echo mia soundcard with n-track

[fizer]

So I bought a new echo mia sound card to upgrade my recording. I use n-track, and I do a simulation recording of an audio track, and I hear a hiss. Yet everything is turned off, no mic or anything. When I plug my mic in to do vocals, this hiss is so audible, that I have to use a wave editor to fix the vocal track. Has anyone encountered this problem? Or is it the soundcard? Would another program such as cakewalk be better? I like the ease of use of n-track, but I'm open for suggestions. My mike is an mxl 603, worth around $250. Or does the soundcard pick up the fan noise, if so how can that be rectified?

fizermusic :

[David Katauskas]

I use the MIA with nTrack and it is extremely quiet.
What pre-amp are you using between your 603 and the MIA?

[TimOBrien]

Yup. The Mia and n-track are not your problem (I used a Mia for a couple of years and it's an excellent, very quiet card.)

Something in your recording chain (or your technique) is most likely the problem.

[daav]

and the mxl 603 should cost about $50-70, but that is not your problem anymore i would imagine.


Daav

[fizer]

Hi again, thanks for the feed back. Maybe its techinique, if it is I'd like to perfect this techinque.
My pre-amp is A Tube MP by ART. But as I said, I got noise without the mic plugged in, when I do a simulation recording. I'm getting interferance from something, and I don't know where to look.


thanks for your support



fizer

[David Katauskas]

Well, the MIA card accepts 1/4" balanced cables. Is that what you are running?
You could also be getting noise from your preamp if it's being cranked too much.
Try this, go into the settings of the MIA card, and set your inputs to +4 and the master to -10 (or maybe it's visa-versa). This will increase your overall signal a bit and may allow you to slightly relax your preamp. Again, check your balanced line from the ART to the MIA. If you're not using a balanced line, then you will probably get noise from that.

[qb2k5]

What ASIO buffer are you using? I got a tick noise while recording with my Delta 24/96. Thought the card was going dead. Come to figure out my buffer settings were too low. Do you get the hiss noise thru your speakers and headphones?

[fizer]

So I downloaded a trial multi track recording program, something like n-track,(which I use) to try a differnt approach to the hiss I hear when recording vocals. Its all the same. I cannot find the origin of this noise. Its like a tape hiss before you apply dolby. I'm really frustrated. Are there anymore ideas out there circulating?

[TimOBrien]

If you are getting noise with NOTHING connected to the soundcard it has to be in the computer.

If you have a desktop, try moving your soundcard to another slot.

More info on your computer would help (we're not psychic...)

[fizer]

So its a ASUS k7V slot A motherboard has 1GHz AMD Athlon tm processor Support, 100 g hard drive. 384 mb of ram. I run surround sound speakers. When I bought the echo mia sound card, It wouldn't install without my soundblaster live card being in place. (I upgraded from soundblaster live to echo mia) so I needed to leave soundblaster in the computer. I run xp pro. I had the same problem with noise when I had soundblaster live, and I was running windows ME. That was one of the reasons for upgrading to echo mia soundcard. I've tried everything other than a standalone soundcard, but its kinda late for that, because I bought this echo mia. Must be something wrong somewhere, if no one else has that problem.

[TimOBrien]

Hint: The trick to installing the sblive and mia together is to pull the cards and delete the drivers for both. Install the Mia and get it working, then install the sblive. (I used to run a Mia and SBLive together too... although once I found that soundfonts run great and sound better through the Mia with a soundfont player like rgcaudio.com's SFZ or Bismark, I dumped the SBLive from my PC.)

Are you SURE you're not picking up fan noice from the PC??

[fizer]

Fan noise was my concern, if it is, other than going to a quiter fan right away, how can I test it? Can I unplug the fans for a short time?


fizer

[TimOBrien]

Move microphone as far away from CPU as possible.
Point back of mic toward CPU.

Don't unplug your fans unless you want a puddle of silicon where the chip used to be...

[fizer]

Thanks for your help.



fizer