15 Feb
2016
15 Feb
'16
4:06 p.m.
On Sat, 13 Feb 2016, Daniel Sheeler wrote:
What does it mean for a soundcard to provide hardware
monitoring? And
when you monitor a recording, don't you want to hear a signal coming
from the DAW instead of bypassing it or something? I'm just generally
confused about what is meant by HW monitoring :D.
A sound card that has HW monitoring, has both a direct output of the audio
input as well as the audio from the computer. There is normally some kind
of mixer to mix the two together so you can hear them both at the same
time. The idea is to not get the DAW to output the audio that you are
recording, only the audio that has been previously recorded. Many Audio
interfaces (small 2 io units) have a "balance" knob that mixes
input monitoring with output from the DAW. If the card itself has no hw
monitoring, an external mixer can do the same thing. In fact many of us
use an external mixer anyway... just because it is there and also because
it is often more flexable.
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net