I’m experimenting tonight with recording for the first time, and in my very first attempt I ran into a strange behaviour which might just be the result of my own misunderstanding, but may be a bug in GP.
I’m using VoiceMeeter Banana as my audio interface. I selected to record the first two inputs as a stereo file, and the first two outputs as a stereo file as well.
The first two inputs (“VM-VAIO 1” and “VM-VAIO 2”) have the same names as the first two output channels (“VM-VAIO 1” and “VM-VAIO 2” as well). I had nothing coming in through the inputs so I expected the input recording to be silent, and I was noodling on my keyboards so I expected the output recording to contain a non-silent signal. To my surprise, I only got one stereo recorded file instead of two, called “VM-VAIO 1-VM-VAIO 2.wav”, and it was silent.
Is it possible that GP was attempting to open two files for writing with the same filename, and the second one (which happened to be the silent input recording) clobbered the first one? There was no warning about a duplicate filename, and apparently no option that I can find to choose different nonconflicting names.
When I deselected the input and recorded only the output, I got the non-silent recording that I expected, and when I recorded the output as a stereo file and the input as two mono files then I got a non-silent stereo file (“VM-VAIO 1-VM-VAIO 2.wav”) and two silent mono files (“VM-VAIO 1.wav” and “VM-VAIO 2.wav”) as expected, however there is no indication in the filenames themselves as to which ones are inputs and which ones are outputs. Coming back to the session months later, it would be nice to know which are which! And of course it would be nice to be able to record both the outputs and the inputs as stereo files rather than having to do one in dual mono and the other in stereo.
Maybe I’m just missing something obvious. As I said, this is my very first attempt to record.
Are there any settings where you can rename the Voicemeeter input/output channel names?
EDIT: I renamed the output ports (in Mac Audio MIDI Setup) to be “Input 1” and “Input 2” and I replicated what you were getting: only 1 stereo file saved. I guess GP could prefix the files with “In” and “Out” to ensure they don’t overwrite each other in this scenario.
You might be interested to know that Melda Productions makes a free recorder plugin. It records the inputs to the plugin into a wav file into a folder of your choosing. You just put the plugin - or multiple instances of the plugin - into any part of your audio stream in GP and you have a recording of what it sounded like at that point. It’s proven to be very handy. Best part it is free - along with 36 of their other plugins. See the link below. You can download it individually or the whole bundle (see the icon on the right side of the page). Hope this helps.
On my regular audio interface, the inputs and outputs are differently named and there it turns out that I’m able to record both at once with no issue. (No surprise.)
I use VoiceMeeter as the audio interface on my “development machine” (an older laptop that I use for internet access etc., and that I use when I’m practising at home and working on my gig file), and I only use my hardware interface, an evo8, on my “performance machine” (a newer laptop that has nothing installed on it except for GP and plugins and which never touches the internet).
If you’re curious as to why I’m recording inputs and outputs, here’s my situation: the inputs that I am recording are a stereo board mix from the FOH engineer (including my keyboards in the mix), and the outputs that I’m recording are the stereo keyboard mix from Gig Performer which I send to the FOH. I want to record both so that I can use them in postproduction (along with some room mics possibly) to create the best audio mix for YouTube videos of the band.
This is an excellent idea. I probably already have that plugin installed on my system! I’ll check it out. That way I’ll be able to record my keyboards with different effects (e.g. less compression) than the mix I’m sending out to the house. Thanks!
Yeah, I wish I could say it’s an original idea, but I had an issue/question with recording audio streams in GP trying to track down a problem and one of the other community members pointed me to this Melda plugin. I have used the GP recorder but this plugin is just so handy that it’s all I use now. And like other plugins in GP, when you bypass them it uses no resources and you get the visual indication/confirmation of it’s state. And like so many other things, you could automate its control in so many different ways, thanks to GP in general and GP scripting.
