can anyone help with suggestions for getting me out of my p.c. sound recording mayhem

Mick Moss

Mick Moss

antimonger
Apr 12, 2002
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Ive spent £300 on a new pc with 80gig hd, 256 ram, 2,400 processor with the purpose of doing home recording. I wouldve just bought a 4 track tape machine coz thats what Ive worked off for years but instead I was lured by the promise of '24 tracks of audio' and effects add ons.

So I get my p.c., set everything up, install cubase sx and record a track.

Straight away the recording isnt the same as the source - its hissy , quiet and radio-quality i.e. crap

So after a weeks deliberation I decided the problem was my onboard soundcard and went out yesterday and spent a further £30 on a sounblaster live! 5:1 card.

I put it in today, great. Got back on cubase, recorded a track and its stil hissy, quiet and radio quality.


Is there anyone whos stroking their chin reading this who knows what my problem is?
 
do you use something as a pre-amplifier or just plug in the soundcable in the pc?

i use just an old 4-track as a pre-amplifier and that works quite well (plug in as if you are recording on the 4-track and put a cable from the headphones outlet into the pc)
 
how do you connect the instrument into the PC (which line do you use)?, check out the recording frequencies (make sure they are 44100 hz) i tnink that the problem is within the software you're using (try recording using something else, check out the soundcard's mixer options where the signal passes and so on), when you plug in your instrument and recording it live, do you hear that low quality aswell?
 
Im playing through a Behringer mixing desk into the line in on the pc. When I hear the raw signal it is crisp and hiss free, but when I play back the wav it is shit
 
Its as if its incapable of capturing the raw signal in its original form. Ive tried recording using 'windows sound recorder', cubase sx and creative wav and each one is the same.
 
creative soundcards have a rep for hiss etc on certain motherboards, I think its via ones. I have a creative audigy2 which was a nightmare on my old via motherboard, distorted to fuck. if it is a via maybe update the drivers for the chipset or put the card into another pci slot. Also you might need to disable the onboard sound in the bios or summat

mind you the fact it happened to the onboard sound first is a bit worrying, its not something like a mic line in turned up full or summat??
 
i have no explanation for this, try re-installing the sound drivers, record something with the mic line too, if nothing changes maybe you should re-install the OS aswell
maybe as bambi pointed something is wrong with the mainboard, it may need to be replaced...
 
first off, i'd try installing the latest drivers and such for yer soundcard. the soundblaster live is more than a year old, and i guess you only have the stock drivers v1.00 installed. upgrading these to the latest version from creative's website might already help.
 
if it's any sort of hardware issue...
disable onboard sound in the bios.
un-install all of your audio hardware including the new creative card
update your motherboard's chipset drivers ( download the 4 in 1 drivers from here http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=403 )
re-install your creative card. sometimes you have to change the hardware acceleration level on them cards to get them to work differently. also i think maybe in the start menu under creative, you can change the operating frequency of the card
if your running 2k or above there should be no reason to re-install
 
Mick Moss said:
Ive spent £300 on a new pc with 80gig hd, 256 ram, 2,400 processor with the purpose of doing home recording. I wouldve just bought a 4 track tape machine coz thats what Ive worked off for years but instead I was lured by the promise of '24 tracks of audio' and effects add ons.

So I get my p.c., set everything up, install cubase sx and record a track.

Straight away the recording isnt the same as the source - its hissy , quiet and radio-quality i.e. crap

So after a weeks deliberation I decided the problem was my onboard soundcard and went out yesterday and spent a further £30 on a sounblaster live! 5:1 card.

I put it in today, great. Got back on cubase, recorded a track and its stil hissy, quiet and radio quality.


Is there anyone whos stroking their chin reading this who knows what my problem is?
Click to expand...

go out and buy the free ads paper, put it all on there, get the dosh back, buy a mac G4 or G5 if u can afford it, and kiss all your hiss goodbye, those creative labs things are dodgy
 
StevenK said:
im looking for a G4, wont be able to get it until college finishes in 3 weeks, i see a nice dual 450 with 1gb o ram for 650e in the buy and sell ;
Click to expand...

go for it, the dual 450 is the same speed as a 1.8ghz pentium on full trottle, is it just the tower? still good though. hard to re-sell macs at what theyre really worth, due to minority of users and we're all moving up to G5 anyway so there will be plenty more if u miss this one
 
Strangelight said:
PCs can still be good for audio though. Me mate runs ProTools fine on his. The trick is not to cut corners with hardware cos in the long run upgrading will cost more
Click to expand...

aye especially the soundcard, theres so many bastardised pc's out there, where all the components are from different vendors, then they dont get along when dumped together
 
dunc? what was i doing around the back of your G4 tower with a jack the other nite,it sounded ok though didnt it haha, next time i do that just tie me up with the jack lead so i cant improvise trying to break into your machines
 
aye those G5's are lookin very very very sweet and powerful. expensive but worth it. the G5 2ghz beats DUAL P4's at 3ghz or something crazy like that. a lot of people that are selling their macs are asking stupid prices for them. like people selling 800mhz machine with 256mb ram for 1000-1400. you get a new G4 off the apple website thats 1250mhz for the same price with a larger hard disk and better gfx card. people can be so stupid :D
that one i was lookin at was the tower and an A4 wacom tablet and a usb cd writer. cd writers are cheap now only e35 or so..
 
this is the problem with mac users, their answer to everything is to a buy a mac, creative make some nifty sound-cards but they over charge for them and the plus! series aint one of those cards
 
ill buy the tablet of ya stevo if u want??have an A3 its taking up too much space here,
aye G5 is the fastest most powerful on the planet right now, im waiting for the powerbooks to arrive though. yea macs dont keep their value but, they do the same job, its just a tool at the end of the day. anything over 6-8 years is time for a new one, its never an option to upgrade a mac processor, be better off getting a new one, and selling yer old one, though ill keep mine for a while longer. what type of cd writer is it? if its Formic or Lacie then its quality but not cheap
 
lacie ;) but hey, i have to wait 3 weeks to see how much money i have left and by then i have to see whats for sale there, so this probably be gone by then. where my mate works they have a dual G5 that they use for all their video rendering :D
ive got an creative audigy platinum sound card but ive never tried anything with it :)
i know its got a real good snr and you can hear the difference when you turn up the speakers but thats it
 
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