the top free DAWs available at
the time of this recording and you can
grab one of them from there check the
description for that video for this
demonstration I'm going to open traction
waveform as it easily demonstrates
everything but again this process is
going to be very similar across
different programs now in your audio
device type you want to change this to a
Zeo as this is going to give you the
lowest latency and if your does like
mine you'll need to then go to device
after you select a Zeo and locate your
interface in the drop down menu then
click on it if you don't see your audio
interface listed in there it may not
have an azo driver or you may not have
installed the azo driver for it yet so
be sure to check that and you could just
start recording right away but I want to
show you one thing first
it's the azo control panel and you
should be able to access this control
panel from most DAWs that use azo
drivers so click on the control panel
and you're going to see something like
this with buffer length options the
smaller the number means the less
latency that you're going to encounter
the higher the number the more latency
you're going to experience now if you're
trying to record an instrument while
playing a backing track the latency will
affect your timing but here's the thing
you can't just set it to the lowest one
as your system and your audio interface
may not be able to handle it so what I
recommend doing is starting with the
default middle setting see how that
feels and then adjust it as needed if
your computer can handle the lowest
latency setting go for it you may hear
some clicks and pops or sometimes
experience stutters if your computer
can't handle it and if that happens
you'll know to increase the buffer size
and as your projects get bigger and you
add more plugins you may need to
increase the buffer but hopefully by
that time you'll have everything
recorded so it won't matter as much you
can also adjust your sample rate in here
44100 is typical for CD quality and
forty-eight thousand is DVD quality
everything higher you'll need to do some
down sampling later and there's numerous
arguments out there about whether or not
higher sample rates provide better audio
quality but the idea is that you're
recording the most amount of information
and when you down sample it it will be
from a very high quality clip typically
I record at forty four thousand one
hundred or forty-eight thousand
depending on what I'm recording for and
after you set your sample rate you're
now ready to record so create a project
select the input that you want to record
arm the track for recording and hit the
record button
if you want to learn more about
recording and traction waveform free
click this video here or click down here
to see what YouTube thinks you should
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to see more videos from me thank you so
much for watching for simple greentech
I'm Zane keep creating and we'll talk
soon