A
asf131
New member
I've got two questions:
1. I've been trying to record class lectures at my university using my laptop. My laptop only has microphone in and headphone out jacks. The laptop has a built-in mic, but it didn't seem to pick up enough, so I bought a cheap ($10) computer mic at Radio Shack. The problem is, I get a lot of hiss/static. It makes it difficult to understand the lecture. It doesn't matter the quality of the wave file I record to, the hiss is there. I do have the record volume of the microphone set very high, as well as the general record volume, so I can pick up the lecture in the large auditorium. I did a test to see if the hiss was the microphone by not plugging in the microphone, but leaving the record volumes at the same levels. Guess what? Same hiss. I assume, after reading around here a little, that it's the preamp of my soundcard. Is there something I can do to improve the recording of these lectures? Something like a cheap mic preamp? I don't need great quality here -- I'll probably record at 8 bit, 11KHz to conserve on file size. Also, I'm short on budget -- I am a college student after all.
2. Second issue. I'm trying to digitize video from an 8mm camcorder using the old and not-well-suited-for-this-purpose Studio 400 from Pinnacle Systems. The setup requires sound to be recorded through the sound card. My camcorder has a mono RCA out for the sound. On my computer (this is my home computer, not the laptop), I get a ton of echo when I record. I have an rca ended cable with a rca-to-headphone jack adapter. I plug the audio into the line-in, not mic, jack on the soundcard. I have the microphone unselected in the record controls, and the soundcard I have is an AWE64. Therein is the problem, I believe (the soundcard). When I record to my laptop using this same setup, (mic in instead of line-in due to the lack thereof) I get clean (well, at least a lot cleaner) sound. My problem would be solved if my laptop were fast enough to record the video at the 15 fps that my desktop can. How do I get good recording sound out of the card on my desktop? I've tried using the mic in, tried using a stereo headphone jack to two rca ends cable. When I use that cable, essentially piping sound to only one channel, since the camcorder is mono, I get the same echo -- unless I record in stereo, in which case, the echo shows up on the left channel with the actual audio correctly going to the right channel. This separation of the echo from the other audio only occurs with this second cable setup. Anyway, unless somebody's got some good ideas, I'm probably just going to have to get a new audio card, it looks like. Any suggestions on a cheap audio card that would do the trick? Seems that some people suggest the SBLive128 PCI. Is that decent enough? Would a cheaper card serve me just as well?
I would appreciate any help that anyone could give me and I apologize for being so long winded.
1. I've been trying to record class lectures at my university using my laptop. My laptop only has microphone in and headphone out jacks. The laptop has a built-in mic, but it didn't seem to pick up enough, so I bought a cheap ($10) computer mic at Radio Shack. The problem is, I get a lot of hiss/static. It makes it difficult to understand the lecture. It doesn't matter the quality of the wave file I record to, the hiss is there. I do have the record volume of the microphone set very high, as well as the general record volume, so I can pick up the lecture in the large auditorium. I did a test to see if the hiss was the microphone by not plugging in the microphone, but leaving the record volumes at the same levels. Guess what? Same hiss. I assume, after reading around here a little, that it's the preamp of my soundcard. Is there something I can do to improve the recording of these lectures? Something like a cheap mic preamp? I don't need great quality here -- I'll probably record at 8 bit, 11KHz to conserve on file size. Also, I'm short on budget -- I am a college student after all.
2. Second issue. I'm trying to digitize video from an 8mm camcorder using the old and not-well-suited-for-this-purpose Studio 400 from Pinnacle Systems. The setup requires sound to be recorded through the sound card. My camcorder has a mono RCA out for the sound. On my computer (this is my home computer, not the laptop), I get a ton of echo when I record. I have an rca ended cable with a rca-to-headphone jack adapter. I plug the audio into the line-in, not mic, jack on the soundcard. I have the microphone unselected in the record controls, and the soundcard I have is an AWE64. Therein is the problem, I believe (the soundcard). When I record to my laptop using this same setup, (mic in instead of line-in due to the lack thereof) I get clean (well, at least a lot cleaner) sound. My problem would be solved if my laptop were fast enough to record the video at the 15 fps that my desktop can. How do I get good recording sound out of the card on my desktop? I've tried using the mic in, tried using a stereo headphone jack to two rca ends cable. When I use that cable, essentially piping sound to only one channel, since the camcorder is mono, I get the same echo -- unless I record in stereo, in which case, the echo shows up on the left channel with the actual audio correctly going to the right channel. This separation of the echo from the other audio only occurs with this second cable setup. Anyway, unless somebody's got some good ideas, I'm probably just going to have to get a new audio card, it looks like. Any suggestions on a cheap audio card that would do the trick? Seems that some people suggest the SBLive128 PCI. Is that decent enough? Would a cheaper card serve me just as well?
I would appreciate any help that anyone could give me and I apologize for being so long winded.
