canada-paul
New member
I have a P4 1.5 with an SBLive card. I'm using my Korg Pandora's headphone output into the line in of the soundcard. Normally I would think this is shunned (headphone outs are not line level), but there is an output level setting on the Pandora which is turned down far enough so that the signal doesn't distort.
When I play through the Pandora, (computer audio output plugged into home stereo, headphones plugged into home stereo), the sound is great. The palm muting has lots of low end chunk, and the sound is crystal clear. Then when I record something and play it back, it sounds significantly weaker. There's no distortion (okay, the guitar sound is distorted of course, but I mean its not peaking and clipping/popping), the levels are fine, but the chunk is gone, and I'm left with something useable, but certainly less than exciting. I assume that it IS possible (with a better soundcard) to accurately record what I'm hearing through the headphones. Right now my setup seems to only be performing as a sketch pad rather than a true home recording studio.
My question: is this recording performance indicative of the difference between recording in 16-bit vs 24-bit? Or is it the difference between using an SBLive versus something else? I've heard lots of talk, mostly here, about other sound cards, but I've never actually heard the side-by-side comparisons. It would be really interesting to hear someone play a riff and record it with an SBLive at 16-bit, then hear the same thing recorded on a higher end sound card at 16-bit, and then again at 24-bit.
Is there anyone out there who has comparitive samples, or has gone through the same evolution as myself?
When I play through the Pandora, (computer audio output plugged into home stereo, headphones plugged into home stereo), the sound is great. The palm muting has lots of low end chunk, and the sound is crystal clear. Then when I record something and play it back, it sounds significantly weaker. There's no distortion (okay, the guitar sound is distorted of course, but I mean its not peaking and clipping/popping), the levels are fine, but the chunk is gone, and I'm left with something useable, but certainly less than exciting. I assume that it IS possible (with a better soundcard) to accurately record what I'm hearing through the headphones. Right now my setup seems to only be performing as a sketch pad rather than a true home recording studio.
My question: is this recording performance indicative of the difference between recording in 16-bit vs 24-bit? Or is it the difference between using an SBLive versus something else? I've heard lots of talk, mostly here, about other sound cards, but I've never actually heard the side-by-side comparisons. It would be really interesting to hear someone play a riff and record it with an SBLive at 16-bit, then hear the same thing recorded on a higher end sound card at 16-bit, and then again at 24-bit.
Is there anyone out there who has comparitive samples, or has gone through the same evolution as myself?