Do i need a pre-amp??

A

aslo

New member
Hello,
Im using a make do pc studio. I have a usb midi dock, my sound card is a soundblaster live with modified kx drivers. This all works o.k., but as far as audio, i cant get a good level from a microphone, micing an acoustic guitar etc. Would i be better off to get a better sound card, or could i get by with an audio preamp ?
Any suggestions appreciated. If you can, exact models etc so i can look for them.
Thank You
 
You'll get better results using BOTH a good mic pre and a better soundcard. Stock soundcards generally suck.
 
Two years ago, I was connecting a dynamic mic through a small tape player that served as a preamp. Then I plugged the output of that tape player into the line input of my stock computer sound card. Just about any device that has a way to plug a mic into an input, and has a line-level output, can act as a poor-mans' (really poor) pre amp. Tape player, boom-box, home stereo system, etc... But, no matter what you get to... sort of work... it will not sound very good, at all.

Stock computer sound cards, eg. Soundblaster, are designed to get the sound *OUT* of the computer. You need a sound card (aka audio interface) that is designed to get sound both *IN* and out of the computer. And you need a "real" pre amp. With just those two things, and a mic and computer, of course, you can make decent sounding, simple recordings. Not great sounding.. but decent.

There are several products that are avilable that are both an interface and a pre amp, in one package. And, they provide more than one input. M-Audio Fast Track Pro, Tascam U-122L, Presonus Inspire 1394, Lexicon Omega. All of these are between $130 to $200 US. There are others, I'm sure. Most all of these come bundled with recording software for the computer. Good luck.
 
fast track

Thank you both for the quick reply. So much inspiration, so little money.

Lets talk about the fast track. Stupid question, but does the fast track/ pro,
also serve as the sound card ? That is for the recording. Or do you you still need to go into a sound card? If so, i assume you would need to have your monitor speakers come out of that instead of the sound card?

Since i have the usb m-audio interface, could i get along with the fast track unpro, just for the audio? Then the speakers would come out of that?
I assume you would have aiso drivers and you would select the fast track as your audio in all your programs?

thanks again
 
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