With MU.LAB you can record two things: Audio and Events (aka MIDI).
So what's the difference?
Well imagine you have a real piano. When you record the sound of your piano with a microphone, then you're recording audio. But when you record the notes you're playing, i.e. the score, then you're recording an event sequence.
Recording is basically very easy: Just hit the record button in the Transport Panel at the top of the main window and record what you want.
Near the record button, there are two little buttons, one for audio and one for events. These two buttons control what you actually record.
If you want to record real sound from a microphone or a line-in, then enable audio recording. If you want to record the notes you play on a MIDI keyboard, or the movements of a MIDI controller, or a parameter knob on the screen, then enable event recording.
You can enable audio and event recording at the same time, no problem 
Below you'll find more detailed info, but if you're in a hurry, you can read it later and start recording right away.
Setup
Right-clicking the record audio button pops up the Recording Options dialog.
Here you can define, among others things, where you want to record from. If you simply want to record the audio input, then select "Audio Input" in the Record From field.
To handle more extended situations, you can create multiple audio input modules, each specifying the actual audio input pins of your audio device. This can be done in the Modular Area.
Note that MU.LAB allows you to also record from whatever audio output within the application itself, for example you can also record the output of a rack.
In the Recording Options dialog you can also choose thru which module you want to monitor the recording input.
If you want a metronome during recording, activate the metronome in the Transport Panel.
A new audio recording is always put on a new empty track. You can always move the new recording to another track if you want.
Multi Track Audio Recording
With MU.LAB you can also record multiple audio tracks at the same time. For example, you can record the drums, bass, guitar and vocals of a band on 4 separate audio tracks all in a single take.
This can be done by using as many audio recorders as needed. Therefor open the Modular Area and create the needed audio recorders. For more specific info on the audio recorder module, click here.
Note that once you have created the necessary audio recorders, you can quickly access them again via a right-click on the Record Audio button:
OSX specific issue: Where is my built-in input?
On systems with Mac OSX 10.4 or later, the built-in audio input and output may appear as separate devices leading to the fact that you can't use both at the same time.
The solution is to make an aggregate device that uses the input/output from different audio devices on your system, and showing up as 1 device in audio applications.
This can be done via OSX->Applications->Utilities->Audio MIDI Setup->Audio menu->Open Aggregate Device Editor:
This makes a single device from the built-in input and output making both available at the same time.
Device latency compensation
Normally, if you record audio into MU.LAB, the audio will be positioned perfectly in sync with the music, just like you recorded it.
But this depends on how accurate the audio driver is reporting latency values to MU.LAB.
In case you notice that the recorded audio is not in sync with the music, you can finetune the "PreferredAudioRecordingLatencyCompensation" preference in Mulab/User/Settings/AudioSetup.Txt. For detailed info on how to change this go to the Preferences page.
You normally don't have to do this, the software will
Right-clicking the record events button pops up the Recording Options dialog.
Here you can define, among others things, whether the recorded events should be automatically quantized.
If you want a metronome during recording, activate the metronome in the Transport Panel.
When you have recorded events, e.g. by playing on your MIDI keyboard or tweaking plug-in parameter knobs, MU.LAB will check whether there is a selected sequence part with a matching target module.
If not, then the new recorded events are put on a new track in a new sequence part.
But if a sequence part is selected, you get these options:
- Merge: The new recorded events are merged into the existing sequence
- New Part: The new recorded events are put into a new sequence
- Overwrite: The new recorded events replace al events in the existing sequence
- Punch: The new recorded events are put into the existing sequence, but in such a way that all existing events that fall in the recorded time area are overwritten, the other events are kept
- Cancel: The new recorded events are trashed
Via a sequence part's context menu you can open the Step Editor. The Step Editor allows you to input notes step by step. This can be very useful to record a difficult sequence of notes, or to make special arpeggiated note sequences.
The Step Recorder is very simple: If the window is focussed, it will record any notes you play on your MIDI keyboard, and it will automatically advance the cursor position to the next grid position whenever you have released all notes. You can also easily switch the grid on the fly using the 2 buttons at the right of the grid.
Info Tips:
- The [Arrow Left] and [Arrow Right] keys will move the cursor position one step backward / forward.
- The [Delete] key will delete all events at the current cursor position.
- When you click in the Note Editor, the Step Recorder will also jump to that position. This makes it handy to use the Note Editor and the Step Recorder together.
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