Can't record Line-in of my PC

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Mandarin Man

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Hey,

I'm trying to record music as wav through the Line-in of my computer. I plugged a cd-player into the Line-in of my pc (using a small jack-plug). Now, when I press play on the CD-player I can perfectly hear the music through my computer speakers. Yet when I try to record the music as a wav-file or mp3-file using software like Musicmatch or CoolEdit, I get a silent wav-file/mp3-file or the volume of the recorded sound is extremely low.
Now, I made sure the volume controls for Line-in were checked in the record settings of the Windows Mixer (in the systemtray) during recording, so that's not the problem. I don't think it's the software, because I tried several different programs.

So I just can't record the Line-in sound of my pc. Does anyone know what the problem is here?

My sound card information:
ES1887 Plug and Play AudioDrive (ESS AudioDrive Line-In (220), ESS AudioDrive Record (220))

Any comments would be welcome.

Thanks a lot!

Roy
 
Are you using a component CD player with a line out? If that's what you're doing, then you still need something to amplify the sound (like a stereo receiver).

Some component CD players have a headphone out. You can always try that - a headphone out would be amplified.
 
Eurythmic is incorrect, if you have a Line Out, the sound card's Line In should be perfectly happy with it.

See my answer to your question in the other place that you cross-posted to, wherevre that was that I first stumbled on it...
 
Um, I don't mean to be rude AlChuck, but you're wrong.

A sound card's line in is unamplified. The mic in is amplified, and that's why it sounds bad - because the preamps used on soundcards are cheap. They don't expect you to do anything with it but record your voice with your computer microphone.

And a component CD player's line out is unamplified. That's why we have stereo receivers. If it were amplified, you could plug speakers with RCA jacks straight into your CD player, which is obviously not the case.

Therefore, if you link a line out to a line in, nothing is amplifying your signal. Thus, it is extremely weak.
 
Ah, correction. There are actually two levels of amplification that go on in a stereo receiver - pre-amp and main amp. The pre-amp boosts low level signals (such as those from a casette player) to line level, and the main amp boosts the line level signal to the power levels required to drive speakers.

On a sound card the "line in" requires a signal to be at line level. Mics do not provide a line level signal - they need to be pre-amp'd first to be brought to line level. However, the line out on a stereo receiver is a line level signal and can be connected to the line in connection on the sound card.

The "mic" input on the sound card has a built-in pre-amp, which then allows a mic to be plugged directly into that connection.

I don't think a component CD player actually has line out connections. The connections are probably just labeled "in" and "out", rather than "line in" or "line out". If it's not a line level signal, than it can't go directly to the line in of the sound card, and needs to be pre-amp'd first.
 
Thank you for those comments, dachay2tnr. Now that you've pointed that out, I realize that I always just assumed that a component CD deck had line level outputs like a component cassette deck does, rather than phono levels like a turntable does. Possibly because when I had my first CD player I put it into the Aux input of my older receiver (which had no CD input) just like I had previously put a second cassette deck. Never noticed any real level discrepancies, so I just assumed CDs put out a line level signal. And I believe they are. Phonos probably would be too if they had been designed later on and hadn't already had an established signal level. Can anybody out there verify this?

No offense taken, Eurythmic, and none intended either... but you don't plug line level devices into speakers, unless you have active speakers with amplifiers built in to them. We have receivers because line level is not powerful enough to drive speakers at reasonable listening volume levels and we need to run the signals through a power amplification stage to get them there. Speaker outputs on receivers are not line level.
 
Can't record line-in of my pc

To clear things up: The cable I used is tulip (at least that's what we call it here in Holland, L=white and R=red) on one side and small jack on the other side. I plugged the tulip into the Analog Out of my audio cd-player and the small jack into the line-in of my pc soundcard. Now is this signal amplified? Mind you that I can perfectly hear the line-in sound through my pc speakers. If it's not amplified, I guess it would be best to use the headphone out of my CD-player then, right?

Greetz,

Roy
 
No offense taken, Eurythmic, and none intended either... but you don't plug line level devices into speakers, unless you have active speakers with amplifiers built in to them. We have receivers because line level is not powerful enough to drive speakers at reasonable listening volume levels and we need to run the signals through a power amplification stage to get them there. Speaker outputs on receivers are not line level.
Click to expand...

...Whiiiiiich, is basically repeating what I said, so yeah. I totally agree. :D

Phonos probably would be too if they had been designed later on and hadn't already had an established signal level. Can anybody out there verify this?
Click to expand...

My record player actually has its own preamp onboard - which isn't good, because I can't use it with my receiver's phono stage. It distorts.

I wasn't aware that there was a difference between line level and low level, though. Thanks for clearing that up, dachay.


To clear things up: The cable I used is tulip (at least that's what we call it here in Holland, L=white and R=red) on one side and small jack on the other side. I plugged the tulip into the Analog Out of my audio cd-player and the small jack into the line-in of my pc soundcard. Now is this signal amplified? Mind you that I can perfectly hear the line-in sound through my pc speakers. If it's not amplified, I guess it would be best to use the headphone out of my CD-player then, right?
Click to expand...

As it is, no, the signal isn't amplified to a usable level. But since you're either using amplified speakers, or the speakers of your stereo sytem, that's why you can still hear it - because you can adjust the volume of your sound card's output - after it's out of the soundcard. Same thing with your headphone out. That should give you a signal you can use, because the headphone out is amplified (and should also have an independent volume control). So, give that a try.

Out of curiosity though, why aren't you just using your computer to "rip" the track you want into a wave file?
 
Mandarin Man,

PC/multimedia speakers are typically powered speakers. They have a line level input (that you connect from the sound card's line out. So if your CD line out sounds normally loud through the PC speakers, I suspect it's truly a line level output.

Eurythmic,

That's what you said? I'll have to read it again, I thought it was the opposite. Hmmm, OK, I guess I misunderstood. I guess the only speakers with an RCA plug are powered speakers.

But I still believe a standard CD player's output is line level. Can anyone set me straight or verify my belief?
 
That's what you said? I'll have to read it again, I thought it was the opposite. Hmmm, OK, I guess I misunderstood. I guess the only speakers with an RCA plug are powered speakers.
Click to expand...

My very first set of computer speakers, for my 8-bit Sound Blaster, had RCA plugs and weren't powered. But, the card itself had an amplified output (and a little volume dial that was impossible to reach).

It sounded like garbage! But, not compared to the internal speaker. :)

But I still believe a standard CD player's output is line level. Can anyone set me straight or verify my belief?
Click to expand...

Have you ever tried to make mp3s from a component tape player, by using the standard RCA output on the back of the deck? That's how I learned that this doesn't work. It's the same idea. Whenever I wanted to transfer tapes to my computer, the most simple solution was to use the tape deck's headphone out.
 
At the risk of getting in over my head here...


Mics and Turntables generally have a low output in the millivolt range (e.g. 5mv). I believe this is the case with cassette decks as well. These all need their signal to be pre-amplified to line level (0.5 - 2 Volts) in order to be plugged into any "line in" connection.

Most stereo receivers contain a pre-amp. So the "phono in" connections on the receiver will run the signal through a pre-amp contained in the receiver before further amplifying that signal to go to your speakers.

Computer speakers are powered speakers - meaning they contain their own power amplifier. Therefore you can feed a line level signal to these (such as that from your soundcard) without the need for further amplification first.

Basically I think we are all pretty much just agreeing with each other.

Sorry AlChuck, I don't know what a CD Component Player outputs. My guess would have been that it is similar to a phono output, but I'm not sure. An easy test would be to connect one directly to your computer speakers. If it plays normally, it is outputting a line level signal. If it plays at very low volume, or not at all, then it ain't.

Lastly, Mandarin Guy, I agree with Eurythmic - why aren't you just ripping the music from the CD, rather than trying to record it. All you need is a CD-ROM capable of digital audio extraction (most newer ones can do that, all almost all CD-RW's can), and some extraction software which can be found free on the net. You'll get a direct digital copy of the music, rather than have it pass through an A/D conversion.
 
I'm pretty certain standard cassette decks have line level ins and outs...
 
AlChuck - I dug out the manual for my component CD player last night. I found two interesting things. The output connections were actually labeled line out.

Also, they had an illustration showing these connections leading to "receiver or amplifier". You could not run a low level mV signal directly to an "amplifier". It would need to be preamp'd to line level first.

Therefore my conclusion is, as you suspected, that the output connections on CD players are indeed line level connections.

Still not sure about cassette decks. Maybe I'll look for that manual tonight.
 
Eurythmic & dachay2tnr,

I use the line-in of my soundcrad to record music, because my CD-ROM drive doesn't seem to work well with rippers. I tried several. My CD-ROM drive is a Goldstar CRD-8160B (CPQ). MusicMatch is acceptable, but the quality is still so-so (a lot of noise).

Besides I also wanna use the line-in to directly record sound from my synth into my pc. As far as the latter is concerned, if I used a cable to connect the AUX OUT (L+R) of my synth (using double jack) with the line-in of my pc soundcard (using the small jack), would that signal be amplified? That way I should be able to get a better signal than if I used the headphone out, right? I know the headphone out of my synth is amplified, but what about the AUX OUT?
 
Somebody else can probably answer your second question. I'm not sure.

For ripping CDs, try a program called Exact Audio Copy. It's what you call a "paranoid" ripper - it slows down the ripping process, sometimes to even less than 1X, but it can get a perfect copy of almost any CD with almost any CD-ROM drive that's somewhat recent.
 
I'm pretty sure just about every synth puts out line level signals, so you should have no trouble doing what you describe...
 
AlChuck said:
I'm pretty certain standard cassette decks have line level ins and outs...
Click to expand...

I also thought this (sorry for bringing back a very old thread, but Im having problems.) However, I am trying to go from the RCA jacks of my Pioneer cassette deck to a line in on a yamaha soundcard and I am clipping. Even when I put the line level input (through windows mixer) as low as possible.

I am unsure of where to go from here. I am trying to transfer about 800 cassettes to cd, which is a daunting task in and of itself, but I am about to give up. *shrugs*
 
From my own experiance, every Cassette deck and CD player I have ever used (including two portable CD players) had it's outputs at line level.
 
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