14 Tips To Get Started With The Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd gen

in this video i'm going to share 14 tips to help you get started with your focusrite scarlett solo third gen or this should even work with your focusrite scarlet 2i2 audio interface as well now tip number one is register your focusrite scarlett solo or 2i2 on the focusrite website and this is why you'll get access to all of the free software that comes with your audio interface and the plugins that are included with the hitmaker expansion that comes with your focusrite audio interface gives you everything that you need to start creating your first or your next single from the daw that you can record in to drums and high quality reverbs mastering plugins and more it's all on there for free you just need to register your audio device and it only takes like a minute or two to do that now tip number two is after you register your device keep checking back into your account in the my software area and this is because you're automatically enrolled in what focusrite calls the plugin collective and this gives you a new free premium plugin every one to two or three months they always keep things flowing on there so check back often you never know what you're going to find on there and once they're gone they're gone you can't get those for free and i've gotten some pretty nice plugins from the plugin collective and once you register your audio device you're in there for life so even if you stop using your focusrite audio interface you can still go back to the collective and grab whatever new free plugin they have on there all right we're at tip number three and i just want to say that tip number three four and five are kind of more specific to windows users but you still might want to check this out even if you aren't a windows user so tip number three comes after you register again you want to download the focusrite control software and what this does for windows users is installs the actual azio driver the driver that installs by default when you first plug in your audio interface that's not an azo driver and it could cause latency issues the azio driver is going to give you the lowest amount of latency and that's if you're playing your guitar and you strum you're going to hear it as you strum the higher the latency when you strum your guitar you're going to hear it after you actually strum so if you want to play in time or sing in time then download that focusrite control software and use the azio driver and tip number four goes with that previous tip once you install that focusrite control software and you get that azio driver make sure you go into your daw and switch the driver type to azio and then you select your audio device from the list in there and this is going to allow you to get the most out of your audio interface's capabilities and now tip number five goes with the previous tip once you've switched your daw over to the azio driver you want to be able to be in control of that latency setting so after you switch your daw to azio you'll see an azio control panel button click on that and then you can adjust the latency settings in there i always start out with the smallest number which gives you the best latency or the lowest amount of latency and then if that works you can leave it if you start to notice some audio dropouts or maybe some pops and clicks or just weirdness with your audio you might want to go back in and then put it up one notch and see how that works for you and continue to do that until you get the best latency setting for your computer personally i haven't had an issue with the lowest number yet and the latency on the focusrite scarlett solo third gen is actually quite impressive but one thing to note the further you get into a project if you have a ton of plugins in there and a lot of tracks you may need to go back into your azio control panel and just put it up another notch now what i like to do is get all of my recording done first so then that way the recording's done with the lowest possible latency and then when i get to the mixing phase if i have to turn up the latency everything's already recorded so it doesn't really matter that much alright tip number six if latency is still an issue for you even after you lower it all the way you still have an issue with latency maybe your computer can't handle it then use this direct monitor button right at the end here and what this allows you to do is hear the audio exactly as it's going in so you're not hearing it go to the computer and then back you're hearing the audio as it's going into your audio interface tip number seven is to make sure you disable the 48 volt phantom power before you connect your condenser microphones and phantom power is not needed for dynamic mics or instruments or anything like that only for your condenser mics or maybe you have an inline microphone preamp you can use the 48 volt phantom power for that but make sure you turn it off before you connect it and turn it off before you disconnect it because you can damage your microphone or that preamp that you might have connected you may get away with it once or twice if you do it by accident but try to be diligent just in case all right tip number eight is setting your ideal levels for recording your microphones or your instruments or line inputs whatever you're recording you want to set the ideal levels and to do this you want to use the halo leds that are around your gain knobs this will help to guide you the volume slider in your recording software isn't going to help you get the ideal levels that are going in it's only going to adjust the volume of the signal that's coming in so if your signal's too low it might still be muddy but it's just going to be louder if you crank up the volume in your daw or if you're clipping on your interface it still will be clipping even if you turn down the slider in your daw so you want to control the ideal levels for whatever it is you're recording with the gain knobs on your audio interface and use that halo light to guide you so what i do if i'm playing guitar i'll strum as loud as i'm going to be strumming while recording and then i'll adjust the gain knob until the level is just starting to get into the orange on those halo lights and then i'll just turn it back a notch and then that way it mainly stays in the green but maybe sometimes it hits the orange but you never want it to get into the red or you might start clipping and if you're not really even getting into the green that means your levels are too low so start cranking them up until you get into the green because too low of levels are going to make you sound muddy alright tip number nine is if you're recording an instrument into your focusrite scarlet solo third gen you want to make sure you put that into the instrument input and also make sure you press the instrument button so it's on instrument mode or else your guitar or bass or whatever you're recording in there might sound muddy because you're not getting the ideal levels all right tip number 11 is when you're recording your vocals give the air mode a try this is going to add some brightness to your vocals but it might not suit your voice all the time or at all so make sure when you try it you're trying it out in a mix so you can hear what it sounds like in a mix because on its own it may sound great but once you get it into the mix it could be a little harsh or something like that so recording your vocals try the air mode see if it works on your voice if it doesn't keep it off and if it does work keep it on there because this is an excellent little added feature on your focusrite scarlett solo tip number 12 for using your focusrite scarlet solo third gen is if you don't already have a daw or maybe you're kind of still searching for the right one for you give the included ableton live light a try it's an excellent piece of software and you can create many different genres of music with it ableton live light does have an eight-track limitation but i was able to create two songs in it very quickly and the track limitation really wasn't an issue and i'll link to the videos that i did where i show you how i made the two songs in ableton live light just in case you want to check that out now tip number 13 is something that kind of confuses newcomers to audio interfaces and that sort of thing it's where do you plug in your speakers or your headphones now you want to plug in your headphones to the audio interface itself not into your laptop or your desktop and you want to plug in your studio monitors or speakers into the rear of the focusrite scarlett solo not into your computer essentially this takes over as your computer's audio interface and there are ways to get around that if you still want the audio to come out of your laptop speakers you can use something like azio for all which does allow you to route audio so you can use this as an input and then your laptop speakers as an output but there is some added latency to that so i just recommend using your audio interface as the input and output device all right tip number 14 and i actually have a bonus tip after this so there's more than 14 tips here but tip number 14 is when you're recording make sure you record to a mono track each of these inputs on your focusrite scarlet solo third gen are mono inputs there are only one input so your line in or instrument that's a mono so make sure you record to a mono track there or your microphone is mono make sure you record to one track there now if you want to record both of these inputs at the same time just set up two tracks in your daw and set one for input one and the other for input two arm both for recording and record and you'll record both things at the same time if you do end up recording one of these inputs to a stereo track what's going to happen is you'll either have audio only on the left side or only on the right depending on which input you use and there are ways to fix that but make your life easier and just start by recording to mono tracks right away all right bonus tip time tip number 15 for using your focusrite scarlett solo third gen is when you're connecting a microphone be sure to use a xlr male 2 xlr female cable and that way you're going to be going into your microphones preamp if you use one of those xlr to quarter inch cables that's going to bypass the preamp and on this interface you can't even put those into the microphone input that has your microphone preamp and what happens if you use one of those is you're not getting the same impedance level so say you use one of those cables and you connect it to the line input you may get some audio in there if you're using a condenser microphone but the levels are going to be off because the line input is looking for line level and the microphone is outputting at mic level which is a lot lower than line level so it's going to sound muddy it's not going to be as good make sure you use that xlr male 2 xlr female cable for connecting your microphones and it's an absolute must if you're using a condenser microphone because the 48 volt phantom power won't go through those other cables now check out a song i made from start to finish using the focusrite scarlett solo third gen audio interface and the included software just click the video on the screen and if you liked this video please give it a thumbs up also subscribe to the channel for more videos like this thank you so much for watching for audio tech tv i'm zane keep creating and we'll talk soon

Channel: Audio Tech TV

Views: 169,204

Keywords: focusrite scarlett solo 3rd gen, focusrite scarlett solo, focusrite scarlett, getting started with focusrite scarlett solo, audio interface, focusrite, focusrite scarlett 2i2, scarlett 3rd gen, usb audio interface, scarlett solo, scarlett, audio interface setup, home recording, focusrite scarlett 2i2 3rd gen, focusrite scarlett solo setup, scarlett 3rd generation, tips to get started with the focusrite scarlett solo 3rd gen, focusrite scarlett solo 3rd gen usb audio interface

Id: FZlBa-eiz3A

Length: 11min 0sec (660 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 06 2022