Keyboard recording trouble
 

Hey hows it going, I’ve looked everywhere to find a thread with my issue and can’t find one so I figured I’d just ask here :-) My setup is a Roland Juno DS61, a Focusrite Clarett 2pre thunderbolt, and a Mac with Logic Pro X. The Juno is connected with basic L&R 1/4 cables & the other 1/4 inch end is in the Input 1 of the Focusrite. The Focusrite is connected to the Macbook with a thunderbolt cable. The issue is audio signal. It’s absolutely terrible and unusable. It sounds extremely weak, distant, and for some reason reverberated. If I monitor through the Focusrite I only get left audio. If I monitor through my Mac I get L&R but either way the quality is awful. For troubleshooting I’ve tried using different cables, messing with audio preferences in Logic, and the Focusrite control menu on the mac, which pretty much only has a couple settings anyway. I even downloaded audacity just for the heck of it to see it it’s a Logic issue, but it does the same thing. I think it’s either a busted AI or my connections are wrong? Maybe I’m just missing something simple considering this is such a basic setup to record, I don’t see many ways you could screw it up. Any advice appreciated!!

I'm just gonna go out on a limb and guess because I don't know the audio interface, but input 1 sounds like it's probably an XLR input, possibly 1/4 jack combo, for microphones and instruments with passive pickups, typically an electric guitar.

Microphones and electric guitars output miniscule amounts of sound, so these inputs have a preamp in them, boosting the signal typically up to about +60 db max to make those signals audible (outboard preamps can often boost those signals even more).

Your Roland Juno should not go into a preamp like that because the signal doesn't need amplification. Instead, look for a Line in or Aux in on your audio interface. This is an input without a preamp in it. Line in / aux in are typically found on the back of units.

Maybe that helps?

edit:

Okay, so I googled your interface and it may not have line inputs. That seems weird/stupid, but okay.

In that case, there's no right input on the interface for your synth, but if you're gonna go through the preamp, then at least dial the gain knob on the audio interface all the way down. Hopefully, that disables the preamp. Then up the gain / gain stage by increasing the volume out on your synth.

You might at least get a better result (and hopefully won't fry your preamps).

You could also hook up your juno's midi out to your interface's midi in and use it to control a software synthesizer. Probably not what you want, but it's fun.

Thanks for the advice, I know it’d make sense to have an actual line input, but I looked at the Focusrite menu again and I do have it set to line, and the manual also says 1/4 line level instruments should work. I’m wondering if my cables are wrong. I’m almost sure the Juno is unbalanced and the Focusrite is balanced. I’m using a dual TS to single TRS cable so I feel like that should be right. I may need to try with a different interface to see if mine just isn’t working right. And yeah I was thinkin the midi option too but I really wanted some sounds from the Juno

Your cabling sounds wrong to me. You don't send a stereo signal from your instrument into your interface like that. Those inputs are meant for mono sources.

Instead, use two unbalanced jack cables. Connect Juno's left output 1 into interface's input 1 and the right into input 2. In a mixer or DAW, pan input 1 hard left (100%) and then hard right with input 2.

Alternatively, go mono and just use left channel in input 1 (and don't pan). Stereo effects won't work well, but that might not be too much of a loss.

If you wanna hear the Juno from the computer's speakers, find out how to get monitoring from those input channels. You can typically do it in your DAW, but a better way is probably through your driver/interface software. Look for direct monitoring or something.

Ok so went and picked up two unbalanced cables. Put them in the Juno outputs and inputs 1 & 2 of the interface. Set audio track 1 to inputs 1&2 in logic and now it works great. Feels like such an easy fix in retrospect but I guess when you’re frantically trying to record and get stumped on something so simple it’s like things just seem more complicated than they really are, but thanks for your help!! Much appreciated!

Great, kc9! I'm happy I could help :)

By the way, in my DAW, the input channels from my audio interface look like this:

IN 1-2
IN 1-2 (2)
IN 3-4
IN 3-4 (2)
.. etc.

You might see something similar. For clarity, IN 1-2 is input 1 and IN 1-2 (2) is input 2. If you want to hear stereo effects, you should listen to / record both channels and remember to pan them left / right.

If you have any other questions, let me know :)