Help something in not right when i playback my vocal recordings

  • Thread starter Thread starter thephattlady
  • Start date Start date
T

thephattlady

New member
hi

i am new to all this.... i am having problems with recording vocals as i seem to get 'electrical interference' of some sort when i play back my recordings. Strangely enough the sound comes out fine through the speaker before i hit the record button and on play back the sound is 'fuzzy' only on the parts when i have actually sung or said something. some1 said said maybe its the computer processor. i have a dual core processor , 4gb ram on the computer and using saffire 6 usb, and audacity to record.

any suggestions will be appreciated

thanks
 
thephattlady said:
hi

i am new to all this.... i am having problems with recording vocals as i seem to get 'electrical interference' of some sort when i play back my recordings. Strangely enough the sound comes out fine through the speaker before i hit the record button and on play back the sound is 'fuzzy' only on the parts when i have actually sung or said something. some1 said said maybe its the computer processor. i have a dual core processor , 4gb ram on the computer and using saffire 6 usb, and audacity to record.

any suggestions will be appreciated

thanks
Click to expand...

Your computer specs should be more than adequate.

What sample rate are you recording at?
 
hi

thanks for the response

well the audacity is set to at 44100Hz and the default sample format is 32 bit, i hope that makes sense to you coz at the mo im just trying to get my head round it all

thephattlady
 
thephattlady said:
hi

Strangely enough the sound comes out fine through the speaker before i hit the record button and on play back the sound is 'fuzzy' only on the parts when i have actually sung or said something.
any suggestions will be appreciated

thanks
Click to expand...

Not sure if I have this right. Are you hearing the mic out of your speakers? If you are this is a no-no. You could have a feedback loop. The mic is hearing itself in the speakers and reamplifying it over and over. If you want to hear yourself, you need to turn your speakers off and use headphones.

A fuzziness suggests distortion which could be the feedback I mentioned or you have a signal too hot(loud). Can you explain in detail your software, hardware and procedure when you record and the problem occurs?
 
hi

basically i am using the focusrite saffire 6 usb, and i have a condensor microphone and using AUDACITY. I am actually turning the monitors off to record but each time i play back i do hear the 'fuzzy sound' which only comes on the parts that i have actually said something into the mic. the noise does not occur when i am just speaking into the mic without recording.

thanks
 
I've never used one, so here is my answer based a quick peak on musicians friends website.

Try to keep the signal chain as short as possible.

If possible I would try this. Setup Audacity to use your focusrite as both recording and play back. Then listen through the head phone jack using headphones.

Meaning:

For Input go mic>focusrite>computer>software
The output software>computer>focusrite>headphones.

I think you should also be able to use the monitor knob to adjust the headphone output.

Also make sure your knobs aren't dimed to the max.

Racherik
 
OK, that should work well together. Off the top of my head it could be either you have the levels 2 hot, or USB power is causing a problem. Is this on a laptop or a desktop PC. The Focusrite is USB powered so if your port is not supplying enough, that could be a problem. Possible try a different USB port.

Once you set your mic up in the Focusrite, there are 2 signal lights, green and red. The green should be lit which means you are getting a strong enough signal. The red should NOT be lit. This would mean it is too much signal and you need to turn the gain down. Try these and see what happens.
 
I'm having the exact same problem with my recording efforts.

everything 'live' sounds great, but once i playback it sounds like crap, with some sort of 'scratchyness' over it.
 
That sounds like a samplerate problem. You need to set the drivers of your interface and the settings in your DAW to the same samplerate and bit depth.

For 99% of the time, just use 44,100 khz and 24 bit. You can learn about other settings but use this to get it working first.
 
Washburn100 said:
That sounds like a samplerate problem. You need to set the drivers of your interface and the settings in your DAW to the same samplerate and bit depth.

For 99% of the time, just use 44,100 khz and 24 bit. You can learn about other settings but use this to get it working first.
Click to expand...

x2 make sure your hardware and software are synced. I believe when they are not in sync is when you get the dreaded 'jitter'
 
Try turning on the phantom power , changing to 24bit and turning down the gain so it hits about -18dbFS in the audacity meter window.
 
Hi, thanks to all for your support, i feel that i am closer to resolving the issue, today i have tried recording some vocals. the first take was great without any problems becoz i just got into AUDACITY and hit record so a channel was automatically generated. The problem however starts again when i try to generate a new audio track and it seems a stereo track is being generated and the vocals i am recording then have the same outcome as before. i'm hoping someone might have a suggestion to stop this trying to get a way to generate a mono track at the moment.

thanks
 
one other thing ii have noticed is that the curser is way ahead as the recorded vocals start appearing on the track.. i hope it makes sense
 
When recording with a simgle mic, obviously it is a mono signal so yes you want to generate a mono track. Not sure how to do it in Audacity, but you are on the right track and it is just a matter of figuring out the software.

The cursor moving ahead of your recording still sounds like a buffer/samplerate problem.

You need to get the settings of the drivers/software of your saffire synced with the settings in Audacity. Unfortunately, I am not familar enough with the software to tell you how, other than that sounds like the problem.

Maybe someone more familar with the software can chime in.
 
hi

i have been trying to use ableton live 8 and im still getting the same problems....
 
Try your mic on another set up and determine whether it's the mic or the preamp.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top