Help w/CW professional8

[grinnin]

Just loaded this program onto my PC, fired it up and the sound quality recording via mic-compressor-preamp-soundcard is horrendous. I tried eliminating the compressor, and using different mics (AKG c1000s and Shure 87) and still horrible. Sound levels are set properly. The sound is thin, buzzy and the pitch gets bent by the recording.

I can't find the answer in the CW help files.

I'd appreciate any ideas. Thanks!

 

[AlChuck]

What kind of soundcard? What input on your soundcard have you plugged it into? If it's in the Mic In on a Sound Blaster or similar consumer-level card, it's being preamped again by the cheesy mic preamp on the card, and that might be the cause of your troubles. If you're coming out of a mixer you have line level there and should put in in the soundcard's line in.

Other possibilities... input level on the soundcard is too high and you're getting clipping in the analog-to-digital converter...

The pitch gets bent? Do you mean it higher or lower in pitch overall, like playing a speeded-up or slowed-down tape would sound? I suppose bad clipping could sound like a pitch being bent...

Maybe the sound card is flaky? Can you play back pre-recorded audio OK?

One thing, it certainly isn't the audio program. If the audio piped into it is fine, with good levels, it isn't doing anything weird that could affect the sound like you describe. (Did you try recording in anything else, like the Windows Sound Recorder accessory, or anything that might have come with the soundcard?

 

[grinnin]

thanks Alchuck!

Indeed, it is a Soundblaster. Switching to the line in did help, but I still have the pitch bending weirdness. It's like a short drop in pitch and then returns to true pitch like a de-retuning.

I only got to try it briefly after hooking up correctly. I'll have some more time soon to tweak the input settings and see if I can get some better sound.

 

[crustacean]

regarding the pitch problem, cakewalk is probably using internal synch ... switch this to audio synch and this should fix your problem. See attached graphic for the icon, or you can go to Tools menu > Project Options and select the Clock tab. There, set the Source to Audio. Try it out, this should do it.