soundcard/input/reamp question...

[paulf]

So im setting up my own little home studio here, and ive ran into a porblem. I used to make recordings by running a $14 radioshack mic in my soundcard. Now ive gone and bough a proper $80 Shure mic and an adapter to run it into my soundcard.

I ran it into my soundcard and recorded... and it sounded roughly ten times worse than the radioshack mic. It was muddy and almost inaudiable. Its a dynamic mic, but still thought phantom power to be the issue, so i ran the mic into my fender amp, and the line out into my compter. No results, sounds the same.

Anyone know what im doing wrong? I dont want to go spend more money on this if its still going to sound awful.

thanks in advance

 

[studiomaster]

dynamic mics don't require phantom power, condensers do.

 

[legionserial]

You will need a mic preamp of some description though....I can't imagine getting great results through a guitar amp.

What cable are you using from the mic? What soundcard do you have?

 

[paulf]

uhh i just have a generic soundcard. I have a xml cable out of my mic and a converter cable to plug it into the 1/4 jack on my amp.

I just went to guitar center to look at preamps, and all of them are the opposite of what i need. the XML was the output and the 1/4 was the input... the guy said people dont even plug their mics into their soundcards?

 

[warlock110]

uhh i just have a generic soundcard. I have a xml cable out of my mic and a converter cable to plug it into the 1/4 jack on my amp.

I just went to guitar center to look at preamps, and all of them are the opposite of what i need. the XML was the output and the 1/4 was the input... the guy said people dont even plug their mics into their soundcards?

most of them go through a mixer... then the mixer to the sound card... recently i found out that the m-audio 2496 and 921 (all are beginner pro cards)... doesn't have built in amp... so if u choose to buy those cards, you have to get a preamp and a mixer to hook the mic in...

 

[TragikRemix]

sounds like time to buy a real soundcard dude...

yeah, check out the m-audio stuff, maybe e-mu, maybe you want to go bigger with firewire or usb..

thats the end of life as you know it... welcome to home recording, the endless money bucket..

 

[tone_aot]

sounds like time to buy a real soundcard dude...

yeah, check out the m-audio stuff, maybe e-mu, maybe you want to go bigger with firewire or usb..

thats the end of life as you know it... welcome to home recording, the endless money bucket..

I AGREE 100%!! It's the bermuda triangle for money!

 

[Halion]

uhh i just have a generic soundcard. I have a xml cable out of my mic and a converter cable to plug it into the 1/4 jack on my amp.

I just went to guitar center to look at preamps, and all of them are the opposite of what i need. the XML was the output and the 1/4 was the input... the guy said people dont even plug their mics into their soundcards?

You are way on the wrong track here dude.

Indeed, nobody plugs mics into soundcards, ever. I hear you thinking "the radio shack ones do", yeah well, they are so consumer oriented, they can't even really be concidered "real" mics. You did the right thing buying the shure though. All you need now is a way to get the signal of the mic pumped up to a signal that your soundcard is made for. This is done using a preamp. Unlike what warlock said, you do not need a mixer at all, since you aren't mixing anything, you only wanna send one signal to your computer.

Any cheapo microphone preamp will do. These always have an XLR input, since nearly all mics connect with XLR plugs. The word "preamp" simply means an amplifier to boost a weak signal to a strong signal. If you see a preamp with 1/4" inputs, that's totally possible, it's just not a mirophone preamp. You can't use a non-microphone preamp with a microphone (that's why pluggin into your guitar amp didn't help at all, since the guitar amp has a guitar preamp in it).

So, to sum it up, you need to do this:
- Toss the XLR to Jack cable, you don't need it.
- Get an XLR to XLR cable to connect your mic to a mic preamp.
- Get a mic preamp.
- Get a cable with the output connection of the mic preamp on one end, and the input connection of your soundcard on the other (depends on the preamp and soundcard).