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headphones for clients

I am frustrated! I have always used a Radio Shack mixer, a 5-disc pioneer CD unit, a nd two headphones. What i have done is plug mic into mixer, hook CD player up to mixer and gotten a duplex chack so I can plug two headphones into one audio out jack from the mixer and done my sessions this way.
I moved equipment a few months ago, and when I went to set stuff up in my office today the sound quality was horrible...
I brought it all to radio shack, asked them if its the mixer, mic or cd player that was broken, and they knew nothing. The manager even said, "we used to have a lot and know a lot, now, we are a cell phone store!!!!!!!!!!"
And so I left.
I went to best buy, walmart and target, and ended up buying a kareoke machine for $100. Problem is, while this setup will work, there is no volume control for the music independent of the microphone volume.... frustration!!!!!!!!!

And so, what is your set-up for playing your background music, with your microphone to do clinical sessions?

I am uninterested in recording these sessions, I never give CD's of actual sessions (for a zillion different reasons) and so I just want to know the brand and pieces of your equipment to mix the mike with the CD, and have the music at a low volume with the mic at a louder volume.

I suppose i could do this with a laptop? but then the question is what software would i need to play the muic at a different level than the voice, it must be some kind of studio mixer software....

Anyway, any help is appreciated!!

Tags: cd, clients, headphones, microphone

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by bruce on August 19, 2008 at 12:13am: Hi Richard,

I think that the freeware program Audacity would work for you. I've used it a bit, and it's easy to learn, and I've also heard other people say good things about it. I'm no expert though.

Check out the site sourceforge.net; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Roxann Higuera on August 19, 2008 at 7:57am: I've used Audacity to produce MP3 recordings from tape with good results. It has a nice noise cancelling feature that gets rid of tape hiss.

How would you use Audacity in this situation? Are you suggesting using a computer to generate the headphone feed? How would you work the ins and outs?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jason Linett, CH on August 19, 2008 at 6:03am: Richard,

I'm curious why you don't just do your sessions live with the music playing from a nice, inexpensive stereo at a decent volume and you just talking next to the person? In my mind putting headphones on someone in the same room seems rather impersonal...?

Or am I missing the point?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Richard Nongard - HypnosisGurus.com on August 19, 2008 at 7:30am: I have done it both ways, but I find that the headphones I can use binaural beat technology, I also find that it really deos help both me and the client, to block out the world around them. I find that with the headphones clients are happy and I am happy.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Bittner - Ocotillo Hypnosis on August 19, 2008 at 9:55am: Windows PC's have a built in mixer application. You can access it by double clicking the speaker icon you'll find in the application tray. There'll be several volume sliders: Master Volume, Wave, Synth, Mic, and CD player, for example. If you don't see the Mic fader choose Properties from the Options menu. The actual appearance of the mixer application may vary depending upon who manufactured the sound chip for your PC, but the functionality should be roughly the same. Wave will control the level of the PC's media player.

No doubt Macs have something similer, but not being a Mac user, I can't help you there.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Roxann Higuera on August 19, 2008 at 3:52pm: Unfortunately, I think the capabilities of the audio interface depend on which sound board you use. Mine (NVIDIA) doesn't look like inputs can be mixed. Yours looks very nice.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by trish Heenan on August 19, 2008 at 10:06am: Hi Richard
What I find gives a really clear -hiss free- even recording at low levels is the Sony RCD 100 CD recorder. I input another small CD player to a cheap 4 track mixer and use a vocal mic. I can control both music and mic volume independently and cut out or fade music is I want to. The only pricey part is a Neumann vocal mic but worth every penny is you want a very clear recording.

Although I don't use headphones in every situation this set up is perfect for me for most of the work I do is with Hep C & HIV clients, they have a clear recording to work with at home if they want.

When clients are dealing with the stress of coming of drugs/alcohol they say that knowing they can reach for a CD that is personal to them and very clean/clear often helps. The machine uses re-recordable CD's which last for ages. Hope this helps. trish; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jill Semonin on August 19, 2008 at 2:35pm

I went to radio shack and bought their 4 channel mixer. It has 4 inputs for microphone and/or other devices (cd) and only one output , but could easily be coupled. This device could be easily used for volume control for voice that is separate from music input. It's simple so it would do what you were doing. It's not that expensive either. I personally did this for other reasons (paranormal recording - voice box). Our local radio shack certainly still has a lot more than just cell phones. Sounds to me like you had a uneducated sales rep. It's only $29.00 here is link. Radio Shack 4 channel mixer

So if you like what you had, this should do the trick easily. May need microphone jack converter. It uses the large inputs. The output uses two RCA (red & white) type wiring.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Nongard - HypnosisGurus.com on August 19, 2008 at 10:04pm: Here is the solutions I came up with:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKUShV9Klvo; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by obert brinley on August 20, 2008 at 7:11am: I went to youtube, your solutions is no longer up. what is up my friend?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Paula Saxon Nongard on August 20, 2008 at 8:02am: Try again Obert - it's there - musta been some temp glitch.
~ Paula; ▶ Reply to This