Quality - Hissing, peaking etc

O

odyssey

New member
Hi there,

I've just got myself CakeWalk Pro Audio 9 for my computer and with my tight budget in mind want to record some music directly into it using it instead of forking out for a 4 track as I've always prefered the layout and ease-of-use of cakewalk. Anyway, my current set up is either
1)
Instrument (bass, guitars, keyboard etc) -> computer

2)
Instrument -> Amp -> Computer

Both result in poor quality recordings with a great yet unrequested vinyl affect kind of hissing sound if you know what i mean :). I plug into the mic socket at the back of my Sound Blaster 16 (soon to be SoundBlaster Live!). Im on a tight budget as i said before so I'm really cannot shell out on lots of new equipment,
What can I do to improve quality????
 
You CAN get OK quality out of a sound blaster, you really have to watch your levels though to make sure you're not overdriving the thing (the same goes with all soundcards, though). Also, be aware of background noise, especially from the cooling fans on on the computer equipment. That little fan goes a long way to screw up your sound if it's getting picked up. One other problem I ran into was that my monitor and electric guitar didn't play nice together. The pickups weren't shielded as well as they should have been, and I got an amazingly terrible hum due to the proximity of the two. Good luck!
 
Hi Odyssey, welcome to this forum.

As an ex AWE 64 Gold owner, the problem you have is that the s/blaster 16 is only a half duplex card, not a full duplex. This means that it cannot record and play at the same time. It fills the recording with white noise. But if you save your work and then re-play it, you may find it sounds fine (some people have found this, others not).

Also, my advice would be not to buy thesoundblaster Live!, go for their new Audigy. A number of limitations with Live! have been addressed with the Audigy card. It is about the same price as Live!, maybe a bit more. But well worth it.

Do this, and you should get some good sound. But watch the background noise levels, its surprising how mic's pick up the smallest detail. And never put a guitar (apart from bass) directly in to your soundcard/computer without some form of external pre-amp (ZOOM or Boss etc). Best practise is guitar guiitar> amp> mic> soundcard. But line out from your amp will be good too.


Also, check out http://prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/F9E1A7CEF48EA8848625693D00826656

Also look at the other articles on Prorec for recording. Its a great site, full of professional info for guys like us.

Best of luck!
 
Thanks for cathcing that about the full duples thing, Paul, it totally bypassed my concsiousness that this might be the issue (I too had an AWE card for awhile...).

About the Live and Audigy cards, they both are packaged as a Platinum model and also in an X-Gamer and MP3+ bundle. The Platinum adds an extra i/o device called a LiveDrive that fits in an unused drive bay and provides connections on the front of the PC in the case of the Live card, or sits external to the computer with the Audigy. This more than doubles the price of the package, but as far as I'm aware the core PCI card is the same thing. So if plugging in to the stereo 1/8" minijack on the back is fine for you and you don't want all that extra stuff, you can get the Audigy for about $75-80 if you look around.
 
AlChuck, sorry, no, you are wrong. The Audigy Card and the Live! are two completely different cards. One uses the EMUK chip and the other the Audigy processor chip. But you are right in saying that they are bundled in similar ways. Get the Front loaded panel for ease of use, or struggle to the back of the computer without it. You pays yer money and takes yer choice!
 
Thanks for that that

Thanks for that info, looking out for a audigy card now hopefully that will resolve many of my problems.

Cheers,
Will
 
Hissing

You might want to think about purchasing a better sound card than even the sound blaster Live. I am using a Darla 24 from echoaudio. I love it. However they have discontnued making the Darla but you can get a mia for around 200 dollars. It really is worth it to put the extra bucks into the sound card.

Mark
 
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