How do I make my mic work on the computer?

[Strat Man]

I been trying to do multi track recording directly on to my computer but the damn mic won't work. Anyone know how to make it work and record?

P.S I know the mic itself works because I've tryed it on a tape recorder.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Wow. The number one newbie question.

What kind of microphone is it? If it's a cheapo walmart mic you won't get very good results. They won't even be adequate.

Regardless, you really can't just plug a microphone into your soundcard unless it's a "computer microphone".

Without going into details, here's what you need at a bare minimum:

1) A microphone. A Shure SM57 or SM58 would be the cheap standard. $70 to $100

2) A preamp. You NEED a preamp of some sort to get the mic signal to a line level that can run into your computer.

3) A decent soundcard. Many soundcards perform VERY poorly for recording. You will be running the preamp into the LINE IN port on your soundcard. If it sounds like absolute hell, spend a measly $30 on a Soundblaster PCI128 or Ensoniq AudioPCI. They're not great, but they work well enough.

If you do a little searching on this subject you will find a LOT of information (in this forum alone). I'll bet that every one of us at one point tried plugging a microphone into a soundcard and ran into the same wall you've smashed into.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[RyanOD]

Along the same lines. Is a preamp necessary to record through a mic into a 4-track?? I have ran my sm57-mics directly into my 4-track and they 'seem' to have worked fine. Am I making a big mistake??

 

[Emeric]

Your 4 track has a preamp built-in so, no I don't think your making any mistakes.