soundcard, hooking up mixer help? beginner-so be nice

[rlimon]

I have a KORG N1 hooked up to a mackie 1202 mixer which is hooked up to my computer. I use cakewalk's SONAR. when i record midi, everything is great. When i record audio, i get a hissing in the back of recording. I tried plugging my keyboard directly into my soundcard, and i still get hissing sound when i record it as audio. i try to set levels properly, but i can't get rid of hissing. Is it my soundcard? I have windows XP, 256 megs of ram. I think i have a CONEXANT RIPTIDE soundcard that came with computer. what is the top soundcard i can get, within reason of price. i want to rid my hissing.

please help me, i'm new to this.

thanks

p.s. in order to put my midi tracks on a cd, do i have to record them over again into audio files in SONAR? is there a special function that translates midi files into audio files in SONAR?

 

[TexRoadkill]

Your sound card is probably the problem. Look for a Delta card, I think the Audiophile is their cheapest at about $180?

Yes you need to record all your keyboard parts as audio. It is best to record the seperate parts on their own tracks so you can process and mix accordingly. You will get much better sound that way as opposed to just recording the entire stereo mix straight from your keyboard.