📑 Sections (7)

3. Monitoring: how you hear yourself

The iD44's direct monitoring, the headphone mix and comfort reverb. If you can't hear yourself well, you won't sing in tune.

Many people who “sing out of tune” in the studio really just can’t hear themselves well. Comfortable monitoring improves the performance more than any later correction.

Latency: why direct monitoring is worth it

If you hear yourself through Studio One, your voice goes to the computer and comes back a few milliseconds late. It’s tolerable on guitar; on vocals it’s very annoying, because you also hear your own voice inside your head, with no delay, and the two step on each other.

The recommended setup

  • In the iD mixer: raise the vocal channel. That signal reaches the headphones without going through the computer.
  • In the iD mixer: keep the DAW return up, which brings the track.
  • In Studio One: leave the vocal track’s monitoring off (blue button), so you don’t hear yourself twice.
  • What gets recorded doesn’t change: the monitoring level doesn’t affect the file.

The headphone mix

What you hear while singing is a separate mix, and it doesn’t have to sound good: it has to help you sing.

  • Bass, drums and a pitch reference: a clean guitar or a clear chord. Tuning against a wall of distorted guitars is very hard.
  • Lower the distorted guitars until they stop covering the note.
  • Your voice, at a comfortable level. Too loud, you tend to sing without support and go flat. Too quiet, you tend to push and go sharp.
  • Moderate volume. It protects your ears and keeps the click from leaking into the mic.

Comfort reverb

Singing completely dry is uncomfortable, and a little reverb in the headphones helps you sustain notes.

  • Heard, but not recorded: it goes on a send to an effects channel. The file stays clean.
  • Since the reverb does go through the computer, it has some latency. On a reverb it’s hardly noticeable: your dry voice reaches you directly from the iD44.
  • A small amount. It’s for your comfort, not for deciding the final sound.

Headphone bleed

The NT2-A picks up what comes out of the headphones, and if the click leaks, you hear it in soft passages or at the end of phrases.

  • Use closed-back headphones, if you have them.
  • Lower the click in the headphone mix, or take it out where it isn’t needed.
  • Don’t record with monitors on: turn them off or mute them with the iD44’s control.
🟠 Better to set it now· in recording

A comfortable headphone mix improves the pitch and energy of every take, and it's ten minutes of setup. Correcting an out-of-tune take later costs much more and sounds worse.

Common mistakes

What NOT to chase yet

Quick path: comfortable monitoring

Quick path

  1. iD mixer: vocal channel up and DAW return up.
  2. Studio One: track monitoring off.
  3. Headphones: bass, drums and an instrument with a clear note.
  4. Distorted guitars low and the click at the minimum you need.
  5. A little reverb on a send, if it helps.
  6. Monitors muted.
  7. If you sing out of tune, try with one headphone.

Expected result

Expected result

You hear yourself with no delay, no echo and a clear pitch reference, and you feel like singing some more. If the click can’t be heard in the take when you listen to it alone, monitoring is solved. Now for what matters: the take.