Terminology is confusing here and I think the function of the audio interface is a little confused to you Habitat.
An audio interface is basically a soundcard. It turns digital signals into analogue so that your speakers will work - like boydie said. Yeah - your computer already has a soundcard. But the audio interfaces you use in recording are generally more special than the bog standard soundcard on your pc.
At the very least, they will offer better sample rates and bit depths (along with more complicated things like clocking, jitter protection etc) and at least 1 line input and 1 stereo (or 2 mono) line outputs - which would be connected to your speakers.
The better ones offer mic preamps so you can directly plug a mic in (either by plugging into a special 'mic input' or plugging into whatever input and pressing a 'mic' select switch).
Of course in your case habitat, as you have a preamp actually on your mic, you only need to plug into the line input on your interface.
Interfaces can also offer numerous inputs and outputs. I have an interface (actually 2 daisy chained together) that has 16 line inputs and outputs and 2 MIDI in/out.
As you are using a different audio interface to your pc, you generally have to install a new driver and maybe even change the audio settings in your control panel
This is where it can get complicated in your DAW.
Your DAW generally leaves it up to you to configure what driver is being used for audio, and where all the inputs & outputs on your interface are going.
In Cubase this is called setting up 'buses'. Confusing terminology here. This is not buses in the sense you have just used them (i.e. 'groups'), but buses meaning connections between your interface and your daw. In most DAWs this is usually what the term 'bus' means. It means it exactly in the sense it is meant in computing (i.e it 'buses' data between systems).
I have to tell Cubase that I want 16 mono inputs and link each of these inputs to an input on my interface. The same for outputs.
Of course I can say I want 1 stereo output and this is linked to 2 channels on my interface. This would go to the speakers. If I have 2 pairs of speakers, I might setup 2 stereo outputs.
Then on each track I create in my DAW, I tell it where the input is coming from (which of the buses I have just setup) and where the track is output too (is it output to stereo out 1, stereo out 2 or have I added a group track and output it there? Or, if the track is a MIDI track, I might be taking the input from the MIDI in and outputting to a VST instrument)
Now, I've explained it very generally in terms of Cubase, but it is basically the same for most DAWs I believe (at least Pro Tools and Reaper require similar things, so I guess Sonar will aswell).
So basically audio tracks can be sent anywhere you want, as long as you have set up the places to send them
I'll give some examples of 2 of my workflows:
My DAW is always setup so that all the channels on my interface can be addressed, but whether they are addressed in pairs (i.e. stereo) or singley (mono) changes - and this is something that needs to be set up at the 'bus' level.
The basic track setup in my DAW is almost always the same
Tracks 1-n are all the basic tracks in the song. If I am recording these will take their inputs from channels 1-16 on my audio interface (sometimes just using 1 or 2 channels if everything is overdub).
I also setup 8 group tracks. The function of these changes depending on what I am doing. I'll just talk about mixing here:
1: Working 'in the box' but with external effects.
All the tracks are sent to one of the 8 group tracks. These might be something like:
Drums
Percussion
Guitars
Vocals
Backing Vocals
Keys_1
Keys_2
Other/FX
Then I setup another group track that I call 'Master'. All the 8 group tracks are then sent to this 'Master Group'. I then send the Master Group to stereo out 1, 2 or 3 depending on which monitoring system I want to listen on. (Note that this 'Master Group' wouldnt be necessary if I had a control room system - like when Im using a mixing desk).
I also have to setup each of my external effects in Cubase (each connected to remaining inputs and ouputs on my interface) but I wont go into that here...(it's not so tricky as I dont have that many external units!)
I also setup a couple of FX tracks for plugins that I will use as send effects.
I use effects either on individual tracks (usually as inserts) or group tracks (usually as send effects...but of course, there are exceptions to everything)
So thats it, here is a crappy diagram:
Track >> Group Track >> Master Group Track >> Stereo Out
| | | |
Insert ^<< Send << v Master Effects
Ok that was long...I was going to then explain with a mixing desk, but I think I'll leave it!
Of course, it's a generalisation.
Here are some things I do sometimes that I haven't mentioned:
Inserts and sends where ever you want: I put insert and send effects in 2 specific places on the diagram. But in truth I use them as and when needed with no restrictions.
Using Group Tracks as 'Sends': Setup a group track and put an effect on it (e.g. compression). Set the output of the group track to nothing.
Send a little bit of whatever track to this group track. Often I setup another (or even another again) group track with another effect and send the first group track to this group track and so on...So I have a chain of sends going on. A good thing to do is put a seperate compressor on each group track and send it all to each other. This is 'multibus compression' (back to using 'bus' as 'group' here...argh!), which is a technique used by many famous engineers (although usually they do it on a mixer).
The main thing to take away from this is that you can setup any number of interesting/crazy/fantastic signal processing chains that can be blended together in a variety of ways.
Of course, you can spend hours doing that and you should remember that if there is a simple way to get what you want, do that!
