Questions & Answers

Mic and headphone monitor splitters?

+1 vote
2,620 views
asked Sep 13, 2016 in PreAmps, Signal Processors and Monitoring Hardware by dversch (230 points)
Hi. I have two questions.  I'm using an AudioBox 22VSL and Studio One 2 on a Windows 10 PC:

1) My microphone plugs into only one input on the AudioBox, so I end up with mono vocal tracks.  Is there some sort of adapter or splitter that I can get so that I can input to both ports and record stereo tracks through my microphone?  (Or can this be done in software somehow?  I'm using Studio One 2.)

2) I'd like to be able to have two people monitor while recording.  The AudioBox 22VSL has one headphone jack.  Is there some kind of adapter or splitter that can split the output from the headphone jack to two separate sets of headphones?

Any specific product recommendations for either of these questions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

2 Answers

0 votes
answered Sep 15, 2016 by PreSonuSales2 (68,140 points)
 
Best answer

1) Is there some sort of adapter or splitter that I can get so that I can input to both ports and record stereo tracks through my microphone?

** Can you elaborate a bit as to why you'd like to record your vocals in stereo? Most of the time, vocals are just tracked in mono. After you've tracked it, you can then duplicate the recording in Studio One and then move your duplicate to a second track. If you're thinking something like "I want to put my one microphone over my drums and record in stereo so that I can pan the hi-hats to the left and the floor tom to the right", you won't be able to do that with one microphone. You'd want to get a second microphone and utilize the second input on your interface.

2) Is there some kind of adapter or splitter that can split the output from the headphone jack to two separate sets of headphones?

** Yeah, any 1/4" TRS to Dual 1/4" TRS Dual splitter ought to get the job done. Keep in mind, this won't give you two separate headphones mixes - you're each going to hear the same thing in your headphones.

0 votes
answered Jun 26, 2017 by jaysays (190 points)
I know this is a bit of an old question, but I wanted to weigh-in on the answer provided to the question, "Is there some kind of adapter or splitter that can split the output from the headphone jack to two separate sets of headphones?"

I found this answer trying to solve the problem for myself, but a TRS 1/4" splitter did not function as expected with my audiobox headphone output.  It split the signal so that the mix came out in "mono" - so only sound in left headphone of one set and right in the other and it seemed to degrade the sound quality (or perhaps I just couldn't hear it the same way due to the "mono" effect).

Elsewhere, it was suggested to get a headphone amp.  I got the ********* Microamp Ha400 Ultra-Compact 4-Channel Stereo Headphone Amplifier (not intended to be an endorsement).  They aren't cost-prohibitive and this one was only about $10 more than the headphone splitter I tried. You can get reasonable headphone amps for around $20 - $30.  The added bonus to a multi-channel approach is you can set the volume for each headset at a different level.
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