Recording USB Microphones

MIXING & EFFECTS

Recording with USB Microphones and Headsets This feature is available only in Producer Edition

This section covers the special issues raised by USB microphones.

The problem: If you use the F10 audio settings to select your USB microphone, then you can't hear sound from FL Studio and if you select your soundcard you can't record your microphone. Most ASIO soundcard drivers only support one audio device, that means you can select either to your USB microphone or soundcard but not both at the same time. You need both!

The solution: ASIO4ALL allows you to select independent input and output audio devices within the same soundcard driver. This section will assist you in setting up ASIO4ALL to work with your soundcard (output) and USB mic (input) simultaneously. After these steps you can review the normal recording procedure here.

Using a USB Microphone or Headset

This procedure is provided for your convenience, we can't guarantee that it will work as not all soundcards are compatible with ASIO4ALL, but most are. The aim is to set your USB mic as the ASIO input device and your soundcard as the ASIO output device.

  1. Install ASIO4ALL - Download ASIO4ALL here. The default FL Studio installation includes ASIO4ALL so it should already be on your PC.
  2. Select the ASIO4ALL driver - In FL Studio press F10 to open the Settings window and open the audio settings options. Select ASIO4ALL in the Output window.
  3. Open the ASIO4ALL driver settings - Click on 'Show ASIO Panel' in the 'ASIO properties' section to open the ASIO4ALL driver window.

  4. Select the 'Advanced' options - in the lower right of the ASIO4ALL options window (click on the picture of Einstein, toggles between Bush and Einstein to show what state is possible if clicked, see below).

    5. NOTES: 1. If any of the inputs/outputs of the devices in the 'WDM Device List' have a RED X through them, it means they are 'unavailable'. This occurs when they are being used by another audio application. For example, programs such as 'MSN Messenger', etc. can tie up inputs/outputs so, close FL Studio, close all programs that may use audio (MSN, Skype, Winamp, 3rd party Audio Editors, etc.) and try again. 2. If your soundcard inputs don't show in advanced mode, try downloading the latest driver for your soundcard.

  5. Select the input (ASIO mic) and output devices (your regular soundcard) - In the example above the host PC has an X-Fi Soundcard and a Plantronics USB Headset (with mic), your options will probably differ. Enable the devices you wish to use (at the highest level in the list) and then expand the options for each device by clicking on the (+) tree-view symbol to the left of each device name. Disable the input on your soundcard (since you want to take the input from your second USB device) and enable the input on your USB Microphone or Headset. Conversely, you will need to enable the output on your soundcard and, if the second USB device has an output (as USB headsets often do), disable it. In the picture shown above, the green notes show the active devices and inputs/outputs.
  6. Success? If you have set ASIO4ALL correctly your ASIO mic should appear as an input option to any mixer track, while the audio out from the mixer (master track) should be routed to your soundcard, as usual.
  7. Return here to follow the normal recording procedure.

Note about latency: USB microphones generally only allow you to hear the sound being recorded after it has passed through FL Studio. As the latency of USB microphones depends on the ASIO4ALL latency settings, there may be a troublesome delay between the sound made and it being reproduced from your speakers or headphones. For example, low latency monitoring is particularly important to vocalists as high latencies cause a distracting echo effect. The only solution to this problem is to lower your buffer length settings (there are limits) or obtain a new soundcard with direct-monitoring.