If I’m sending MIDI data, I know that I can route MIDI over USB into my DAW (Presonus One Studio) on my Windows laptop but what if I’m sending that MIDI data to an external device? If I’m trying to send audio from my Korg Volca FM 2, it uses an 1/8" phono plug (TRS); if from my microKORG, it’s a 1/4" plug. Would you run that straight into the headphone jack of the laptop? Is there a better (cleaner) way to get it into my DAW?
Do you know of any dongles that would plug into a high speed USB port that could provide the audio to my DAW?
Hi, generally speaking to do what you would like to do, you need an audio interface. Some devices serve a double function also as an audio interface and can transmit audio over USB, in your case the korgs you’ve mentioned have audio out of the TRS , either 1/8" or 1/4" respectively, so to get that directly into a daw you need a third device which converts the analog signal to digital and passes it over USB, that’s the audio interface.
If you have a digitakt or a syntakt or something, a zoom h1n, various synths etc which can double as an audio interface, you can use one of those instead, otherwise a dedicated audio interface is what you’d require as the microphone jack on a PC will yield very poor recordings.
Sometimes it’s easier to record to a digital recorder or something which stores the audio on a micro sd card, and then transfer the audio into your daw using a USB dongle type card reader, or using your phone or something else which can be read by the PC as a mass storage device.
definitely true. specifically there’s usually a lot of noise from the computer itself blended in with your signal. not desirable. I wonder if machines are better these days, because I haven’t tried this in a couple decades. I doubt it…
when I first got started, I was using a MiniDisc recorder! but hey, it worked!
@Tomasthanes welcome! and fortunately for you, audio interfaces are better and more affordable than they used to be. there’s also a lot more of them. so the problem is usually which to choose! there’s lots of great guides on this. like this one:
feel free to ask here as well. I’m sure you’ll get a lot of opinions and great advice.
but hey, it worked!