Time to get an improved system to get the sound into the computer – a better usb interface. I bought a Focusrite Scarlett Solo (2nd edition) which is adequate for my needs – I just have the one decent microphone with no plans for others at present.

The build quality is excellent – a nice solid case, smooth controls, good large rubber feet to stop it slipping. It was easy to set up the latency in Audacity, and easy to adjust microphone input level and monitor headphones output level.

The rest of the setup was similar to the previous test, using Audacity on the Raspberry Pi, but with the addition of a new HDMI monitor (which saves using an HDMI to VGA adapter!).

I made a test recording of “Äpplebo Ganglåt”, recording 4 tracks of nyckelharpa, and 2 tracks of harmony on the fiddle. I used the first nyckelharpa recording, with a count in, into the headphones when recording the other tracks, with others muted. The final mix down to stereo is nothing special; just the tracks panned out a bit to spread the stereo image, and levels adjusted to avoid clipping overall.

Here’s the result on Soundcloud:

For a first go I’m quite pleased – I didn’t even bother to redo any of the takes, so it has the iffy bits of my playing still included.