Recording troubles!

B

Blackthoven

New member
Hey all!

I've been recording for a while now, but I've always just used my laptop's mic which, needless to say, produces quite bad audio quality.

We have a dynamic (Optimus 33-3030) mic in our household that I decided to try until I buy a better mic for recording acoustic & vocal sounds.

I'm using an HP pavillion dm1z and it has an all-in-one headphone & mic jack; there's only one jack that is supposed to function as both jacks combined. However, when I plug in the mic with the adapter my computer doesn't recognize it even when it's on, although, it seems to read it as a headset because whenever its plugged-in the audio on my computer stops to work and sometimes even comes out of the mic itself...

I've tried a couple things but nothing seems to work.

Do I need some sort of pre-amp, or additional software, or do I need a different type of mic entirely?

P.S. I'm using Audacity (I have various other software but quite frankly I prefer Audacity over most of them).

Thanks a lot! :guitar:
 
Blackthoven said:
I suppose I'll just have to get a better mic and a mixer, then!
Click to expand...

Hey there.
99 times out of 100 a mixer isn't the way forward either. ;)

Search the sticky threads as suggested, with focus on audio interfaces.

Even the most basic of audio interfaces will make a huge difference to your recordings.
 
ollie99 said:
read all the sticky threads in the newbie's section
Click to expand...

TimOBrien said:
Step 1: You do NOT want to use any of the onboard sound. All onboard sound is bad.

Go HERE and start learning the basics.

THIS book is another good starter resource.
Click to expand...
Steenamaroo said:
Hey there.
99 times out of 100 a mixer isn't the way forward either. ;)

Search the sticky threads as suggested, with focus on audio interfaces.

Even the most basic of audio interfaces will make a huge difference to your recordings.
Click to expand...

+1 to all of the above
Good luck with your recordings, ask us questions anytime! :D
 
Thanks for all the pointers everyone! Much appreciated.

There are very valuable threads on this forum; I'm looking forward to searching through some of them and perhaps becoming an active member here.

I'm going to try and get some sort of audio interface and a better mic as soon as I can, but for now I'll just have to deal with horrendous audio quality :P

Again, thanks to everyone who replied.

Be well!

Edit: On second thought, in the meantime I suppose I could always use one of my other programs and put my midi cable to good use. The only problem with that would be that I still wouldn't be able to record vocals or my acoustic guitar since I'd run into the same problem! Quite the dilemma.
 
Blackthoven. Get over it. You need a USB based recording interface (not a mixer- which will not solve your problem, but will do a bunch of stuff you don't need). The horrible truth that 90% of all recording noobs just don't want to hear- Real microphones and computers are not made to be compatible with each other. You need a device designed to make the one talk to the other. There are lots of them out there, but I like this one:

Line 6 POD Studio UX2 | 8thstreet.com | Call 1-800-878-8882 | Most Orders Ship Free!

Will it make all the issues go away? No. But it will solve your most important problems, including ones you don't even know you have-yet. Best of luck.
 
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