Delta 44 vs. Windows Recording Mixer. God help me.

Shepherd

New member
Please help. I'm baffled. This may sound totally crazy, and I really don't get it at all. Then again, I'm a caveman.

Okay, I have a Delta 44 and Cool Edit 2.1 installed. I'm running an interview (in mono) from a Minidisc (Sony RZ900) into inputs 1 and 2 from the headphone jack.

Volume is 100% on the Sony. Windows XP with a celeron processor and 384 megs of RAM.

The Delta inputs are set to -10 in their control panel.

First of all, I got optimum levels on the MD... mic sensitivity on "high," recording level 100%, good talkers close to the mic,
great levels on the MD display...but now I'm peaking at -12 on the input level meters in the Delta Control Panel (and CoolEdit. I can't seem to do anything to boost that up.

And here's where it gets weird. I can OPEN the Windows recording mixer from CoolEdit (or from the control panel), but can ONLY select the default sound card ("SiS 7018") for levels. My device options in the recording options pulldown menu are as follows:

M Audio Delta 44 1/2
M Audio Delta 44 3/4
M Audio Delta Mon Mixer
M Audio Delta Multichannel
SiS 7018 Wave (built-in sound card)

I can only select the SiS as the mixing device in the Windows recording mixer. Anything else gives me no faders to choose from and only lets me choose the "Cancel" button at the bottom of the window.

But when I record through CoolEdit, I can select my Device Properties for "Wave In" from the M Audio Delta Control Panel Monitor Mixer. Even though the recording side Windows Mixer Control is still set to the SiS.

When I head to the Windows Control Panel, I can't seem
to change the default recording device to anything BUT the SiS without getting an error message when I try to access the Windows recording mixer afterwards.

My Playback default is set to M Audio Delta 44 1/2; I set that to read the Monitor Mixer in the Patchbay/Router tab of the Delta Control Panel. No problems with it ever. But if I've got my playback default set to the Delta 44 1/2... and the Delta 44 1/2 is set in the Patchbay tab to output the Monitor Mixer... how can the Monitor Mixer also be what's controlling my input in CoolEdit? Shouldn't that create a very bad loop somewhere or something?

I have this unshakeable feeling that I'm doing something horribly wrong. I can't fathom why I can't get levels over -12ish off a
good MD player with good levels, and no CLUE how CoolEdit is recording from the Delta mixer when the Windows recording mixer seems determined to avoid it.

Please ask further questions if that will help. I trying my best to describe the problem, but it's just...so...odd.

Help?
 
Last edited:
Shepherd said:
I'm running an interview (in mono) from a Minidisc (Sony RZ900) into inputs 1 and 2 from the headphone jack.
Hmmm. Going from a headphone jack to a line input. All bets are off. It's possible that the impedance of the Delta's input is too high to draw sufficient power from the MD's headphone jack. A direct box might be of some use if that's the case. Is there a volume control connected to that headphone jack? If so, is it turned up?
 
Eureka! You're a saint, Don. That tipped me off to digging through the MD manual, and you can convert the headphone jack to a "LINE OUT" jack through a complicated series of menu options.

Thanks! The input is now much better. There's also an odd 60-cycle hum under the sound, but I suspect that's room tone (a fridge or something).
 
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