Shure SM57 giving noise! Tsssssss!!!

J

Jaticus

New member
Hello everyone.

Im new here as you can tell, and im an artist who wishes to do some home recording. Just to make things easy i'll get straight to the point. I have a problem and that is im getting a hell of alot of white noise/hissing in my recordings. I think its gotten worse recently but its always been slightly there. Its the sort of noise you'd expect to find on a recording thats used a webcam or a built in mic, but this is not the case.
The gear im using is:

Acer Aspire 5610 laptop (mid range quality costing £500/$1000)
Shure SM57 (purchased 1 month ago, using with Shure professonal lead)
Mixcraft 3 (multi layer track recording programme costing £30/$60)
1/4 to 1/8 adapter thing

I dont really know whats wrong. I new to the game so i cant figure out whats wrong. Even in a super queit enviorment the white noise is still a problem, and by this i mean its at a level where im having to using noise reduction software on each layer to make it acceptable. I do have one theory that it could be the 1/4 to 1/8 adapter. The little thing allows me to put the jack into the front line-in socket of my laptop. Its gold plated and everything but whenever i insert it i always here a crackle from the speakers which suggests to me there a problem somewhere there. I dont know. Can anyone suggest anything?

much appreciated
Jaticus

ps. if anyone wants to hear what iv done so far with the gear iv made to songs. myspace.com/theicarusmachine
 
Jaticus said:
Hello everyone.

Im new here as you can tell, and im an artist who wishes to do some home recording. I have a problem and that is im getting a hell of alot of white noise/hissing in my recordings. I do have one theory that it could be the 1/4 to 1/8 adapter. The little thing allows me to put the jack into the front line-in socket of my laptop.
Click to expand...
The mic should plug into the "mic input", not the "line input".

If you plug the mic into your "Line In", you'll need to boost the signal a lot, and that will bring up a lotta noise along with the mic signal.
 
Hello.

You say you're going into the line in on the laptop? A line input will be expecting (surprise, surprise) a line level signal. The mic output is relatively weedy and needs to be amplified to get it up to line level. It could go into a mic input (which will contain a preamp) or through an external mic preamp, the output of which will then go to the line in.

I suspect you're having to add tons of gain elsewhere (in your recording software?) to get the mic signal audible and this is giving you the hiss.

Do you have a mic in on your laptop?

Edit: Harvey types quicker and more concisely than me. :D
 
What about the need for a preamp for the '57?
I also found that a lack of sufficient phantom power made one of my mics (a larger condenser) so noisy I almost tossed it.
 
cheers for the replies everyone,

unfortunatly iv been unclear, i am inserting the shure into the pinkish mic imput on the front of the laptop, the socket has a little picture of a mic next to it aswell so im pritty sure its where i should be going.

I dont usually add lots of gain, i just try and make sure the mic is close to the sound source so its audible. It alot of situations i dont need to amplify the layer with my programme, i just leave because its fine, but again theres noise there.

Whats this is hear about pre-amps and such? is there a way of boosting the sensitivty of the mic?
 
hey, i really like ur music, added u as a friend on myspace. I fink uve done well with just a Sm57 straight into ur comp, if u want a cheap recording interface with a preamp which will give u a decent quality, an M audio fast track is quite good, i started off with one and it served me well when i was just recording one channel at a time, got mine for bout £40 on ebay, new i fink there something like £60, but yer gd luck with ur music.
 
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