Soundcards...buzz?

[RideTheCrash]

I've been doing recording for the past few months and have upgraded a lot. I mentioned this before somewhere else on here about my receiver buzzing. Well, my mixer runs through the receiver and goes out the headphone jack on (the receiver) into the line in on my soundcard. My soundcard is a cheap SoundBlaster thing, I don't have the money to buy a good one yet.

Anyway, when I plug in the patch cord from the line in into the headphone jack I get some sort of small buzz. Come to think of it, it picks up on recordings as well, in the background. I can't even keep the damn thing plugged in 'cause it drives me nuts, and it's not that loud either. Is it just the cheap sound card or maybe the cord? I had my dad look at it, seeing he's great with audio but he didn't really seem to notice, probably because he's lost some hearing from years of music and all the instruments in the house, with him being so close to where I practice. So advice please!

 

[Major Tom]

Maybe I don't understand your setup, but why don't you use the output from the mixer straight into the soundcard and eliminate the receiver from the signal chain? The less electronic devices involved, the better. Are you using a home stereo receiver as an amp for monitoring? If so use a different output from the mixer, like "monitor out" to feed the receiver, and connect the main out to the soundcard line in. Make sure you have Line In selected as the source, and not Stereo Mix or What U Hear in your Windows recording mixer. What are you recording, elec guitar, keyboard, what? Electric guitar pickups will pickup a buzz from your monitor, single coils are very noisy. Also, the output from the headphone jack might be a little too hot (powerful) for the input of the soundcard. The Soundblaster itself is probably not the culprit. Let us know what you are recording, in other words what is going into the mixer.

 

[RideTheCrash]

I know, don't worry, I didn't want the receiver in their either. Today I ran a cord from the main outs to the line in, but I got a weird sound or something, I'll have to look into it again. But that means I have to buy another frickin' longer cord, geez. It runs through the receiver for the speakers. I came to the conclusion the computer is hooked up the receiver as well so therefore I can playback and record with the speakers, but whatever sound I got and the cord being to short to go from the main outs straight to the line in, turned me off, but I'll look into it again. I don't have any sort of monitor outs as well, just main out and some ctrl R out.

You mis-read what I put, the mixer is *off*, it's not a matter of guitar (I know it buzzes like a bitch), the mixer is off, but as soon as the patch cord goes into the headphone jack of the receiver, no matter even if the the receiver is set for a CD, it still buzzes. It has nothing to do with the mixer.