Sm57 db problem

[Steenamaroo]

Ah, so it does! I was looking at the "audiobox" rather than the "audiobox 22vsl"

Good catch, Paul.

 

[batigol]

What's the guitar? What's the style of playing? Where is the mic situated?

I'm recording guitar and vocals. I am positioning the mic very close to the amp but off to the side a little bit.

Since mention is made of Audacity I am making the assumption that the OP is not well heeled? So, £150 for a single channel, one trick poney like the Cloudlifter is a bit steep.

Now I KNOW I shall get my neck trodden on but....Buy a small mixer! Two mic input (one mic input mixers or AIs are daft IMHO) mixers from the likes of Mackie, Yamaha, Soundcraft and yes, Behringer, are very good these days in terms of noise. They also have more gain than most AIs plus the bonus of EQ and a bit of bass rolloff is usually a good thing. £50ish new but~ 1/2 that at Cash Converters and the like.

Can I use a mixer in conjunction with my Audiobox 22vsl interface?

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your responses!

 

[ecc83]

Mmm. Browsing the product web page, it says that mic gain range is -15dB to +65dB.

PreSonus | AudioBox 22VSL - Techspecs

It does indeed say that...

Mic Preamp EIN -129 dB, 20 kHz BW, max gain, Rs=40Ω, A-wtd
Frequency Response 20 Hz - 20 kHz, ±0.3 dB, unity gain
THD+N 0.005%, 0 dBu, 1 kHz, unity gain, 20 kHz BW, A-wtd
S/N Ratio 94 dB, 0 dBu, 1 kHz, unity gain, 20 kHz BW, unwtd
Gain Control Range -15 dB to +65 dB<<<<<
Input Max Headroom +10 dBu, < 0.5% THD
Input Impedance 1.7 kΩ
Phantom Power +48 VDC, 10 mA total

But that is a near electronics impossibility IMO. To get a gain range of just 0dB to 55dB inevitably means some "cramping" of the gain at higher levels and many budget mixers and AIs are notorius for this (my Fast Track pro is one such). To get a range of 80dB is unheard of and would make the last 20dB or so practically unusable in my view (but maybe they have a "boost" in software?).

But back to the OP's problem. I now suspect he is not playing loudly enough! Most guitar amps have a very poor "self noise" (PM me if you want to know of one that is positively high fideliteee, in this respect!) so you need to have the amp kicking some 90dBSPL into the room to overcome the background noise. This of course is not always possible for social reasons and so the other recourse is to a speaker attenuator or Power Soak as I prefer to call them. For amps up to 15watts or so they are beer into water to make and cost less than $50.

Batgol: Mixer! Sorry, missed that. Yes, you could use a mixer with the audiobox. The mixer outs would feed the combi line inputs but I am not sure it would help you with your current problem. see above.
JUSFORT! Have you tried singing into the mic well away from the amplifier? If that is clean (you need a mic to gob distance of about 8inches) it is the amp or guitar/amp system that is causing the noise.

Dave.