Creating wav files

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zaabway

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New to digital recording - my goal is to burn a disc from my ADAT. I have a Behringer board, a Philips CDRW and a descent laptop with Roxio Easy CD Creator software. I'm sending my ADAT signal through my board, and into my sound card (line-in NOT mic) and getting a very poor quality sound. The laptop came with a ESS Maestro2E sound card. Is this just a very basic card and unable to do what I need? Is there anything else I should be aware of or try?
 
Also, what software are you using to record on the laptop? Is it set to record at 16 bit 44.1 - which is probably what you want since I asume you want to burn to CDR.
 
The laptop is a Dell Pentium III, 32M ram, 11gig hard drive. I'm using Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 software recording at 44.1kHz, 16 bit. It seems like I have enough to do a descent job but I'm not sure about the sound card. I think its just a stock, bottom of the line model but I'm having trouble finding out anything about it (I bought the laptop used with no documentation). Any ideas?
 
Your EZCD software is fine; I would suggest increasing your laptop memory up to 128, but neither of these will impact the sound quality. EZCD writes the image, but what software are you using to actually record the .WAV file with?

While I certainly know what an ADAT is, I have not worked with one. I'm going to guess that you are "bouncing" tracks down to a stereo left/right signal first, then running from an (analog) stereo output into your mixer, then from the (analog) Main L/R Outs of the mixer to the (analog) line in of the sound card.

First step - Your mixer has a monitor out connection. If you can plug in headphones or a amp/speaker to the mixer and it sounds OK, then you can assume that the signal is getting to that point OK.

Second step - as the sound is entering your laptop, hopefully whatever recording program you are using has some form of monitoring. recording digital signals is different than analog in that you NEVER want digital recording to peak over 0db. So if your level is too hot you will get digital distortion.

Remember that Windows has its own volumne control in addition to any controlls in your program, you may need to adjust this.

If the levels are ok, check the cable from the mixer to the laptop.

It is unfortunately possible that the laptop just has a poorly wired line-in connection, if so there may not be much you can do.

Thats all I can think of at the moment...
 
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There is a program within EZCD (v5 Platinum) called Spin Doctor that records the .wav file.

I'm not bouncing any tracks, I'm running out of each ADAT track in to a seperate channel for each track on the board then going out of the Main L/R Outs into the sound card. So I'm essentially doing the final mix while creating the wav. I'm really just testing creating a wav file. Any problems with that? Even with levels set resonably things sound distorted, lots of pops, just plain bad. Any other ideas?
 
Your Behringer board probably uses a +4 line level (standard for pro & semi pro gear) vs. a -10 livel on the input of your sound card. So it may be the line level out from the board is too hot for your sound card to handle cleanly. As a test, try plugging the line-outs form a consumer device like a stereo receiver in to the sound card and see if it still distorts while recording.
 
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