From little acorns oak trees grow

2 weeks ago I decided to add a decent set of speakers to my computer so I could listen to playback in proper stereo. That then lead to the idea of playing all of my equipment to the one set of speakers. So I added a Gemini GEM-12USB mixing deck.

Once I had the mixing deck in place I wanted to feed sound back to the computer to record it in Audacity. This revealed that the feed from the computer to the mixing desk was mono. A quick change of leads between the computer and mixer solved that problem. I now had lovely stereo going to the speakers.

Next idea was to take an output from the mixer back to the computer, but this dropped and stereo output from the mixer desk down to mono again which was no good.

After some YouTube research I realised that I needed to add an “audio interface” contraption between the mixer deck and the computer.

I ordered a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 4th Gen USB Audio Interface and plumed it in. As if by magic I am now able to record music from the computer, out to the mixing desk, to the audio interface and back to the computer for recording in full stereo and that’s brilliant.

Finally, with all this equipment plugged in and working I needed one last bit of kit to complete the setup. A nice condenser microphone. Enter a FDUCE SL40X XLR Dynamic Microphone hot from Amazon.

What next I hear you shout.

Well, a lot of testing and working out what everything does and how it all interacts with everything else. Then, once I’m happy I’m going to have a go at doing a little podcasting. No idea how that will work out but I’m going to give it a good shot!