hear the mic realtime?

Hi,

is there anyway for me to hear the mic realtime through the speaks/headset instead of recording and then listening back to it?

dave

sounds like you may have some latency issues... it would be EXTREMLY helpful to know what recording program you are using and how fast your system is.

chances are you just need to switch your output to headphones, computer or something rather than an output in the interface (what are you using for an interface btw?)

this is just using garageband or anything.


there isn't latency, no sound at all. it records fine but i just want to hear it through the speaks like a normal mic and amp system.

i am new to macs btw. i know with windows you can just turn the vol up on the mic and it comes out through the speakers even without software.

i want to do that basically.

hope that makes sense.

Here's how you do it for a new Podcast.

Open GarageBand.

Start a new project, a Podcast.

Push the "View Track Info" button.

Select Male Voice (or Female Voice) in the Tracks area.

In the Track Info area, you'll see a selection for "Monitor" and it will likely be "Off". Set it to "On". Understand you could get lots of feedback if the speakers and microphone are too close. Using headphones solves that quickly.

Now for some fun.

If you open Details at the bottom of the Track Info area, you can play with things such as Speech Enhancer. If you select Vocal Transformer, you can choose many variations:

Male to Female
Female to Male
Droid
Chipmunk
Cartoon Falsetto

The gender benders are really good. Try 'em both!

Below that you can choose additional Garage Band Effects. AUMatrixReberb on the left with Pres 8: Cathedral on the right is very interesting.

Hope this helps. ^_^ Have fun!

thanks dude, thats awesome.

but now i have the latency problem lol. it seems to delay by a second or so.

Regarding latency, it can be reduced. At least I seem to be able to reduce it on my MacBook.

It seems GB is sensitive to when you plug headphones into the jack. It's better if you plug them in before starting GB. Otherwise, it seems to get really weird. If you're running GB, unplug headphones, and then plug them back in, you can get latency in the 2 to 4 second range. Close and restart GB to nearly eliminate latency.

(Occasionally some application will be running on the MacBook that will cause GB to hang for an instant. This can cause latency to jump. Restart GB to fix it.)

Simple effects such as Podcasting microphone effects (Male Narrator for instance) cause minor latency. Significant effects, such as the Vocal Transformer effects, take more processing and result in greater latency. While I've not done a formal measure, those effects probably result in 0.1 to 0.2 seconds of latency. To avoid stumbling over your words, listen actively to your spoken voice, and hear secondarily what's coming through your headphones.

Hope this helps!

ok thanks mathogre, i will play around with things a little later.

it is probably because i have a few programs running. didn't think that would effect it too much, but apparently it does.

mathogre said:

Regarding latency, it can be reduced. At least I seem to be able to reduce it on my MacBook.

It seems GB is sensitive to when you plug headphones into the jack. It's better if you plug them in before starting GB. Otherwise, it seems to get really weird. If you're running GB, unplug headphones, and then plug them back in, you can get latency in the 2 to 4 second range. Close and restart GB to nearly eliminate latency.

(Occasionally some application will be running on the MacBook that will cause GB to hang for an instant. This can cause latency to jump. Restart GB to fix it.)

Simple effects such as Podcasting microphone effects (Male Narrator for instance) cause minor latency. Significant effects, such as the Vocal Transformer effects, take more processing and result in greater latency. While I've not done a formal measure, those effects probably result in 0.1 to 0.2 seconds of latency. To avoid stumbling over your words, listen actively to your spoken voice, and hear secondarily what's coming through your headphones.

Hope this helps!

Click to expand...

That's crazy, and not in a good way. I've never had latency issues with my setups, it's weird that a program for recording would cause latency issues. I wonder how it is with an external sound device.

a doubt

Hi there,

Thanks for your post @mathogre, it was really helpful for me.

Besides hearing in real time the sound of a line-in mic, I'd like to answer to that input using a bluetooth speaker.

But as the input is busy and the output too (which is the real-time sound I'm hearing), how can I create another channel for a different output to be able to answer to what I'm hearing?

Sorry for my newbie Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
windomearle

I am not an audio genius so I might have misunderstood what is needed here. Fortunately if I am wrong it will vost you absolutely nothing.

To be able to here the results of a line in mic Rogue Amoeba | Freebies: Free Software for Mac OS X should do the trick

As for the more complicated issue of shifting things to various outputs I think Rogue Amoeba | Audio Hijack Pro: Record Any Audio On Mac OS X has this as one of its many fetters. It may take some tweaking to get the setup right. I seem to remember trying it once nd then not needing that feature by the time I got it working.

Hi @Slydude! Thanks for your quick answer ^^

And sorry for my late reply.

I went to the websites u posted here, they are really helpful in another contexts, and that's why I already put the links on my bookmarks.

The part of listening a line-in micro in real time, I used one that communicates through radio waves, and it worked for me. However the distance between the micro and the receptor cannot be too much. Besides that, the receptor has to be at least at same height as the micro is.

In relation to send audio to the bluetooth speaker, I was being silly I did have the input and output busy, but as the bluetooth speaker doesn't use cables, I just didn't need any. I just paired the device with my computer and send the audio I wanted to it.

Unfortunately I realized something else during the experience in loco.. The distance the speaker gets connected is too little for my purposes, so for now, I gave up to the experiment without cables.

If anyone wants to have more inputs and outputs available, it's better to use a sound card. I never used one, but maybe it's not that hard.

Take care.
Cheers,
windomearle