Maybe I'm not so stupid

[BluesMojo]

..The SM58 sounds wonderful. Great for recording my 12-string and dobro, incredible for vocals. It's got three adapters to connect it to the computer, a problem I'll soon need to remedy, but I really like it.

Now my problem is, I have this hissing noise when I record. I thought it was originating in my old computer mic, but I don't guess it is. Where does this come from, what can I do about it short of, y'know, building a recording studio?

-Kyle

 

[Sennheiser]

Can you hear the hissing while you are monitoring or just on playback?

Does it happen only with this mic?

 

[BluesMojo]

I've had it with every mic I've used, just a hissing in the background. I hear it anytime anything I've recorded is being played back.

 

[jeap]

its the noisy lil mic preamp in your shitty soundcard!

 

[BluesMojo]

Solution: Buy a new soundcard?

Or would that preamp you recommended me also solve the problem?

 

[Chris Shaeffer]

I would guess that jeap is right- cheap soundcards typically sound...well, cheap.

Almost all stock sound cards fall into the "cheap" category when you are talking about recording.

Take care,
Chris

(Which part of IN,by the way? I went to school at Purdue...that was a little while ago... Spent some time down in Bloomington, too. That was much nicer than Lafayette, IMHO. )

 

[BluesMojo]

I go to college in Anderson, up north, and the rest of the year live in Bedford, which is 20 miles south of Bloomington.

What's a good soundcard going to cost me?

 

[charger]

What's a good soundcard going to cost me?

$1,000,000.








No, not really, I just always wanted to say that.

 

[jeap]

get the preamp and go line in.

 

[tdukex]

I go to college in Anderson, up north, and the rest of the year live in Bedford, which is 20 miles south of Bloomington.

What's a good soundcard going to cost me?

A Soundblaster Live Value will run about $39.

A basic Audigy will run about $59. Don't waste money on the Platinum. According to Ethan Winer www.ethanwiner.com the Audigy is a pretty decent card for the money, and I trust Ethan. He knows his stuff, IMO.

The next step up would be either an M-Audio Audiophile $159 or an Echo Mia $189. I know the M-Audio stuff is good because I have one of their cards, and I've only heard good things about the Mia.

You can get a little entry level mic preamp from ART, Behringer, Presonus, or DBX for around $100.

 

[BluesMojo]

Would getting a preamp and using line in to the computer eliminate that humming noise, or just dampen it a bit? I'm looking to get rid of it with my next purchase, and I'm told that line in is nearly as noisy as the mic preamp.

 

[DanielJohn]

bluesmojo,
before you go out and buy a new soundcard, try this.
Go to your sound button, where all the options for your soundcard are, it's a little speaker on your task bar, bottom right.

Mute all the channels, except for the one you are using.

This could solve the problem.
-DAN

 

[JFogarty]

You're never gonna get very good results just going right into the sound card with a pant load of adapters. Just go out and get a cheap mic pre amp, or a cheap mixer, and use the line in. You'll get much, much better results.

 

[Roel]

(To add to fogarty's post: the problem is not that the adapters you're using are degrading your signal, but the fact that it's just a low quality micpre in there....)

 

[jeap]

in other words do what i originally advised.

audiobuddy.

now.

 

[JFogarty]

Yes, definatly buy something, not necisarily a new sound card, though a decent SBLive would be a good idea, if your sound card sucks...

 

[Chris Fallen]

An M-Audio Omni Studio might be a good choice since it's a good quality soundcard with good quality pres in one package.

Christopher

 

[notCardio]

The Indy faction weighs in...

Don't forget about the possibility that the recording levels are set too low. Could just be that you're getting a bad signal-to-noise ratio because you're levels are set too low to mask the background noise.

Just a thought.

P.S. Didn't you always want to take a battery-powered amp like a Crate Taxi out to a quarry? Man, talk about slap-back echo!

Limestone rocks! (Sorry, a little Hoosier humor there)

 

[jimistone]

put a noise gate on it and record with hot levels (without clipping)

 

[BluesMojo]

Dude! Limestone! My town is the LIMESTONE CAPITOL OF THE WORLD. My grandpa ran a limestone mill for years and years. One of the cherished memories of my formative years was standing on top of a huge stack of limestone rocks and shooting a spud gun far into the distance!

...Anyway, I switched into Acid Pro 3.0 from Cakewalk and tried some recording in there, and like 98% of the background noise is gone now. The hiss is totally gone. It's rather odd. I'll probably get the preamp eventually, but if I can record at a pretty good quality level I might just stick with what I have for a while (Since the mic, though a bargain, broke me).

Any idea why Acid would give me better results than Cakewalk?