If I can ask a related question on this topic (in 25 words or more), I could sure use the help:
I’m recording my band in my house and am having a problem with recording our female vocalist. Her vocals sound distorted in the louder sections, yet, all recording levels are well below clip levels and the final wave showing up in Cool Edit Pro is miniscule. She ended up standing a good 4 feet from the mic and this is still true. Our male vocalist has none of this problem with the identical setup and the resulting wave implies he is recorded much hotter.
The setup is a cheapie studio mic (my son got it for free with a good sound card he bought), going into a 4-track to use the pre-amps, then into a Gina 20 break-out box and sound card into CEP software. We tried switching her to an SM58 mic which helped somewhat, but the problem is still there.
She has a very strong, lower-range (alto?) voice. Sitting there in the room as she’s singing, I would almost swear the room itself is vibrating…or maybe it’s my ear drum!!
Has anyone ever encountered this? Any suggestions? Since I don't have an external amp to power the headphones, I have to keep the CEP gains up. Is it possible that I’m saturating the A/D on the Gina card (with output) without seeing it in either the 4-track’s or Gina console monitors on input?
Thanks for you time.