USB Mixer Question

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Rudajie

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I just bought the Alesis Multimix8 USB FX and so far so good except for one issue. Whenever I record the music sounds muffled. I've searched these forums and the web for a solution and it seems other people have a similar problem. What most people say is it's the sound card, but how can it be the sound card when my mixer is recording directly to the PC via USB cable? Would a sound card still affect what the recording sounds like even though it's through USB? It also sounds slightly muffled with headphones directly plugged into the mixer, but when I raise gain to get distortion that goes away BUT it doesn't go away on the PC. I followed the instructions that came with the mixer, setting recording level to 4 and bit rate to CD Quality. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
 
If you have the Alesis set AS the soundcard, then your computer's soundcard has nothing to do with it. If the sound is not good with the headphones plugged into the Alesis your problem is there. What mic(s) are you using? If condensor, is the phantom power on?
 
Mic as in microphone? I'm not using any, I have the USB run to the PC, the guitar plugs into the board, so do the headphones, I have the phones on my ears and the guitar just plays directly into my PC and ears. Unless I'm missing something? And what does Alesis set AS the soundcard mean?
 
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And what does Alesis set AS the soundcard mean?

Alesis set 'as' your soundcard. W7-Control Panel>Sounds>select Alesis as default if you are monitoring through the Alesis (headphones or monitors).
 
A couple of thoughts.

First, it couldn't be as simple as the EQ knobs on the channel you're plugged into being knocked into a funny setting?

Second, a guitar outputs a high impedance signal; the line inputs of mixers expect a low to medium impedance source. I wouldn't think the difference would be extreme enough to cause the problem you describe but I suppose the combination of your guitar and the mixer could be doing this. Do you have a DI box you can put in circuit to try?

Bob
 
Ah yes I have it set, I can record no problem, it just sounds muffled. I have the EQs all set to normal but it does sound crisper when I turn low and mids down a bit. On the board it has a guitar switch I have on for the channel I'm using, and it has a peak light that says should barely light at the loudest part of the song to determine the gain. I have both of those set correctly, and the lights that determine clipping stay in the yellow, no red! On a side note I plugged in my acoustic electric and that doesn't sound very muffled, there's a bit of a buzz when I play the middle strings but that could do with the mixer settings.
 
If you acoustic doesn't have the same muffled quality that lends credence to the idea that it might be an unfortunate combination of the impedance of the pickups on your electric and the input impedance to your mixer. On most mixers, that guitar/line switch just changes the levels, not the impedance.

If you can borrow a DI from somebody, give that a try and see if it improves things.
 
Finger bounce resulted in double post...and need for ten characters resulted in this verbosity.
 
DI - Direct In box.
Does your electric guitar have active pickups - does it have a battery to power it?
 
your not going to get a good sound plugging your guitar into your mixing board - you need a DI box, an amp or at least a pedal to boost the signal and give the mixer the level and impedance its looking for.
 
The electric has active pick ups, I have only an amp with one input, how would I go about having the electric go through amp to mixer? I also have some sort of metal zone pedal, that will boost it so it sounds more clear? The acoustic electric take a battery for its DI (think thats using that term right :P) so that would explain why it sounds so clear!
 
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