recording classical guitar

[mcnameep]

I just started recording unamplified classical guitar on PC. I have a Dell 233Mhz with whatever sound card came with it. I am very pleased with the guitar sound but there is a lot of noise. I am using Cakewalk. I got a good sure Mic. I think the noise is coming from the hard drive or somewhere in the PC. Do I need a better soundcard or a better PC? The noise is not a humming. It's like a high pitched squealing and clicking.

 

[zekthedeadcow]

thats line noise (aka magnetic interferriance) from your sound card.. the best thing to do is get a better sound card... but you'd probably have to get a new PC to run the better sound card

 

[Seanmorse79]

My guess is that you're recording through the "Mic In" jack of your soundcard. In most cases, those are noizy and worthless. You'll probably want to record through the "Line In" jack of your soundcard, but in order to do that, you'll need a mic preamp or a small mixer to amplify the signal to "line level".

Like Zeke said, a new soundcard would help a lot, but you're still going to need a mic pre or mixer (most pro-sumer cards don't even have "Mic In" jacks).

Also, make sure you don't have anything plugged in that causes interference - fluorescent lights, older appliances, hair dryers, etc...