Recording from preamp straight into Cakewalk

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DSharpe

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I use a Fishman mono piezzo-electric pickup on my acoustic cello and feed it into a Fishman Pro-EQ pickup. After that I have some effects and, if I'm performing, usually go straight into a DI and into the board. But I bought Cakewalk Home Studio 9 and I want to know if I can use the quarter-inch jack to go from the preamp output straight into the computer. I already have a step-down jack (quarter-inch to headphone), and I was able to record the cello signal as a track in Cakewalk (so I know I have the basic software settings right), but I got a really really low signal level, so playback was almost all hiss. What do I need to do to get a good solid clean signal? Thanks.
 
Check your mixer

Firstly check that you have a full signal coming into your sound card by accessing the mixer and checking the input level there. You're mixer is probably a small icon next to your time on the bottom right. Cake walk doesn't have control of the input signal, that must be adjusted in your mixer.
Cheers
John
 
Thanks, John

Great idea -- something I hand't thought of -- but when I checked the levels, both the Microphone and Line-in levels were at 50%, which should be good enough (right?). Can you think of anything else?
 
Make sure you're plugged into the Line-in (not the mic in.) I would crank it up past 50% too.
 
Still no real solution, but...

... I've learned a few things. First, the volume of the playback is determined by the "Wave" setting in the mixer on my computer's sound card. [I don't know why -- or what that means -- but it's what makes the difference.] Second, the right input on my laptop to use is the Mic input, not Line-in. Third, I had my "Velocity" and "Volume" settings in Track Properties set way too low. As soon as I set these at about 100 (out of a possible 127), the signal strength being recorded on the track was much, much better. Also, John's suggestion re: the settings on my sound card's mixer were relevant -- i.e. if the "Recording levels" setting for the Mic was too low, nothing got through. On the other hand, if the Recording level setting for the mic on the sound card is too high, Cakewalk gets a distorted signal, no matter what the "Track properties" settings.

So, I can now get a clean signal, with the following settings:
1. Sound card recording levels: Mic set at 5 out of 10
2. Track properties: Volume = 100, Velocity = 100

BUT... all of this only gets a nice sound when I go straight from the passive piezzo-electric pickup straight into the Microphone jack on my laptop. As soon as I try to put some effects upstream of the laptop (i.e. cello - pickup - preamp - echo pedal - laptop), the result is terrible: low signal strength, distortion, crumbling,... Scary.

So my question is: how can I use a preamp and effects BEFORE going into the laptop? Do I have to change the settings in Cakewalk to get the sound right, or is it something about the quality/strength of the signal going into the mic jack? Or maybe the problem is the limitations of the mic jack. Maybe I should be sending the signal into the laptop through the SCSI port,... or the USB port... Any ideas?
 
Thanks you, c7sus

I'll try it in the morning. I appreciate your help.
 
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