Chip Hitchens
New member
I have a low budget PC-based home studio set up that I use for recording music, but I've been assisting a friend of mine with recording audio for a movie that he's directing. I was wondering if anyone here could give me some advice on how I can get better sound without buying a whole lot of new equipment.
Currently, I'm using a AT815b short shotgun mic into a cheap Samson Mixpad (which I'm only using because it's the only battery-powered mic pre I have and we do a lot of shooting on location without AC power) into a Mini Disk recorder. The MD recorder is just a simple consumer stereo model, not a 4-track or anything. When we're done shooting, I record the MD on my PC as a .wav so that we can add it to the video.
The sound I get is barely usable because there's an incredible amount of background noise and hiss. I realize that none of my equipment is state of the art, but what's my weakest link here? I don't know if it's the crappy mixer or the fact that I have to go convert from analog to digital to analog in the MD recorder.
Currently, I'm using a AT815b short shotgun mic into a cheap Samson Mixpad (which I'm only using because it's the only battery-powered mic pre I have and we do a lot of shooting on location without AC power) into a Mini Disk recorder. The MD recorder is just a simple consumer stereo model, not a 4-track or anything. When we're done shooting, I record the MD on my PC as a .wav so that we can add it to the video.
The sound I get is barely usable because there's an incredible amount of background noise and hiss. I realize that none of my equipment is state of the art, but what's my weakest link here? I don't know if it's the crappy mixer or the fact that I have to go convert from analog to digital to analog in the MD recorder.